In keeping with their "never let a crisis go to waste" policy, the Obama administration has used the BP oil spill as the rationale for blocking all new offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. And in keeping with the administration's record of wreaking economic havoc and killing jobs with every new policy, the ban could cost the state of Louisiana up to 6,000 jobs this month, 10,000 jobs over the next few months and up to 20,000 existing and new jobs by next year.

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The Gulf Coast office of the Minerals Management Service said in an e-mail released Thursday that "until further notice" no new drilling is being allowed in the Gulf, no matter the water depth. (source) President Obama declared the moratorium was to give another one of his useless presidential commissions time to investigate the April explosion that killed 11 crew members and caused the spill. Meanwhile the people in the Gulf region, already suffering from the effects of the spill and the crackerjack Obama/BP tandem's inability to stop the leak, will have to endure more economic hardship because of this latest Obama policy.

In a letter to President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) expressed his concerns over the ban saying, "Already, Louisiana has suffered severe negative economic and ecological impacts from the BP oil spill...During one of the most challenging economic periods in decades, the last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more." He then itemized the estimated job losses the moratorium would cause and warned that it "creates a significant risk that many of these drilling platforms would be relocated to other countries - along with the hundreds of high-paying jobs that they each create." (source)

The administration's response to those concerns: White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told CNN, "The six month moratorium on deepwater drilling was instituted for a clear reason. The President believes we must ensure that the BP Deepwater Horizon spill is never repeated." (source)

That's exactly what we have come to expect from the Obama administration; a dismissive attitude toward the practical concerns of those directly affected by their policies and a grand promise that is impossible to keep. Of course the causes of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster should be investigated and, as Governor Jindal said in his letter, there is a "need for strict oversight of deepwater drilling." But as he also said, the federal government should "move quickly to ensure that all deepwater drilling is in proper compliance with federal regulation and is conducted safely so that energy production and more importantly, thousands of jobs, are not in limbo."

This is not the time for six months of presidentially commissioned stalling. It is not the time to kick the problem further down the road to, conveniently, right after the mid-term elections. It is time for President Obama to stop trying to appear as if he is engaged in this issue and to actually get involved.