Corruption is not always completely bad for the people of a state. Being able to buy the legislature in Baton Rouge has brought a lot of jobs to the state. The problem is, of course, the perspective. As long as we just look at one industry it looks like a pretty good deal. When we pull back and look at the state in general there is real problem.
There are twice as many jobs in fishing and tourism in LA as there are in oil production. As long as the oil industry did not have a major catastrophe then there was no conflict. Now that we have seen that BP really had no idea how to handle a disaster of this magnitude (their sworn statements on the applications to the contrary, but we'll get to that can of worms in another post) it is clear they are not really a net benefit to jobs.
The cost of oil has always been viewed in terms of the cost of developing and refining. We as a nation use a rough metric of the cost of a gallon of gas to determine if the cost of drilling is too high. This is a false measure. It is easy for people to understand but there are so many variables that are not included it really does not reflex the true cost of oil.
Starting this summer the primary U.S. fishery, a place where we get 40% of all of our sea food, will be closed to fishing. Oil is toxic and carcinogenic, you do not want to eat seafood that has been contaminated with it. The cost of seafood is going to rise sharply and will stay high for a very long time. When oil is "weathered" it is eaten by bacteria. This helps the oil disappear, but it puts the toxins and carcinogens into the food chain. Given the potential size of this spill it may be a very long time before seafood from the Gulf is really safe to eat.
The long term costs of this spill will also include the affects of hurricanes. While we all hope that there will not be too many major storms that wash the tar balls inland, the real hurricane worries are in the future. The marshlands which blunt the force of hurricanes as they come inland are going to be devastated by the oil this year. This will make it easier for them to be reclaimed by the sea over the next few years. Sometime around 2015 the real trouble will start; hurricanes will be able hit the coastal cities without being undercut by the millions of acres of marsh that does this job today.
Hurricane Rita was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall. It caused 11.3 billion in monetary damages and killed at least 107 people. Without the marshlands the damage and cost would have been much higher as the energy of the storm would not have been blunted. Sadly we will get the chance to test whether the destruction of marshlands will mean more destruction on land.
All this leads back the penny-wise and pound-foolish thinking of Republicans and bought Democrats (Sen. Landrieu I am looking right at you!) when it comes to talk of lost jobs. There will be lost jobs if we stop deepwater drilling in the Gulf. That is a fact. There are other facts though. Right now we are staring down a loss of as many as 1 million jobs lost between commercial fishing, sport fishing, recreational water uses and all of the people who owe their living to the Gulf directly or indirectly.
The whole concept that we should protect the jobs of an industry that is risking the jobs three times the number of jobs in other industries is completely insane. It is clear that BP and the other oil companies have lied to the Federal Government when they said that they could handle a spill 10 times the current size of Deepwater Horizon with "minimal impact" to fishing and the shore. With this lie exposed there can be no reasonable assertion of safety. We can not take the risk that other companies will not make the same kinds of mistakes that BP made.
While they might not remove the drilling mud too soon, as BP clearly did, there are other problems that have to addressed. There is no standard for Blow Out Preventers. There is no set of standards that require it to be working (remember that the battery on the so-called fail safe deadmans switch was itself dead) and there are not enough stringent inspections by a competent and uncorrupt agency to assure that standards are followed even if they were in place.
All this leaves us at the mercy of another disaster just like this one. The President and many others said drilling was high tech and safe. They said this because it was what they were told and there had not been a major disaster in our waters. It was a lie that has been exposed. We can not go back to the old days of thinking it is true. The jobs that deepwater drilling have created were also a lie. They were based on false statements and hope. They can not be preserved without the danger of another disaster like we are dealing with now.
When you look at long term cost to jobs, the environment and the health of the nation, these oil jobs cost far too much. While it might be a hardship for the people who will not work because of the banning of deepwater drilling, it is a net positive for the nation. We can find ways to re-deploy oil workers far easier than we can fishermen and those who work in the tourism industry.
It was the short sightedness of the Republicans and Democrats from BP that put us in the mess. We should not pay any attention to their squawks about losing jobs that should have never existed in the first place.
The floor is yours.
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