A damaging moratorium

Despite U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman's ruling to lift the six-month deepwater drilling moratorium, 33 rigs sit idle in the Gulf of Mexico now thanks to President Obama's ban. I should know - I just came back from one, and I've proudly worked in the oil and natural gas industry for more than 30 years.

While getting to the bottom of the Gulf accident is everyone's highest priority, I want to loudly state that we must end this moratorium. Failing to do so creates more problems than it solves by eliminating thousands of jobs and decreasing U.S. energy security.

I can tell you firsthand that everyone offshore is worried about job security. Each of those idled rigs costs up to $500,000 per day - a huge burden that companies can't bear for such a prolonged period of time. I've already seen the devastating effects of rigs leaving the United States for operations in Africa and Brazil, for example, each taking up to 1,200 jobs with it. All told, as many as 46,200 people stand to lose their jobs if the moratorium lasts six months.

But the economic impact goes beyond the Gulf; it will reach the whole country. I may work off the Louisiana coast, but I live and spend my wages in Florida. The industry supports 9.2 million jobs nationwide - 267,000 jobs in our state, and these are not just any jobs. Exploration and production jobs in the upstream sector pay an average of $55,447 - 40 percent higher than the average Florida wage. Lost wages for rig workers alone could be as high as $10 million per month, and that's not counting idled supply boats, welders, transportation companies and office support.

No one is more devastated by the Deepwater Horizon tragedy than the men and women who work in the industry and live along the Gulf. We work hard to provide secure and reliable energy, and we have the proven technology to do it.

In the last 60 years, more than 42,000 wells have been safely drilled in the Gulf without incident. Of those, roughly 2,000 are deepwater wells that produce 80 percent of the oil and 45 percent of the natural gas in the Gulf. Overall, approximately 30 percent of the nation's oil production and 13 percent of its natural gas production comes from the Gulf.

Each day that the moratorium lasts could represent 350,000 barrels of oil of lost production by 2015, which is more oil we'll have to import from foreign countries. Our need for oil isn't going anywhere, and what we don't produce at home will have to be bought elsewhere. The government's Energy Information Administration says we'll need 14 percent more energy by 2035. If we keep these proven Gulf resources off limits, we're not only driving our production and jobs overseas, we're dramatically decreasing our energy security.

We must lift the ban on deepwater drilling, get our people back to work and our rigs up and running again so we can stimulate the economy and help secure our energy future.