On the heels of this afternoon’s API  & AADE hosted ”Rally for Jobs” in Houston, we are reminded of the outstanding testimony from Lt. Governor, Scott Angelle, during the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) public forum on deep-water drilling held in Louisiana on August 4, 2010.

An Excerpt:

“When it comes to contributing to America’s energy security, there is no more important piece of real estate in all of America than Louisiana. Because of our willingness to host the activities that many states simply refuse to do, every American is tied to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico through the gas pump. “

“Shutting down new drilling threatens our ability to sustain the production we need to fuel this nation. We have seen how quickly a drop in production can hurt our economy. Looking back to 2005, Louisiana was devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita – storms that interrupted production from the Gulf of Mexico. In the week after Katrina, the national average of the price of a gallon of gasoline spiked 46 cents. Indeed, a  50 cent increase in the cost of a gallon of gasoline costs American consumers $1.4 billion per week.”

“A moratorium does not strike as swiftly as a hurricane, but the longer drilling is halted, the more domestic production will suffer as existing wells play out with no new wells to replace them. More than 360 new wells were drilled in the Gulf OCS in 2009 and all of the resulting production helped America to rely less on foreign imports to fuel our nation. The Gulf of Mexico is, indeed, the golden goose. The six-month halt we already face could mean an estimated 4 percent drop in 2011 production – and that production could lag for years.”

Read the whole testimony, here: http://www.crt.state.la.us/press/2010/20100804Testimony.pdf

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