“Scientific misconduct” within key federal agencies has given rise to regulatory policies that burden an already beleaguered economy and erode the public trust, Sen. David Vitter warns in a letter addressed to the White House.

At issue is a report from the U.S. Department of Interior’s (DOI) Office of Inspector General (OIG) that describes how the agency manipulated and altered a 30-day report from the National Academy of Engineers. Sen. Vitter and several House colleagues, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), called for the OIG investigation in response to allegations that officials with Interior had deliberately misrepresented scientific opinion on the merits of the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’ve seen facts manipulated and science ignored across the administration while they’ve developed policies with huge negative effects on the economy,” Vitter said. “We want the public to be aware of the administration’s misconduct, but we also want agencies to be transparent and explain their methods.”

The letter from Vitter, co-authored by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.), is addressed to John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor.

“The IG investigation showed that not only had Interior violated the Information Quality Act (IQA), but there was direct involvement by the White House, specifically Carol Browner, to manipulate the summary documentation in violation of peer-review protocol,” the letter says. “…The investigation revealed blatant political influence, on what should have been an independent scientific assessment, to inaccurately represent the views of a particular team of scientists.”

In response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010, Interior declared a moratorium on deepwater drilling, which it extended for six months that following May 27 in tandem with the 30 day report. An engineer who was asked to participate in the peer review process of the report’s recommendations sent a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sen. Vitter and Sen. Mary Landrieu (R-La.) making it clear that he and his colleagues did not officially endorse the moratorium. The letter was co-signed by other engineers and reads in part as follows:

“A group of those named in the Secretary of Interior’s Report, “INCREASED SAFETY MEASURES FOR ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ON THE OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF” dated May 27, 2010 are concerned that our names are connected with the [deepwater drilling] moratorium as proposed in the executive summary of the report. There is an implication that we have somehow agreed to or “peer reviewed” the main recommendation of that report. This is not the case.” (emphasis is included in the original letter)

Luke Bolar, a spokesman for Vitter, identified White House Climate Change Advisor Carol Browner as a key figure responsible for manipulating and distorting the scientific language.

“Carol Browner is one of the leading voices of junk science,” he said. “She was the one who changed the summary language just hours before the 30 day review was received and added a sentence to make it appear as the engineers endorsed the moratorium when they hadn’t. That’s why we needed the IG investigation.”

Early in his term, Obama issued a “Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity” that emphasized the importance of sound science in shaping and directing public policy, Vitter, Inhofe and Issa point out in their letter to the White House.

“Public trust in federal scientific work is waning and the academic community has gone so far as to call the situation a crisis,” the letter says. “Accordingly, we request that you provide us with an accounting of your activities in response to serious questions raised about the quality of science utilized by this Administration.”

The letter concludes with a series of questions put to Holdren.

1.      When this IG report became public, who did you contact at Interior to discuss scientific integrity and allegations that Interior violated peer reviewed protocol?

2.      Did you speak directly with Secretary Salazar or anyone else identified in the IG report?

3.      What was the content of your conversations with the President and Carol Browner, as well as any other White House officials?

4.      What firewalls did you put in place at the White House to prevent future political influence from interfering with an independent scientific report?

5.      What actions were taken at both Interior and the White House, or otherwise government-wide, as a direct result of your efforts following the IG’s findings?

6.      What are your suggestions for strengthening the Information Quality Act in light of this incident specifically?

7.      What are your suggestions for strengthening the Information Quality Act in light of this incident?

Kevin Mooney is the Capitol Bureau Reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be reached at kmooney@pelicaninstitute.org and followed on Twitter.

         

NEW ORLEANS, La. - Earlier this week, the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) awarded BP its first deepwater drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon accident. The long-awaited permit gives BP the green light to begin drilling a 6,034-foot exploratory well off the coast of Louisiana in BP’s prolific Kaskida Field.

Earlier this month, the Interior Department restructured the federal regulatory agency responsible for oversight of the development of U.S. ocean energy resources. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) was replaced with three new agencies: the BSEE, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR).

BSEE Director Michael Bromwich offered positive comments on the issuance of the permit by stating, “BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year. In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency’s regulatory requirements.” Bromwich also noted that the permit approval occurred after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews.

The permit serves as an encouraging step forward in BP’s return to the Gulf. However, some politicians in Washington have expressed anger over the government’s decision. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass), ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, voiced his opinion by claiming that BP didn’t deserve the permit because it has not paid enough in fines and claims.

A permit to drill should be awarded if a company can successfully meet the new safety requirements established by BSEE. BP has gone above the required safety standards through utilizing new backup emergency equipment and adding an additional set of shear rams to future blowout preventers. In the case of BP’s permit, federal regulators vetted the application to drill the Kaskida exploratory well for over ten months. On top of this, BP has also spent a significant amount of money in response to the oil spill.

Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of BP’s restitution fund, reported that BP paid approximately $5.5 billion to more than 213,000 victims and over $7 billion in other spill-related costs. A portion of those dollars were spent reimbursing more than $700 million for federal and state government costs, as required by the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. Individual and business cleanup expense claims continue to be paid through the $20 billion trust fund established by BP.

BP’s return to work is extremely important given its status as the largest producer in the Gulf. Even with its return, the overall status of Gulf permitting is still significantly below normal levels.

GNO Inc.’s report dated October 11, 2011, found that deepwater permit issuance lags behind the monthly average held in the year prior to the oil spill. The report claims that 3.7 deepwater permits are being issued per month since August 2011. That means that deepwater permit issuance is 47% below the monthly average of 7.0 permits per month over the past three years.

Shallow-water permit issuance is also below historical averages. Since August 2011, 4.7 shallow-water permits, on average, were issued from the federal government. That number represents a 68% reduction from the historical average of 14.7 permits per month over the past three years.

Don Briggs is president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.

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Up to 20 oil rigs could leave the Gulf of Mexico, in addition to the 11 that have already left, since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010, a new report from FBR Capital Markets has concluded.

Unless the permitting process is accelerated, FBR analysts anticipate that anywhere from eight to 20 rigs could depart the deep waters within the Gulf. The moratorium was imposed in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s (BP) Macondo oil well on April 20 of last year. The accident resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused an estimated five million barrels of crude oil to spill into the Gulf.

Although federal officials announced they were lifting the restrictions last October, a “de-facto moratorium” remains in effect that stifles energy production and undermines large and small businesses in the Gulf region, industry officials have argued.

“I don’t think the people in Washington D.C. who implement these policies have an understanding of how much this has impacted our economy, especially in Louisiana,” Renee Baker, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), has observed. “We can’t just look at the large businesses to understand what’s happening, there are small businesses that do a lot of services for the rigs and they have been set back.”

Although the Department of Interior (DOI) has been issuing permits with “relatively few political barriers,” according to the report, there are “limited bureaucratic resources” available to meet existing demands.

But Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), does see a political agenda at work.

“What you are seeing in Louisiana is only a small piece of larger mosaic being put together by the Obama Administration to make affordable energy as inaccessible as possible,” he said. “From the administration’s war on coal to the serious consideration it is giving to imposing a nationwide regulation of hydraulic fracturing, to its shut down of deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, to its ‘endangerment finding’ from the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], the administration is practicing its own form of selected industrial sabotage.”
The backlog of permits that have been approved, but not activated, must reach a level of 60 as opposed to the 30 that were counted at the end of August to support the active rig count, which now stands at 20, the report says. The current pace permitting pace is down dramatically from where it has been in recent years. Historically, there have been three times the number of permits in backlog than there have been deepwater rigs operating in the Gulf, FBR analysts point out.

“Between 2006 and 2010, there were typically three times the number of permits in backlog than there were deepwater rigs working in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico),” the report says. “…Using the August 2011 pace of eight unique well APDs (A Permit to Drill) per month, the best-case scenario would be a rig count of just 14 rigs, less than the 28 marketed rigs in the Gulf. However this assumes sustainable just in-time permitting which, in our opinion, is unlikely. Based on the historical 3X ratio between APD backlog and rig count, a pace of 27 permits per month would be needed to support 28 rigs by the end of the year.”

FBR has also identified “structural headwinds” that include “hiring and funding constraints, potential safety and permitting legislation, pending drilling safety regulation revisions and ongoing environmental litigation,” that will specifically impact the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)’s ability to improve upon the current pace of permitting.

In a letter addressed to DOI Secretary Ken Salazar and BOERME Director Michael Bromwich, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) expressed his “ongoing concern with the pace of permitting for offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The latest figures available show there were 19 floating units operating in the Gulf, which up from a low of four in third quarter of 2010, but down from the average of 28 in the period ranging from 2007-2009, Vitter told federal officials in his letter.

“A rough estimate would suggest that each rig consumes 3 permits per year in order to stay actively working in the Gulf (28 rigs divided by 84 permits equals 3 permits/rig), Vitter wrote.  “Given that a typical deepwater well takes approximately 120 days to drill, one can also assume that the roughly estimated numbers are fairly accurate.  Accordingly, at Interior’s 2011 pace of permitting what is the anticipated attrition rate of rigs from the GOM?  Over the next two years, what are the anticipated production and employment impacts from the current pace of permitting? ”

Vitter also inquired the number of times permit requests have been filed. Some operators claim they have filed an average of 3.6 times, with multiple permits surpassing eight times.

The letter then asks federal officials to address the economic fallout attached to diminished rig activity.

“For each rig not operating in the Gulf of Mexico, what is the multiplier effect on the Gulf economy?”
Vitter asks.  “How are small businesses, including but not limited to helicopter firms, restaurants, welders, carpenters, marinas, and hotels impacted by the loss of each rig?  How is our economy impacted if in 2012 there are 1/3 the drilling rigs working in the Gulf than there were in 2009?”

The letter concludes by asking how much money the federal government has awarded to various environmental groups, which have filed suit over a new drilling plan. It reads as follows:

“On June 9, 2011 the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, Inc., Gulf Restoration Network, Inc, and Florida Wildlife Federation filed suit challenging BOEMRE’s approval of Shell’s drilling plan.  Can you please provide the total amount in attorneys’ fees that Interior Department has awarded these environmental groups under the Equal Access to Justice Act and Judgment Fund for fiscal years 2008 through 2011?

The oil rigs that have departed the Gulf include the Stena Forth, Ocean Confidence, Ocean Endeavor, Transocean Marinas, Ensco 8503, Ensco DS-4, Noble Clyde Boudreaux, Discoverer Spirit, Transocean Amirante, Noble Paul Romano and Ocean Monarch.

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be reached at kmooney@pelicaninstitute.org and followed on Twitter.

Over a year has passed since the blowout of the Macando well and oil spill that followed in the Gulf of Mexico. As we look back on that tragic event, we first and foremost remember the lives of those eleven men who were lost. Another memory is of course the federal government’s decision to shut down all offshore oil & gas operations in the Gulf region.

The imposition of the deepwater drilling moratorium has done little to increase offshore operational safety procedures, and it has done more to cripple the U.S. oil & gas industry and jeopardize our national security. Now that we are approaching almost a year since the drilling ban was ordered, we should ask ourselves some very important questions. What was the purpose of the moratorium and was it necessary?

Throughout its long history, Louisiana’s offshore industry has maintained an impeccable drilling safety record. Thousands of wells have been drilled in all depths of the Gulf of Mexico without the occurrence of a Macando-like incident. Instead of arbitrarily shutting down all business in the Gulf, could the government have allowed those who were operating safely to continue to do so while it worked towards new safety rules and regulations? Would we not be exactly where we are today without the negative repercussions of the moratorium?

First, as a result of the drilling ban, we are losing approximately 500,000 barrels of oil production per day. Secondly, the U.S. has seen the exodus of ten rigs to other parts of the globe. According to documentation compiled by Senator David Vitter’s office, ten rigs that were scheduled to drill in the Gulf have relocated to Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, and Liberia. Along with each rig went over 500 direct and indirect American jobs.

According to its recent July 12th Gulf Permit Index, Greater New Orleans Inc. reports that over the past several months, deepwater drilling permits are down 71 percent from their historical monthly average of 5.8 permits per month. Shallow-water permits have plummeted by 34 percent from the historical monthly average of 7.1 permits.

Earlier this week, IHS-CERA released a report claiming that faster permitting of offshore oil & gas projects in the Gulf could create almost 230,000 new jobs in 2012 alone. The study estimated that the increase in permitting could result in $44 billion injected into the national economy, including a significant increase in federal and state tax revenues.

In a recent op-ed, Senator David Vitter noted, “Restoring these energy jobs and creating capital is not a complex budgetary equation; it’s simple economics. We have abundant resources, and allowing access to them will create jobs and generate revenue.”

So was the drilling moratorium necessary?  No it was not.

The fact is the oil and gas industry would have developed the proper responses and containment systems and would have worked closely with BOEMRE to develop the regulations that are currently in place today. It was industry’s ingenuity and expertise that designed the containment systems and provided the guidelines to prevent a similar catastrophe, not the government. It’s safe to assume that without the moratorium there could potentially be over sixty rigs operating in the Gulf, instead of the thirty-four currently in operation today.

Don Briggs is president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.

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Ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010, according to documentation obtained from Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La.) office.

The ten rigs named in the document are: Marinas, Discover Americas, Ocean Endeavor, Ocean Confidence, Stena Forth, Clyde Bourdeaux, Ensco 8503, Deep Ocean Clarion, Discover Spirit, and Amirante. The rigs have left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil.

“This highlights the problem we have with losing domestic energy production as a result of the drilling moratorium and the slow permitting,” David Kreutzer, a research fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at the Heritage Foundation, said. “We must also keep in mind that the impacts are not instantaneous, the rigs may be idle for a while, but once they move it’s going to be difficult to move them back once they are drilling in say Nigeria or Brazil.  The oil companies must have confidence they can move forward with their drilling plans and to know these plans won’t be revoked. Only certainty will bring them back.”

Although federal officials announced they were lifting the restrictions last October, a “de-facto moratorium” remains in effect that stifles energy production and undermines large and small businesses in the Gulf region, industry officials have argued.

“I don’t think the people in Washington D.C. who implement these policies have an understanding of how much this has impacted our economy, especially in Louisiana,” Renee Baker, the state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), said. “We can’t just look at the large businesses to understand what’s happening, there are small businesses that do a lot of services for the rigs and they have been set back. We just want to see people get back to work.”

Unfortunately, the “political uncertainty” surrounding the Gulf region has discouraged companies from making investments that could help spur economic growth, Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), laments. Even before the 10 rigs cited in the document from Vitter’s office pulled out, eight other rigs that were planned for the Gulf were detoured away, Briggs said.

“When you have companies that would be spending hundreds of millions of dollars, or some cases, billions of dollars, they need certainty,” Briggs explained. “We don’t have that now and I don’t expect that we will anytime soon. We will be in a deteriorating position until this changes.”

Briggs also questions the necessity of the moratorium that was imposed in response to the explosion of British Petroleum’s (BP) Macondo oil well on April 20 of last year. The accident resulted in the death of 11 workers and caused an estimated five million barrels of crude oil to spill into the Gulf.

Despite whatever missteps were involved with BP’s oil drilling operations, the industry as a whole has a “great safety record” in the Gulf, but this has not been taken into account, Briggs noted.

“We would have implemented new rules and guidelines without any federal action. This could have been done without a moratorium. There is no getting around how severe the regulatory fallout has been for us,” Briggs said.

Meanwhile, Sen. David Vitter has called out top Obama administration officials for issuing what he views as conflicting and misleading statements on the correct number offshore drilling permits. A U.S. Justice Department motion filed in March stated there are 270 shallow water permit applications pending and 52 deepwater permit applications pending.

But in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this past March, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Interior Department had received only 47 shallow water permit applications over the previous nine months and that only seven deepwater permit applications were pending. Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement, told Vitter personally that only six deepwater permits were pending, and he publicly stated that deepwater permits would be limited because “only a handful of completed applications have been received.”

Over the past three months, deepwater permits are down 71 percent from their historical monthly average of 5.8 permits per month, Robert Bluey, a blogger and journalist with the Heritage Foundation, has reported on The Scribe. Shallow-water permitting have also fallen in past few weeks by 34 percent from the historical monthly average of 7.1 permits, Bluey reported.

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be reached at kmooney@pelicaninstitute.org. Follow him on Twitter.

Federal agencies that have unilaterally curtailed energy production in the Gulf of Mexico should obtain congressional approval before any new regulations are implemented, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) has argued on the Senate floor.

Critics counter that “apologists for big oil” have overstated the moratorium’s economic effects and instead blame irresponsible industry practices for any alleged slowdown.

Over the past few weeks, Vitter has been critical of the Interior Department and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). That includes accusations of false and misleading statements from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Michael Bromwich, the BOEMRE director on the correct number of offshore drilling permits, in a letter addressed to both administration officials.

Vitter notes that Both Salazar and Bromwich have an obligation under Section 515 of the Information Quality Act to maintain the integrity of the information they convey in their official capacities.

In a recent floor speech, he also advocated additional legislation to curtail the actions of federal agencies that have exceeded the proper scope of their authority.

To this end, Vitter has introduced the Agency Overreach Moratorium Act. It would require congressional approval for expansion of federal regulations that restrict energy exploration on federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf that provide domestic natural resources.

“From the Interior, to the EPA and most agencies in between, the Obama administration has completely overreached on regulating businesses; so much that it’s hurt our nation’s job growth,” Sen. Vitter said.

“Specifically, the moratorium was one of the most poorly thought out, mismanaged and ill-conceived policy decisions regarding domestic energy production in the history of this country.”

To drive this point home, it is not necessary to look any further than the high price per gallon of gas or the seven rigs that have left the Gulf and the five that are not working to see how damaging the moratorium has been to Louisiana’s economy, Vitter added.

“Enough is enough, and my bill would prevent those overreaching federal actions that would further destroy jobs on our domestic energy businesses,” he said.

Vitter’s legislation would:

• Require congressional approval for retroactive withdrawal of any permit on federal lands or the OCS that would have been utilized to produce or harvest domestic natural resources or create one or more jobs.

• Require congressional approval for any raising of restrictions to resources on federal lands and the OCS.

Vitter’s bill also calls for the Commerce Department to do an economic analysis of any proposed agency action on federal land to see if it has the potential to reduce revenue to the federal treasury or undermine property rights.

In a related matter, Vitter announced on Wednesday that he would release his hold on Dan Ashe, President Obama’s nominee to head the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Department of the Interior. This comes after he received word that the department had issued its fifteenth deepwater exploration well permit and has responded to previous requests for answers on the permitting process.

“I said I would lift it when we got to 15 permits,” Vitter said. “We finally reached that mark today [Wednesday], and I’m lifting my hold. But let me be clear: we have a lot farther to go. This administration has been forced to issue permits but is doing so at an anemic pace—40 percent of pre-BP oil spill levels, and only two new exploration plans have been approved. We must do better by American energy consumers and workers.”

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be reached at kmooney@pelicaninstitute.org. Follow him on Twitter.

During a March 11 press conference, President Obama reiterated his indifference towards American energy production by posing a series of half-truths which shirked his ongoing complicity in America’s slumping oil production.

As President Obama duly acknowledged, Americans are growing frustrated with the rising costs of gasoline. What he once again overlooked, however, is his own role in these increasing costs.

Attempting to insulate himself from criticism, the President maintained that “Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003” and “Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all time high.”

On the surface, these statements are true. What President Obama chooses to ignore, however, is that they refer to production levels from before the moratorium and subsequent permitorium. Since the advent of these disastrous policies, production has entered a spiraling decline which industry experts believe will only worsen over the next two years.

The non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact dissects the President’s claims and finds them to be misleading. Citing the Energy Information Administration, Politifact contends that while Gulf  production in barrels per day was higher in 2010 than any previously recorded year, these levels peaked prior to the BP disaster and have steadily declined ever since the imposition of the moratorium on drilling.

According to the EIA’s own statistics, oil production in the Gulf of Mexico will continue to decrease for the next two years, by about 240,000 barrels a day in 2011 and by an additional 200,000 barrels per day in 2012. Likewise, the EIA estimates that domestic oil production as a whole will decline by 110,000 barrels a day in 2011 and by an additional 130,000 barrels per day in 2012.

Kyle Isakower of the American Petroleum Institute contends that the peak levels were attributable to permits granted years in advance and not owing to any energy policies of the Obama Administration. To the contrary, Isakower indicts the President’s anti-drilling agenda as damaging our economic recovery.

“This matters because markets don’t look backward, they look forward,” says Isakower. As long as the markets see uncertainty in the future of oil production, gasoline and energy prices will rise unchecked.

Since the BP tragedy of last April, President Obama has tirelessly worked to punish the entire oil industry. He has taken record levels of production and reversed them into decline, which has resulted in skyrocketing gasoline prices and put thousands out of work. The fact that the President not only continues to avoid responsibility, but distort the facts in his favor, is all the more distressing.

“Billions of dollars in potential oil revenue that could help close the federal deficit is being lost as a result of President Obama’s anti-drilling agenda,” writes Bluey.

Click here for the full article.

Fergus Hodgson is the capitol bureau reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be contacted at fhodgson@pelicaninstitute.org, and one can follow him on twitter.

NEW ORLEANS, La. – On Friday, the Pelican Institute hosted Robert Bradley of the Institute for Energy Research for “Government versus Prosperity,” a presentation on federal energy policy. Joined by Louisiana Congressman Bill Cassidy and introduced by local business leader Jay Lapeyre, Bradley argued that “politically correct” sources of energy were largely futile. He also described administration policies as a war against the oil and gas industry and, inextricably, the Louisiana economy.

Pictured from left to right: Louisiana Congressman Bill Cassidy, Theresa-Marie Ellender, president of the Bayou Region Coalition of Republican Women, and Robert Bradley, founder and chief executive of the Institute for Energy Research.

Cassidy gave the opening speech and spoke of how the recession has disproportionately harmed those in the energy sector, particularly males without college degrees. He believes the “road to recovery is through energy” and that Louisianians take this for granted. Reasoning with fellow representatives, however, is an ongoing “absurdity” of a challenge. (Click below for Cassidy’s perspective and the introductory remarks of Pelican Institute President, Kevin Kane – 12 minutes.)

Bradley’s career, prior to founding and leading IER, was with Enron for 16 years, and this experience provided him with a steady line of ironies and insights. He noted, for example, how Enron and BP were prominent purveyors of climate alarmism, and warned people to be weary of company leaders who say they are greener than the rest. (Click below for Robert Bradley’s lecture – 36 minutes.)

Undergirding the importance of the theme, he first demonstrated the role of energy in Louisiana – the third largest energy producer in the nation, producing four times the national average. This is unlikely to change, he said, since the Gulf of Mexico’s estimated reserves are greater than those of the East and West Coasts combined, and more than those of Alaska as well.

Since the spill, however, there has been the moratorium on new drilling and the de facto “permitorium.” These actions, he believes, without any legislative mandate from congress, are akin to a war on oil, gas, and coal. Obama’s dream green team, as he described them, have the mentality that everything is a market failure and that consumers will not make the correct decisions.

“We, the smartest guys in the room, should decide for them,” he imitated.

However, “there’s no going back to the renewable energies of the past,” he said. The problem is energy density, and he held up a piece of coal to demonstrate. Coal holds energy from the sun over an extended period of time. Renewable energies, on the other hand, are intermittent and even “parasitic,” since they require fossil fuel support. This fundamental problem, he believes, explains why attempts to advance wind power have continued to fail, not that public optimism sways.

Now, even with heavy subsidies, the politically correct energies of wind and solar make up less than one percent of the American supply. Even of carbon free energy, 95 percent comes from nuclear or hydrothermal plants, hardly favorites of environmentalists.

He noted that carbon based energy has only come to the fore in the last few hundred years and coincided with a flourishing in economic prosperity. Energy may be the master resource, he said, but freedom for human ingenuity to utilize this resource is equally important. He identified the corollary political and philosophical shifts: individualism, science, classical liberalism, and property rights.

Throughout the presentation, Bradley expressed his pleasure at seeing how New Orleans has made strides after Katrina. He noted the growing presence of a pro-business critical mass, alluding to research of the Pelican Institute and the free market programs at Loyola University.

“The threat to energy sustainability – to affordable, plentiful, reliable energy – is not the free market, private property; it is statism. In the name of energy sustainability we have a lot government intervention that makes energy scarce.”

Bradley finished by accepting questions from the audience, and one can listen here – 16 minutes:

Fergus Hodgson is the capitol bureau reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy and editor of The Pelican Post. He can be contacted at fhodgson@pelicaninstitute.org, and one can follow him on twitter.
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Washington, DC—Promoting the tagline, “My Job Matters,” more than 50 Gulf state residents travelled to the Capitol to protest the moratorium and regulatory impediments to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Protesters gave speeches in front of the U.S. Capitol Building, and Texas Senator John Cornyn and former Pennsylvania Representative John Peterson voiced their support. Additionally, individuals lobbied congressional members and staff, shared their frustrations with media outlets, and met with low-tax advocates Americans for Tax Reform.

(Click below to listen to John Cornyn’s speech – seven minutes.)

Event organizers Save U.S. Energy Jobs (a project of the American Energy Alliance) gave time and emphasis to direct victims of the oil spill tragedy. Thomas Clements, owner and operations manager of an oilfield equipment supply firm, supported by his wife (both pictured below), Melissa, was one of many to speak.

“We’ve come all this way to be heard, to ask Congress and Obama to end this moratorium. It immediately affected our business; we have no income coming in… We had orders scheduled for the entire year – on the books, ready. And then when the six-month moratorium came out it cancelled all our orders, immediately. We’re devastated.” The paperwork requirements of the BP fund and the verbal agreement approach of the industry mean that so far he and his wife have not been able to receive any compensation. (Click below to listen to the Pelican Institute’s interview with the Clements – six minutes)

Thirty Louisianans made up the majority of the protest group, but Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama also had members, reflecting a diverse set of constituents and perspectives. Carroll Robinson, for example, is chairman of the Houston Citizens Chamber of Commerce, “the oldest and largest African American chamber in the city, representing about 600 African American owned businesses.”

“[The message] we’re trying to get across is that there are a lot of African American owned businesses that are involved in the oil and gas industry as contractors, subcontractors, and also a lot African Americans that are employed. So the moratorium and [oil-related tax issues] impact a broad part of America… I think the way the message is being portrayed is one dimensional, as only environmental, when in fact there are also economic impacts.” (Carroll Robinson is also an associate professor at Texas Southern University, in the Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs. Click below to listen to his perspective – two minutes.)

Merle Flowers, a Mississippi state senator (R-Desoto County), also made the journey and spoke. “This moratorium has already cost many of our citizens their jobs, and the longer the moratorium stays in place, that job loss number will only increase… Mississippi already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. We can’t afford to lose one more job, let alone thousands more jobs… To make matters worse, the Obama administration’s 2011 budget includes provisions that will impose new taxes on domestic energy producers… Any such policy such as this is simply going to shift more platforms abroad and more jobs away from Mississippi and our neighbors in the Gulf Coast.”

Sarah Rhodes, an office manager for a lobbying firm that represents pipelines refineries, and chemical companies, is concerned that Washington leaders don’t “have their hands around the fact that this industry is so important… It doesn’t hit home because it’s not in their back yard.” She already knows of individuals that have lost their jobs and are now migrating out of Louisiana.

Sue Dupont, a realtor and president of the Breaux Bridge Area Chamber of Commerce, Louisiana, has seen commercial real estate sales fall through on account of the moratorium, and “leasing is being affected also… If companies start moving out, we’re going to be losing families… This moratorium needs to be lifted and lifted today.”

The protest came in the wake of good news for the group. Just one day prior Michael Bromwich, head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (formerly the Minerals Management Service), announced that Obama is considering an end to the moratorium earlier than the planned six months. While Bromwich refused to commit to a date, he has initiated and is attending town hall style “fact finding forums” in Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, with more locations to come. In addition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that there would be no action on the oil-spill bill until after the August recess.

Later in the day, Senator David Vitter (R-La) thanked the group for coming to Washington, acknowledged the severity of the situation, and discussed the political realities they face.

“If this moratorium continues anywhere near six months, it will cost us more jobs than the oil ever did, and that’s the simple bottom line… So this is a really really serious challenge. It’s horrible for the country – bad for our country’s economy and energy security. It would be devastating for Louisiana.”

He highlighted that in addition to the official moratorium “there is really a de facto shallow water moratorium too… As a practical matter, new permits aren’t being issued.”

“As if that isn’t bad enough, [the administration] is about to roll out a new [regulatory] rulebook, including for shallow [drilling], and that could take the task from extremely difficult, near impossible, to literally impossible… Every individual little shallow well, a very commonplace thing, but that amounts to a lot of jobs, would take a months and months long [environmental review] process that either is going to slow each of those projects down enormously or shut them down completely.”

According to Vitter, the political climate in the executive branch is the heart of the problem. “If we could pass clear language ending the moratorium, hopefully we’d be building pressure. However as long as [Obama] is president, he has a lot of push back, including the most obvious, to veto the legislation.” However, the only political pressure he can see that “would make a big difference is the price of gasoline at the pump to go right up… Now that’s not going to happen because of the economy. Unfortunately, we’re still in a recession, and world-wide demand is way down.”

Fergus Hodgson is the capitol bureau reporter with the Pelican Institute for Public Policy. He can be contacted at fhodgson@pelicaninstitute.org, and one can follow him on twitter.