Vitter Wants Moratorium Scrapped
by Amy Harder (excerpt)

NATIONAL JOURNAL

Instead of an immediate moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said today he wants rig safety inspections conducted right away. And operations should only be shut down if those inspections "identified safety problems," Vitter added.

He made his statement in a letter to President Obama today, just as the White House announced that Obama will travel to the gulf Friday. It comes days after the administration announced a six-month moratorium on all deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, delayed a planned drilling operation for the Arctic Ocean and canceled plans to drill off Virginia's coast.

Vitter argued that the gulf drilling moratorium will shed between 3,000 and 4,000 Louisiana jobs in the short-term and possibly up to 20,000 over the course of a year. "This deepwater moratorium could potentially be devastating for Louisiana," Vitter wrote. "The likely impact of this moratorium is long-term job destruction as these jobs leave the gulf region permanently and move to other regions of the world."