The Offshore Marine Service Association (OMSA), put together the following video to explain how the de facto moratorium against offshore drilling is killing the American economy and driving up oil and gas prices. OMSA represents the companies that provide supplies and services to the oil rigs in the Gulf. They are really hurting, as they watch drill equipment leave the Gulf instead of waiting out the drilling moratorium.
Here is OMSA’s Open Letter to Barack Obama:
February 17, 2011
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
On behalf of the tens of thousands of offshore marine service employees and their families, we are writing to protest your war on domestic energy exploration and development and its devastating impact on Americans. Lift your de facto moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Let Americans get back to work. We’ve suffered enough.
Your response to the Gulf oil spill has been unreasonable, unwarranted, unfair, and unlawful. Other industries have collaborated with government to tighten safety measures and implement improvements following tragic accidents, but you simply shut down every deepwater drilling operator in the Gulf of Mexico. When a federal judge pronounced your moratorium was unjustified-and later found you in contempt of the injunction-you simply ignored the court’s ruling as if you were above the law.
For nearly a year, you have defied a court order prohibiting you from interfering in the lawful production of energy off the Gulf Coast. You are not issuing deepwater drilling permits and you have been indecisive on the remedies that would satisfy you. For nearly a year, you’ve maintained your de facto moratorium, which is shutting down new energy production in the Gulf.
For well over a year now, you’ve told Americans quite the opposite-that your policies will create jobs, lower energy costs and make us less dependent on foreign oil. You’ve told Americans that you’ve lifted the moratorium, when the facts show otherwise. Americans know a moratorium when they see one. Isn’t it time you started telling the truth?
While your disregard for the rule of law may placate environmental activists and the government-subsidized corporations clambering for alternative energy giveaways, the vast majority of Americans will only suffer the burden of your policies. Most Americans can’t afford to pay $4 for a gallon of gasoline or see their home heating bills skyrocket. They need jobs-they don’t want to be more beholden to those unstable and hostile regimes that your actions are ensuring will supply America’s energy.
Before your moratorium, more than 50,000 oil wells were drilled safely in the Gulf of Mexico. The fact that we earn an honest living serving those operations should in no way suggest that we aren’t concerned with the safety of our colleagues or the health of the Gulf. After all, thousands of us live here-we fish here, we shrimp here, and our children swim here. No one wants to pollute our beaches, put Americans out of work, or spend billions of dollars to clean up a spill. It’s in everyone’s best interests to drill safely.
Mr. President, your deliberate actions to strangle domestic energy production are putting people out of work, raising the price of fuel and weakening our national security. Your political agenda does not supersede American law.
Again, we remind you that Americans have suffered enough. Lift your de facto moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf and let Americans get back to work.
American Energy Initiative hearings continued in the House today as lawmakers examined the Obama Administration’s de facto energy moratorium and its impact on rising gas prices (they’re going up) and American jobs (there are fewer of them, and losses “continue to mount”).
The two hearings – hosted by the Energy & Power Subcommittee and Natural Resources Committee – were neatly summed up by James Adams of the Offshore Marine Service Association (OMSA) who said, “President Obama’s moratorium needs to end because it is killing jobs, raising the price of energy and making our country vulnerable to unpredictable international political forces.”
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obama wants Brazil to drill OUR oil, right out of the Gulf of Mexico. Interior department has approved Petrobas to drill in our Gulf of Mexico.
The U.S. Interior Department said today it has given Petrobras final approval to operate the Gulf of Mexico’s first floating production, storage and offloading vessel, or FPSO, clearing the way for the Brazilian oil giant to start pumping oil from two deep-water fields.
In a statement, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said it had taken a “final regulatory step” in green lighting the project, with the approval of both a production safety system permit and a supplemental deep-water operating plan.
The fields are located about 165 miles offshore Louisiana and in more than 8,000 feet of water in an area of the Gulf known as Walker Ridge.
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Wild Thing’s comment…….
Obama promised that the USA would underwrite a $2 Billion loan to Brazil’s government owned Petrobras for a massive underwater drilling project.
in Brazil giving a speech to a group of Brazilian businessmen at a CEO Summit, he said “We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”
DAMN obama!
If our politicians and evironmentalists would just let the energy companies do their exploring, recovery and selling, America would be energy independent in just a few years. The obama administration is purely anti oil. They want all of our energy to be absolutely controlled by Washington. Higher prices and shortages are one way for the politicians to control us.
I believe this is what obama wants. the U.S. dependent on foreign oil. we only have a little way to go yet, he almost has us there but not quite. 104 dollars per barrel today.
WTF, aid Brazil in drilling in the Gulf and also Chile in developing nuclear energy while he roadblocks every effort in the U. S. excepting his green energy schemes.
WOW that video is great! How about a two shot against Obama if there are any great lawyers to demand the birth certificute I would run just to have standing in courts.
The worse part is that we do not have tofind the oil. We know where the oil is incresingly..all over. Off the California coast produced 600,000 barrels a day when they shut it down in 1969 with projections to two million a day. Palin’s Alaska can produce another miliion per day from existing known and the Gilf has production wells ready now, Replacing Lybia is a spring project.
Thank you everyone so much.
Avitar, I thought so too, they should show that to those that voted for obama and let them see the damage he does with this industry.