Three months into the moratorium on the U.S. Department of the Interior's moratorium on deep water drilling and it is abundantly clear that the doom and gloom prophesied by opponents of the moratorium have not materialized.
The Louisiana Workforce Commission's (LWC) latest report shows record employment in the state in July, with falling unemployment in every metro market, including the Houma and Lafayette markets — the areas that opponents of the moratorium said would be devastated by the pause in deep water drilling.
The Lafayette Economic Development Authority (LEDA) web site offers users the opportunity to examine drilling rig counts over time. In April of this year, LEDA's site shows that there were 75 more drilling rigs active in Louisiana than there were in the same month last year (April is the most recent month available in the LEDA site).
Even the Associate Executive Director for the LSU Center for Energy Studies (LSU CES), David Dismukes, has had to climb down from his predictions of gloom and doom and admit that the job losses the center predicted have not materialized.
In 1985, then Governor Edwin Edwards was indicted and tried on federal charges that he was selling hospital certificates of need to his allies in exchange for money. A hung jury led to a new trial in 1986 in which Edwards and four co-defendants were acquitted.
Suffice it to say that if the thought would have even entered Edwin Edwards' mind to do what Bobby Jindal is doing in New Orleans now with the still-to-be-built Teaching Hospital in New Orleans, grand juries would have already been impaneled and Judge Frank Polozola would be clawing his way back to the bench in anticipation of the indictments and trial.
What is Jindal doing? He's taking more than $1.2 billion in public money and giving it to a private corporation that will be beyond the control or supervision of the Legislature and the public. The first $800 million or so of the funds were either appropriated by the Legislature or awarded to the state by the federal government through FEMA to replace the former Big Charity Hospital in New Orleans that was flooded in the wake of the federal levee collapse after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The "End Is Near Rally" in Lafayette a week ago was a veritable doom and gloom fest, complete with charts and predictions from economists that the Obama administration's moratorium on deep water drilling means the end of Louisiana, economically speaking.
The moratorium was declared in late May and has been slugged out in the courts since then, but it has been in effect now for two months. The impact of the forced shutdown of 28 deep water drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico should be reverberating through Louisiana's economy by now.
The End should be at our door, kicking and beating to get in.
Well, a funny thing has happened on the road to Armageddon — nothing.
The latest numbers released this week from various sources show that Louisiana's oil and gas industry is doing quite well, thank you, and the overall employment in the state is improving. Hell, even businesses along the coast supposedly headed for extinction are doing pretty well.
Two months into "The End of the World", the drilling rig count in Louisiana this past week is up three from the week before, to 187. That figure can be found here. It is worth noting that the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association was the prime mover behind the "End is Near Rally" in Lafayette. The videos are still on their website and will stay there, I'm quite certain, until after the fall elections, which is what this propaganda campaign is all about.
Then, the Louisiana Workforce Commission (which at the Rally, included gasoline station workers on its list of industries directly affected by the moratorium) on Friday released its latest unemployment claims numbers. Lo and behold, new claims for unemployment in Louisiana fell last week, two months into the moratorium.
Drilling activity up. New unemployment claims down.
If the moratorium is not, in fact, killing Louisiana, what does that say of the claims made by LOGA, Governor Jindal, Scott Angelle, and others at the rally about the dire consequences resulting from this attempt to prevent further destruction of Louisiana's wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico?
The event was orchestrated. The numbers were massaged. The media's attention was grabbed. And people who trusted these people were scared witless.
All in a days work for political operatives seeking to divert attention from the ecological, cultural and economic damage caused by an industry is still trying to hide the true nature of their operations here from the people they've grown accustomed to abusing.
But, the slow train of the truth is catching up to them. The attempt to convince the people of this state that the perpetrators of the crime in the Gulf are somehow the victims is failing. The industry and their front men are being exposed as the charlatans that they are.
(Some light reading to get your weekend off to a great start. Thanks to Mike and all of our Guest Contributors! If you want to contribute, simply sign up for an account and shoot us a quick email. - promoted by Matt)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010, will go down as the high-water mark of in-state efforts to end the Gulf of Mexico deep water drilling moratorium imposed by the Obama administration in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent blowout.
About 11,000 people turned out at the Lafayette Cajundome for the "Rally for Economic Survival." Getting that many people to turnout for anything other than a sporting event in Louisiana takes some doing. But, the 'doing' that got them there reveals that opponents of the moratorium are engaged in blatant and obvious fear mongering, and have frittered away what little credibility they had on the issue with the lies and distortions included in statements made leading up to and during the event.
Make no mistake about it, what happened in Lafayette on Wednesday was an anti-Obama political rally organized by the oil and gas industry and fronted by Governor Bobby Jindal and his hand-picked interim Lieutenant Governor, Scott Angelle. Angelle was among friends, having run the Department of Natural Resources until Jindal elevated him this spring. Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate Sammy Kershaw provided entertainment (not sure if he just sang or if he read from his federal tax liens, too).
Any chance for good cooperation between the federal government and the state of Louisiana in the response to the BP Gulf Gusher died on May 30 when the U.S. Department of the Interior declared a six-month moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the then month-old disaster.
Although the New York Times reported that Governor Bobby Jindal's personal dissatisfaction with the federal response to the disaster had gone public by May 3, the moratorium ratcheted up the pressure in the already tense situation by threatening losses in the industry that had caused the disaster.
The logic of the moratorium was impeccable. Here was an on-going gusher on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico from a well that was owned by one of the major energy companies, BP, and it was out of spewing ever larger quantities of oil into the Gulf. The best minds in the industry were helping BP develop strategies to cap the well, but nothing appeared to be working. And, in fact, nothing has worked yet.
There were published reports of at least one other deep water rig with safety issues. The emergency response plans of the other major operators in the deep water areas open to drilling looked suspiciously like BP's which mentioned the need to protect walruses that might be impacted by a potential spill. Walruses in the Gulf of Mexico, remember?
So, the moratorium looked like the prudent call until the cause of the BP Gulf Gusher could be identified, the well capped, and a new set of safety rules issued based on what was learned from this incident.
But, alarm about the potential impact from the moratorium quickly went up along the coast and from within state government. Tens of thousands of jobs were threatened if the moratorium was allowed to stand. The job loss numbers fluctuated but trended downward in the first weeks after the moratorium was announced.
Jindal assigned his newly minted Lieutenant Governor Scott Angelle the task of heading up the effort to generate public opposition to the moratorium. Angelle formed a coalition and had an online petition created. He traveled across the southern part of the state rallying opposition. He met with federal officials, parroting dire predictions of the impact of the moratorium. He followed Jindal's lead and bashed the President.
"Mr. President, I get the fact that you don't like big oil and gas," said Jindal's recently appointed interim lieutenant governor, Scott Angelle. "But this is not about the stockholders of BP and Shell and Exxon and Chevron. This is about the Cheramises and the Callaises and the Boudreauxs and the Thibodeauxs!"
When the deep water Horizon well first began spurring thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf, sympathy from around the nation poured into Louisiana. The country and the world watched in horror as the Bayou State once again wrestled with the elements of nature and the manmade disaster that followed. "First Katrina, now the oil. How many hits can the state take?" was a common expression of concern. But as more states become directly affected by the polluted waters, and the Louisiana political and business leadership continues to call for more drilling, national sympathies are beginning to wane. Is Louisiana pushing the envelope, and trying to have it both ways?
With a few exceptions, Louisianans are in lock step, demanding that the BP well be capped, that a monumental cleanup effort be undertaken and paid for by BP and the Feds, and that deep drilling in the Gulf be allowed to continue. It's hard for many onlookers throughout the rest of the country to comprehend why a state undulated in an oil spill hat could well destroy marshlands and the fishing industry for decades, still is demanding the right to continue drilling.
Even as the ecological damage to the Louisiana marsh increases daily, a number of recent polls reflect that some 75% of Bayou State residents favor continuing deepwater offshore drilling. `But across the nation, support for such drilling is dropping as sharply as BP's stock. The most recent Pew research center nationwide poll showed that a majority of Americans surveyed (52 per cent) oppose increased offshore drilling.
Florida residents, who just two months ago strongly favored drilling in the Gulf (66 % favorable-27% unfavorable), now oppose such drilling by 51-42 percent. And Florida governor Charlie Crist said this week he may call for a special legislative session to put a drilling ban on the November ballot. A Florida candidate for Attorney general reflected the feelings of a cross section of Florida residents, saying: "I believe there are millions of Floridians who, as they watch in the horror unfolding...want the state government to say, 'Stop it, we don't want it here, we don't want it anymore.'"
The spill, and whether or not to drill, has become election year fodder far beyond the Gulf. Candidates in a number of states are waging emotional campaigns in what looks like a frantic effort to turn the oil spill into referendums of who is a fault, and whether or not to continue production efforts in the Gulf.
In several of Michigan's congressional races set for this fall, republican and democratic candidates alike are campaigning for a permanent state ban on drilling in the Great Lakes. Canada alone has drilled 513 natural gas wells in Lake Erie. In the Pennsylvania Senate race, Democrat Joe Sestak is accusing his Republican opponent, Pat Toomey, of putting "Big oil ahead of the American people" by not supporting the moratorium while accepting $96,000 from the oil and gas industry. The rallies against Big Oil and for a moratorium, with some TV ads using sound effects from horror-movies, set the campaign tone in a host of other states including Missouri, California, Illinois and even Kentucky.
New Orleans federal Judge Martin Feldman sure didn't do Louisiana any favors in his ruling last week rejecting the federal government's imposition of six-month moratorium. It wasn't the ruling that heaped more criticism on deep water drilling in the Gulf as much as the perception that the judge was financially involved in the oil companies that his ruling helped.
Feldman, according to numerous press reports, filed disclosure reports, required by all federal judges, showing that he held investments in a wide range of oil related companies doing extensive business in the Gulf. In fact, on the same day that his ruling was issued overturning the drilling moratorium, Feldman sold his stock in Exxon Mobil Corporation.
According to federal law, federal judges are required to step aside from cases that present financial conflicts or cases in which the judge's impartially might be questioned.
His "impartially" is being "questioned" in editorials and other news commentary nationwide. Feldman is also receiving criticism from conservatives who are not as concerned over the moratorium as much as Feldman's "judicial activism," a no no to those on the right. Still others feel that Feldman reached the right result, but with questionable and even sloppy reasoning in his written opinion, that may give leeway for the federal government in its coming appeal.
Another New Orleans judge, with no ties or financial investments in the oil industry would probably have reached the same result and overturned the moratorium. A judge with no conflicts and who might issue a much better researched and reasoned opinion, would be less open to attack when the appeal reaches the Fifth Circuit Court Appeals next week in New Orleans. The perception of many across the country is that it's just one more example of judicial impropriety, and typical of "the Louisiana Way."
Louisiana is also taking its share of national hits for not doing more to anticipate and protect its marshes. The New York Time wrote a front page article this week concluding that the state's response plan was inadequate largely because the state failed to fully develop a plan. Included in the lack of an adequate response were:
The state's oil spill coordinator's office has had its budget slashed by 50% over the last decade.
Last year, the legislature cut funding from the state's oil spill research program.
The state's oil spill contingency plan included "pages of blank pages and charts that are supposed to detail available supplies of equipment like oil-skimming vessels." A plan for a worst-case scenario was labeled "to be developed."
Louisiana officials attacked the federal response plan, after having approved and signed off on the same Coast guard response plan just a few weeks before.
CBS News also raised questions about why Louisiana was not putting to use help that had been authorized by the President. Six thousand National Guard troops had been approved and funded by the Feds, but the troops needed to be called up by the Louisiana Governor. After weeks, only 1600 guardsmen had been activated by Louisiana officials.
Maybe political analyst James Carville is correct in suggesting that that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who headed up the war effort in Afghanistan until being fired last week by the President, be hired to take command of the entire Gulf oil spill response. I'm a big McChrystal supporter, and would endorse such an idea. McChrystal has a reputation for "kicking some butt." Perhaps his boot could include some Louisiana officials as well as the whole federal response team.
*****
"A little less conversation, a little more action please. All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me. A little more bite and a little less bark."
Elvis Presley
Peace and Justice
Jim Brown
Jim Brown's syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers and websites throughout the South. You can read all is past columns and see continuing updates at www.jimbrownla.com. You can also hear Jim's nationally syndicated radio show each Sunday morning from 9 am till 11:00 am central time on the Genesis Radio Network, with a live stream at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.
Bobby Jindal says he's not running for president. That's probably because he's too busy acting like a king.
It's been a heady couple of weeks for the Governor of a state mired in a deep fiscal crisis largely of his own making and confronting an epic ecological and economic catastrophe that he had a hand in creating.
Jindal swept into Baton Rouge on the Friday before the final day of the legislative session to declare his support for the Senate version of the budget and House conservatives rolled over and gave him what he wanted. He ignored large majorities in both houses and strong public support for transparency in his office by vetoing a bill (HB 37) that would have made all state records relating to the BP Gulf Gusher available under the state's open records act.
Jindal acted with impunity towards the Legislature and the public with his veto of HB 37. In his veto letter (bottom of the page) to Clerk of the House, Alfred Speer, Jindal added insult to injury by giving a completely bogus explanation of his action:
The Deepwater Horizon incident is a man-made event with responsible parties that will create long-term challenges for the State of Louisiana. This bill would allow BP and other parties with potential liability to the state to obtain information retained by any state agency responding to this tragic event. Such access could impair the state’s legal position both in responding to the disaster that is unfolding and in seeking remedies for economic injury and natural resource damage.
Bobby Jindal will say anything to get what he wants. He wrecklessly ignores science on his berms project but calls for the Obama administration to listen to some scientists when it comes to the deep water drilling moratorium. You can read it all here.
Governor Bobby Jindal in his seeming attempt to give the Administration a gut punch started several weeks ago to call for “Sand Berms” to be added to our coastal area to prevent Oil from encroaching on the marshlands.Sounds good right, since the Booms are clearly not working and BP is not maintaining them – Stop the oil at all costs.The Administration took a while and then reluctantly approved them.Well now it is becoming clear as to why…No credible scientist with coastal and marshland experience can say this is a good idea… some in fact are saying it is a terrible idea.
Plans to build sand berms on islands along the Louisiana coast are another concern. Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, believes the berms can keep oil from reaching the marshes, but not everyone is convinced. The $350-million project "was conceived without any serious consultation with the scientific community", says John Day, of Louisiana State University. "It almost certainly won't work."
Turns out additional information and a great interview last night on TRMS shows this could be an even bigger problem for us.
Such a well educated man as our Governor yet he isn’t paying any attention to any of his own professors here in Louisiana who know these topics.It seems to me that this must have been recommended to the Governor and the Governor never even considered CALLING experts to find out if it was a good idea or not, he just decided to plow, or dredge as the case may be, ahead with this and ultimately this could make it worse.
These sand berms could cause oil to be trapped inside the marshlands; it could dramatically affect the tides and replenishment of the estuaries, or worse.
Baton Rouge (FNS)-Facing both a massive oil slick from a sunken offshore drilling platform and a second year of declining tourism revenues along the Louisiana Gulf Coast caused by high gas prices, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today introduced a new tourism promotion that he reports is going to "...make lemons into lemonade".
Jindal, flanked by British Petroleum's Director of Marketing Dick Timoneous and the Executive Director of the Louisiana State Tourism Board, Jenna Talia, announced that the "All The Oil You Can Carry Festival" would officially commence today just east of New Orleans, and last at least through the month of May.
Just moments ago, Governor PBJ issued a hastily hand-written press release after reading about the Federal government's plans to cut the wasteful Senate program in the name of fiscal responsibility.
Here's his statement:
My Fellow Louisianians:
It has recently come to my attention that President Obama is seeking to one-up me in cutting waste from government by cutting the U.S. Senate out of the federal government, saving all Americans some $300 billion a year. While I applaud such a move, as it will bring our Sinning Senator Vitter and our whoring for Louisiana Senator Landrieu home, I am now announcing a new constitutional amendment that I'd like for the State Legislature to consider:
Abolish the Governor's office after I win the 2012 Presidential Election.
I mean, let's face it ... I'm in the midst of privatizing the Louisiana government to the point that we will not need the Charity Hospital system any longer, nor a Lt. Governor, whose Tourism responsibilities can be better done by, you know, real marketing professionals. Both of these privatizing moves will enable the State of Louisiana to get out of the hospital business, as well as the tourism business.
But I have come to the realization that since most of the governmental functions are going to be privatized under my leadership, it makes sense to simply abolish the Governor's office once I leave Louisiana for the White House. After all, I spend quite a bit of my time out-of-state raising my name ID amongst the conservative faithful and scrounging up cash for my "re-election" bid next year. It's not like anything major happens while I'm gone, so why should that change once I'm elected to be your President?
Since I didn't blog last week ... I wanted to give y'all a round-up of what happened that I found noteworthy in little blurbs:
The Sinning Senator once again has trouble telling the truth to the people of Louisiana, this time with respect to the safety standards on children's toys.
Senator Mary Landrieu appeared on MSNBC with Howard Dean, and morphed into a defender of the Senate's Health Care Bill:
Governor PBJ has been busy inviting supporters to join him for a duck hunt out in Cameron Parish during the first weekend of 2010. No news on whether former Vice President Dick "Buckshot" Cheney is scheduled to attend.
Ahhhh, dem Saints. To be honest, I'm fine with dem losing a game ... because a perfect season would lagniappe to what I really want to see - da Saints in Super Bowl XLIV!
Well, well, well ... it was only a matter of time before Governor PBJ came into contact with some shady characters on the fundraising trail, since he spends oh, so much time traveling outta the Gret Stet, as you can see to the right.
If y'all click on the picture (or here), you'll see the yeoman's work that conservative blogger CB at The Old River Road has been doing with respect to tracking Governor PBJ's multiple out of state jaunts to keep his national profile up for a '12 or '16 bid for the White House, while ostensibly raising campaign cash for his re-election campaign in '11.
Some background from that TPM Muckraker report linked to above:
One of the co-chairs of the October 2008 reception was none other than Scott Rothstein, then a prominent Fort Lauderdale attorney, now accused of a fraud worth $1 billion.
He contributed the maximum $5,000 to Jindal, and his firm, Rothstein, Rosenfeldt, and Adler ponied up another $5,000, according to Louisiana campaign finance records. Jindal, a potential GOP presidential hopeful, is the latest addition to a lengthy list of pols who hit up Rothstein for money.
Doesn't sound like much, does it? Of course, Governor PBJ never had his picture taken with the man, let alone meet him ... right? Wrong:
GOP operative Roger Stone, a former business associate of Rothstein's, tells TPMmuckraker he remembers Rothstein huddling with Jindal at the Republican Governors Association conference in Miami, held the month after the football game.
In the past few days alone, Rothstein had a nice chat with his friend John McCain ("He asked how all our local races went; that's the kind of guy he is"); did some business in New York; held a fundraiser in Miami for rising Republican star Bobby Jindal (the Louisiana governor who might run for president in 2012); spent a day screening judicial applicants for Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal; eulogized one of his best friends, who was killed in a motorcycle wreck; and searched for a liver for a friend who needs a transplant.
So, how 'bout it, Governor PBJ? You gonna return the money donated by Mr. Rothstein and his firm, as quite a few Florida politicians are doing?
UPDATE: The Governor's press flack, Kyle Plotkin, formerly of The Wanna Be's Senate campaign, and also the "liberal" former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, told TPM that the Governor will be giving the $10,000 he received from Mr. Rothstein and his company to the victim's compensation fund once one is created.
(Pretty good analysis of the opt-out version of the Public Option. Whether the progressives in the House allow the opt-out to pass is an open question. - promoted by ryan)
It's not often that Harry Reid and Alan Levine team up on anything, but they did today in laying out the path to Democratic success in Louisiana in the 2011 statewide elections.
That path will be healthcare. Specifically, it will be Governor Bobby Jindal's ideological rigidity on taxes in the face of what will be draconian (criminal?) cuts in healthcare in the state budget over the next two years. With healthcare and higher education still the only funding streams not constitutionally protected and the state facing a billion dollar revenue shortfall, Jindal will force the Legislature to make heavy cuts in both programs.
Last week, the Baton Rouge Advocate carried a story saying the higher education cuts will amount to 60 percent over the next two years. No mention of healthcare, but that's where the bulk of the cuts will be and for two reasons. First, that's where the money is (Medicaid is a $6 billion program). Secondly, no one in the Legislature is lobbying to protect the interests of the poor, the handicapped and those with special needs — the victims of these coming cuts. Oh, the hospitals, nursing homes and doctors will object, but you won't see anything resembling the "Intervention at the Mansion" earlier this year where all of the non-imprisoned former governors got together to tell the Boy Governor that he just could not cut $200 million-plus from higher education.
No notables stood up for Medicaid clients then. And none will do it in the coming session.
They are, in the current world of Louisiana politics, "expendable."
By now, y'all have heard about the Tangipahoa Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell's refusal to marry an interracial couple. Here's what Governor Jindal had to say:
"This is a clear violation of constitutional rights and federal and state law. ... Disciplinary action should be taken immediately -- including the revoking of his license."
So Gov. PBJ wants him gone. Here's what Senator Mary Landrieu had to say, via a press release from her office:
"I am deeply disturbed by Justice Bardwell's practices and comments concerning interracial marriages. Not only does his decision directly contradict Supreme Court rulings, it is an example of the ugly bigotry that divided our country for too long. I call upon the Louisiana Judiciary Committee to use its authority to have Justice Bardwell dismissed from his position. He clearly has no intention of administering the law or upholding justice for interracial couples."
And, here, ladies and gentlemen of Louisiana, is what your Sinning Senator, the one up for re-election next fall had to say when questioned by Mike Stark, the blogger behind The Crooked Dope:
You don't think that's the case, Sinning Senator? What, that you're the senior most official from the State of Louisiana NOT TO COMMENT on this? If so, please see the quotes from Governor Jindal and Senator Landrieu above. Or perhaps you're not aware that Mr. Bardwell refused to marry an interracial couple? If so, please click here!
Then again, your silence ain't all that surprising to those who know you best ...
Politico has this tidbit about Governor PBJ's public distancing from the Sinning Senator:
And in a sign that he is keeping a close eye on his own political standing, both in Baton Rouge and beyond, the governor pointedly declined to offer his endorsement of Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who could face a serious reelection battle next year in the wake of his appearance on a Washington madam's client list and his subsequent admission of an undefined "very serious sin."
"We'll make a decision whether we'll get involved in that race once we get closer. We haven't made that decision yet," said Jindal, who has been cautious in the past about his endorsements. While allowing that Vitter was doing well in polls and fundraising, Jindal noted it's still "very early in that election cycle" and that many average voters aren't yet paying attention.
Cautious in his endorsements? Are ya kidding? Let's take a look at PBJ's greatest endorsement hits over the last year:
Geez ... it's becoming quite apparent that Governor PBJ is increasingly desperate not to give President Obama ANYTHING to crow about when he campaigns for re-election in 2012 ... at least with respect to Louisiana.
Then we learned that the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development would not be putting up the ubiquitous yellow signs along highway construction informing us of the funding source, supposedly to save money. But as Walter Pierce of The Ind informs us:
When asked why DOTD used similar signage for highway projects funded through state surplus money, the spokesman replied, "But we put up really cheap signs."
Uhhhhh-huh. Or perhaps the Jindal Administration is making sure that the federal gummint, and by extension, President Obama, gets no credit for anything positive in the Gret Stet.
Further evidence of this goal of the PBJ Administration is the fact that the Governor just went on a barn-stormin', 64 parish tour of the Gret Stet, handing out gigundous checks signed by him for stimulating programs, funded, in part by the "nearly trillion dollar stimulus that has not stimulated."
Any chance for good cooperation between the federal government and the state of Louisiana in the response to the BP Gulf Gusher died on May 30 when the U.S. Department of the Interior declared 
