Letter to The Advocate: Gulf oil, gas value exaggerated

On February 23, The Advocate published my Letter to the Editor written in response to an article the paper published asking leaders of the anti-deep water drilling moratorium leaders to explain how tax collections were up and unemployment down in the state and in the markets where the moratorium was predicted to spread economic calamity.


Here's the text of the letter:

Advocate Capitol news bureau reporter Michelle Millhollon’s Feb. 15 article on reality not conforming to the hysteria generated by critics of the deep-water drilling moratorium served a valuable purpose beyond forcing those critics to confront the facts that their scare campaign against the moratorium was a hoax perpetrated against the people of this state.

The oil and gas industry, its lobbyists and public officials dependent on the industry for political funding fanned the anti-moratorium hysteria.

The signs of the hoax can be found in the lawsuit filed to overturn the moratorium a month after it was declared.

When 37 companies joined Hornbeck International in the suit against the moratorium, it looked like an industrywide revolt against the moratorium.

The reality was that those 37 companies were owned or controlled by two prominent Louisiana Republicans, Boysie Bollinger and Gary Chouest. Bollinger controlled 21 of the companies, Chouest 16.

Gov. Bobby Jindal directed state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to file an amicus brief in the case in which Caldwell and his attorneys lied to Judge Martin Feldman.

On page four of that June 20 brief, in his “Statement of the Case” Caldwell declared: “Because of the moratorium, many thousands of Louisiana workers have lost their employment and many more are at risk of losing it in the near future.”

The only problem with the statement is that it was not true. The Louisiana Workforce Commission weekly reports on new unemployment claims never mentioned the moratorium at any time during the spring and summer of 2010 because thousands of jobs were not lost. In fact, new unemployment claims fell through most of the summer.

Lobbyists such as Don Briggs, of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, can be forgiven; after all, they are paid to spin stories so as to put their clients in the best light. But those supposedly independent organizations that joined in fanning the fears last summer — Greater New Orleans Inc., the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, the LSU Center for Energy Studies — have had their credibility seriously damaged.

Public officials who were active players in this hoax — Gov. Bobby Jindal, then-interim Lt. Gov. Scott Angelle and Caldwell — must also be held accountable. Either they were knowing participants in this hoax or their industry patrons duped them.

All of this raises the possibility that we might have all been victims of a larger, longer-running hoax.

In light of the moratorium’s failure to cripple our economy, could it be that the economic importance of the offshore oil and gas industry to the state has been vastly overstated all these years?

Who can we now trust to give us an honest answer on this?

Mike Stagg
independent IT consultant
Lafayette

Deep Water Drilling Approved; Oil Industry Continues Whining

That whining Bobby Jindal complained about at the end of last year was apparently coming from his buddies in the oil and gas industry — not the heads of the state's colleges and universities.

The proof could be found this week when, after the Obama administration allowed 13 deep water drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico to resume, the industry cacophony of whining ratcheted up to a higher pitch.

Too little, too late. Not enough. Too slow. Too hot! Too cold! Bwaaahhh!! The industry and its apologists, accustomed to writing the rules they then chose to ignore, are perplexed by the notion of regulation and inspection by people who (at least for now) can't be bought.

Get used to it. The well has been plugged, new rules are in place, but the whining will not stop.

The legitimacy of the whining is best assessed in the context of the earlier rage against the moratorium and the dire predictions the oil and gas lobby, elected officials, academics and other said the temporary moratorium would have on Louisiana's economy.

Lies and Propaganda

The only way to describe the claims made about the moratorium and the way it was used to attack the Obama administration in Louisiana is to call them what they were: lies and propaganda.

The liar in chief was Governor Bobby Jindal who immediately recognized that the moratorium posed a financial threat to his legions of backers in the offshore oil services industry anchored primarily in coastal southeast Louisiana.

After GOP heavy hitter, former co-owner of the New Orleans Hornets, and Jindal backer Gary Chouest's companies threatened immediate layoffs after the moratorium was declared, Jindal spoke at the first anti-moratorium rally held in an Edison Chouest facility at Port Fourchon on June 11. Jindal spoke at the second anti-moratorium rally on June 24th which was held at the Gulf Island Fabricators facility in the port in Houma where that company is working on a Chouest project that is at least partially funded by the State of Louisiana.

That rally was held four days after the Jindal-ordered amicus brief filing in the suit against the moratorium in which the governor's attorneys, headed by Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, lied to the federal judge hearing the case. In the brief, Caldwell and the other attorneys said that the moratorium had cost thousands of Louisiana workers their jobs and cited the Louisiana Workforce Commission as the source of that information.

Only one problem. The claim was not true. It was not true then and was not true all through the summer when new unemployment claims in Louisiana showed no blip attributable to the moratorium. In fact, unemployment in Louisiana stayed below 2009 levels throughout the summer of 2010.

The fact-free attacks on the moratorium (and the Obama administration) reached a crescendo at the Lafayette Cajundome on July 21. On that day, the relentless campaign of economic fear waged by the industry, the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce (technically, there is a difference), and state and local government culminated in the gathering of about 12,000 to get two hours of personally delivered lies.

All of mainstream media in Lafayette bought into the so-called "Rally for Economic Survival," setting aside any pretense of objectivity and shutting down any semblance of critical thinking. There were on-air editorials by local television stations; a front-page editorial by the Gannett daily and a heavy serving of fear-dripping op-eds by opponents of the moratorium.

At the event, then-interim Lt. Governor Scott Angelle delivered the speech he'd been perfecting on smaller audiences in which he claimed President Obama didn't like the oil and gas industry. There was a blatantly misleading presentation from the Louisiana Workforce Commission on the jobs that would be affected by the moratorium. The end of the economic world was near and Lafayette would be in ruins before the summer was out if the moratorium was not lifted.

In September, the BP Gulf Gusher was plugged. In October the moratorium was lifted. The industry whining continued because drilling and/or coastal destruction was not allowed to immediately resume.

After a quick dip in the fund-raising business, Angelle returned to his prior role as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources where he faced a decision on how to tax his old buddies (and recent contributors) in the oil and gas industry. Some saw the glaring ethical issue that Angelle and his boss the Governor chose to ignore.

New Whinery

Now, with drilling activity officially sanctioned, the industry's apologists have cranked up the whinery again.

Their lies of 2010 rob them of any credibility.

We know for a fact now that the moratorium cost very few jobs in Louisiana and in the offshore drilling industry. There were fewer than 400 claims made on the $100 million fund set up to help compensate those who lost their jobs or income due to the moratorium. We know that the moratorium was never cited as the cause of any spike in job losses in 2010 in the Louisiana Workforce Commission's official reports (which is separate from the propaganda work they did at the behest of the Governor and the industry).

The best evidence of the lack of the impact of the moratorium on the economy, though, came in Lafayette. In December, City/Parish President Joey Durel (a speaker at the anti-moratorium rally in July) got the Lafayette Consolidated Government Council to approve a pay raise for Lafayette Parish governmental workers. Durel cited increased sales tax collections in Lafayette Parish as providing the fiscal underpinning for the raises.

If the moratorium had any economic impact, it was indirect. The direct impact was from the fear campaign waged by opponents of the moratorium who succeeded for a time in convincing people that the 2010 moratorium would send the region's economy into a tailspin that would rival the oil and gas industry collapse of the mid-1980s.

None of that happened.

The people who inflicted this hoax on Louisiana know it. The people know it. The perpetrators of the hoax must not be allowed to go unpunished for their deception.

Death of a Hoax: Moratorium job losses under 400. Holding Hoaxsters Accountable?

The hoax perpetrated on south Louisiana and the nation — that the six-month moratorium on deep water drilling would wreck our economy and send thousands of workers into unemployment lines — was fully and totally exposed this week.

The death of the hoax was not delivered by Democrats. Instead, the crushing blows arrived via the truth delivered a non-profit and by the Louisiana Workforce Commission through the pages of the Times-Picayune and The Advocate.

After months of relentless propaganda about the supposedly catastrophic impact of the Obama administration's six-month moratorium on deep water drilling, the truth turns out to be this: nearly four months into the moratorium, fewer than 400 jobs have been lost to because of it.

The Times-Picayune reported on Tuesday that the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (BRAF), the organization charged with administering a $100 million fund the federal government had BP set up for workers displaced by the moratorium, had received just 160 requests for funds. By the end of the day Tuesday, that number was up to 220, according to The Advocate.

The Times-Picayune also reported that the Louisiana Workforce Commission said that it has paid unemployment claims to 347 Louisiana residents who have named the moratorium as the reason they're out of work.

The Advocate got unemployment figures for both the BP Gulf Gusher and the moratorium from the LWC:

At the Louisiana Workforce Commission, spokeswoman Lynn Dias-Button said Tuesday that unemployment claims since early May do not reflect the massive numbers that BRAF had expected.

Thus far, 1,656 claimants have stated that they became unemployed because of BP’s oil leak, said Dias-Button. And only 832 of those people have been ruled eligible for benefits.

Since early June, Dias-Button said, unemployment applicants also have been asked whether the moratorium cost them their jobs.

“We have had 724 individuals who have … said they lost their jobs because of the drilling moratorium,” Dias-Button noted.

So far, she said, “We have determined that 347 are eligible for benefits.”

Industry spokespeople were ready with explanations, but the fact remains that the moratorium on deep water drilling has had little or no economic impact on south Louisiana. But, after a summer of misleading statements about the impact of the moratorium, what credibility does the industry have to speak on the moratorium now?

It its weekly report on new unemployment claims last Friday, the LWC reported new unemployment claims were down again, continuing a trend that has been in place for most of the summer.

The New Gulf Reality Sets In

On Monday, Michael Bromwich, the man running the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (successor to the corrupt Mineral Management Service), held a hearing on the moratorium in Lafayette.

According to The Daily Advertiser, at forums along the Gulf coast, California and Alaska, Bromwich heard nearly 100 presentations from 61 representatives of industry, academia and environmental groups, plus 37 public officials. Information gathered at the forums will be contained in a report due Oct. 31 to Salazar as he considers whether it is safe to resume deep water drilling.

Bromwich confronted head-on criticism of the moratorium by explaining its necessity:

Drilling and workplace safety, containment capabilities and spill response capabilities.

If a second spill had occurred while oil was still leaking from the Deepwater Horizon, there would have been insufficient equipment to respond to it, he said.

Interim Lt. Governor Scott Angelle testified at the hearing, decrying the fact that federal officials had not fallen for the 'moratorium-as-economic-disaster' hoax that he played such a prominent role in trying to perpetrate.

"We can't help but believe that our repeated suggestions and other experts suggestions continue to be ignored about lifting this moratorium," Angelle was quoted as saying.

The federal government did not respond to Angelle's repeated exaggerations about the impact of the moratorium nor his allegations that President Obama is biased against the oil and gas industry, nor his taunts of the President waging war against Louisiana families. So, for Angelle's sake, it's probably best to call it a wash.

Bromwich made clear that the days of the industry calling the tune in the Gulf of Mexico are over, that the new safety rules are necessary in the wake of the culture of corruption that had come to typify the relations between the industry and MMS in the Gulf. He said the new rules took time to formulate and time to implement, and that the permitting process will improve as the system becomes fully operations.

In a similar hearing in Biloxi the previous week, Bromwich made clear that the drilling in the Gulf will resume when industry complies with the new rules.

That the fight is out of the anti-moratorium forces was demonstrated by a speaker at the Biloxi hearing. According to the Associated Press, Gary Rook, technical director for Edison Chouest Offshore, said that more than four months after the rig explosion, concerns remain about the ability of the industry to respond to another disaster.

What makes this interesting is that Edison Chouest and its affiliated companies were at the vanguard of the legal fight to overturn the moratorium. Chouest companies were among the first to warn of dire economic impacts the moratorium would have on south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

Holding Accountable

With the evidence of the hoax mounting and the support for it collapsing, the next question becomes one of what should happen to those who perpetrated this hoax?

The 12,000 or so people who attended the Rally for Economic Survival in Lafayette were victims of this hoax. The hoax was essential to the ability of rally supporters to get that many people to show up. The cooked numbers on the potential impact coming from supposedly reliable sources figured prominently in Judge Feldman's ruling against the moratorium. They figured prominently in the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce's drive to make the rally a matter of community unity and pride.

Those numbers completely bamboozled the mainstream media in Lafayette and across the state — from the Times-Picayune to Gannett to The Advocate, as well as local television and radio stations. Many of these outlets not only supported calls to end the moratorium, they also abandoned critical thinking in assessing the claims made by those opposing the moratorium.

Finally, Governor Bobby Jindal's role in this matter must by officially examined.

The Governor put Scott Angelle on the task of whipping public opposition against the moratorium, but Jindal was acting to defend his deep-pocketed backers in the oil service sector, starting with Gary Chouest and Donald Bollinger. Jindal was rallying for his political survival before the economic case could be cooked up.

The governor ordered the state to intervene in the the court hearings over the moratorium, filing an amicus brief on June 20. In that brief, the state claimed unequivocally:

Because of the moratorium, many thousands of Louisiana workers have lost their employment and many more are at risk of losing it in the near future."

Those "many thousands of Louisiana workers" have never shown up anywhere other than the Jindal's amicus brief and in the now discredited claims of those who used the fear of those job losses to fan opposition to the moratorium, the President and to Democrats.

Former Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown went to prison for allegedly lying to an FBI agent in an interview, yet the agent never had to present any proof of the alleged lie in court. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was recently convicted on a single count of lying to federal agents.

Can the Governor of Louisiana order his attorneys to lie to a federal judge in writing through brief filed in a court with impunity?

Where did that jobs loss claim come from? It certainly appeared to figure prominently in Judge Feldman's ruling against the moratorium. That lie is a central thread in the entire hoax. It first appeared publicly in Jindal's brief.

Someone needs to discover its origins.

The road to accountability begins with piercing the Governor's bubble of secrecy.

Anti-Moratorium Hoax Update: LWC reports new unemployment claims were down again last week

The Louisiana Workforce Commission reported today (Friday, September 10) that new unemployment claims in the state fell again last week (click the headline of this post to read the full announcement).

Here are the first paragraphs from the LWC announcement today:

Initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) for the week ending September 4, 2010, decreased to 4,083 from the previous week’s total of 4,120. Initial claims were below the comparable week ending September 5, 2009, figure of 5,302.

The four-week moving average of initial claims decreased to 4,085 from the previous week’s average of 4,140.

Continued unemployment insurance weeks claimed for the week ending September 4, 2010, decreased to 54,265 from the previous week’s total of 54,754. Continued weeks claimed were below the comparable week ending September 5, 2009, figure of 61,400.

The four-week moving average of continued weeks claimed decreased to 55,427 from the previous week’s average of 56,134.

So, the predictions of economic ruin made by the anti-moratorium forces have once again failed to materialize. Had their predictions been accurate, new unemployment claims in Louisiana would be rising, not falling.

Instead, the new claims continue to fall and the total number of Louisiana residents collecting unemployment at this point this year continues to be lower than this time last year.

Wow! How can such smart people be so drastically wrong — unless, their intent was to mislead?

Exposing a Hoax: New unemployment claims in Louisiana, April 5 to September 3

Opponents of the Obama administration's moratorium on deep water drilling have bemoaned the economic impact of the pause on employment in Louisiana. In June, Governor Bobby Jindal ordered that an amicus brief be filed in the lawsuit against the moratorium. In that brief, the governor's attorneys claimed that thousands of jobs had been lost to the moratorium at that point (less than a month after it was imposed) and that thousands of jobs were threatened by allowing the moratorium to stand.

The feared job losses have not come. And, Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) weekly reports show that Jindal's brief was wrong about the thousands of jobs that the governor's attorneys claimed had already been lost due to the moratorium by late June. Did the Governor and his attorneys not know what LWC's weekly reports were showing? Or, was this like his berms project, where (in that case the scientific) evidence was willfully ignored?

On page 4 of the state's 17-page brief, Jindal's attorneys declared:

The Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) administers Louisiana's unemployment compensation system, its workers' compensation program and its workforce programs, including job training and work search services. Because of the moratorium, many thousands of Louisiana workers have lost their employment and many more are at risk of losing it in the near future. All of the programs administered by LWC have been and will be heavily impacted by its effects. (Emphasis added)

Every Friday, the LWC issues a news release containing the number of new unemployment filings and puts the number in context: LWC compares that week's number to the previous week; compares the number to the same week of the previous year; provides a four-week moving average; and provides a total number of active unemployment claims in the state and compares that number to the previous year, and a four-week moving average for total claims.

Nowhere in the LWC weekly reports issued between the Department of the Interior's declaration of the moratorium (May 27) and the June 20 court filing by Jindal's attorneys is there any mention of any impact on new unemployment claims filings related to the moratorium. Other issues are mentioned at times, like seasonally increased claims resulting from the end of the school year or a transportation equipment disruption which led to a one-week spike. But, the moratorium is not mentioned in that period of time.

Nor has it been mentioned in any of the LWC weekly reports issued since the Jindal court filing.

In fact, based on the numbers generated by the LWC — not the rhetoric coming from Jindal, top LWC management, and other opponents of the moratorium — the deep water drilling moratorium has been a non-event in terms of Louisiana employment.

Follow the Numbers

What follows is a listing of the numbers in each weekly report issued by LWC, starting on April 5 and running through September 3. This provides information on new unemployment claims in the weeks leading up to the Deepwater Horizon explosion, through the May 28th imposition of the moratorium, through the dates of the court hearings, through the Rally for Economic Survival, up to the most current report issued by LWC.

A link to each announcement is included. The image at the top of this page charts the numbers for new claims and the moving average.

The weekly reports make clear that there has been no surge of job losses attributable to the moratorium. In fact, while other causes for new unemployment claims are mentioned in some reports, the LWC reports are notable for what they do not mention — the deep water drilling moratorium.

It also needs to be noted that since July 2, the number of people collecting unemployment benefits in Louisiana in 2010 has been lower than the number of people collecting benefits in 2009.

If the deep water drilling moratorium was causing unemployment in Louisiana, these are where the numbers would first appear.

LWC April 5 report: New claims — 4,120; four-week average — 3,988 (This report was filed on the Monday after Easter based on numbers from the previous week).

LWC April 9 report: New claims — 3,689; four-week average — 3,908.

LWC April 16 report: New claims — 4,661; four-week average — 4,067.

LWC April 23 report: New claims — 3,989; four-week average — 4,115.

LWC April 30 report: New claims — 4,982; four-week average — 4,330.

LWC May 7 report: New claims — 4,574; four-week average — 4,552.

LWC May 14 report: New claims — 4,480; four-week average — 4,506.

LWC May 21 report: New claims — 4,584; four-week average — 4,655.

LWC May 28 report: New claims — 4,645; four-week average — 4,571.

LWC June 4 report: New claims — 5,166; four-week average — 4,719. (LWC: "The largest over-the-week increases in initial claims were in educational services and health care and social assistance industries as part of the usual summer seasonal pattern.")

LWC June 11 report: New claims — 5,188; four-week average — 4,896. (LWC: "The largest over-the-week increase in initial claims was in the health care and social assistance industry as part of the usual summer seasonal pattern.")

LWC June 18 report: New claims — 4,902; four-week average — 4,975.

LWC June 25 report: New claims — 4,450; four-week average — 4,927.

LWC July 2 report: New claims — 4,456; four-week average — 4,749.

LWC July 9 report: New claims — 4,750; four-week average — 4,640.

LWC July 16 report: New claims — 4,533; four-week average — 4,547.

LWC July 23 report: New claims —5,237; four-week average — 4,744. (LWC: "The largest over-the-week increase in initial claims was due to a temporary shutdown in the transportation equipment industry.")

LWC July 30 report: New claims — 4,395; four-week average — 4,729. (LWC: "The largest over-the-week decrease in initial claims was in the transportation equipment industry.")

LWC August 6 report:  New claims — 4,109; four-week average — 4,569.

LWC August 13 report: New claims — 4,305; four-week average — 4,512.

LWC August 20 report: New claims — 3,987; four-week average — 4,199.

LWC August 27 report: New claims — 4,149; four-week average — 4,138.

LWC September 3 report: New claims — 4,120; four-week average — 4,140.

While the LWC leadership is an active participant in the politically driven, anti-moratorium hysteria, the numbers the commission produces on a weekly basis tell a starkly different story. The numbers don't have a dog in this fight. They are just the numbers; they don't have a political agenda.

The LWC numbers are saying that the impact of the moratorium has been negligible.

Why the Job Loss Claim Matters 

Judge Martin Feldman, who ruled on the request for the injunction two days after Jindal's attorneys filed their brief, signaled in his decision that the economic impact of the moratorium weighed heavily in his ruling.

The effect on employment, jobs, loss of domestic energy supplies caused by the moratorium as the plaintiffs (and other suppliers,  and the rigs themselves) lose business, and the movement of rigs to other sites around the world will clearly ripple throughout the economy in this region. (Page 22 of Feldman's ruling PDF).

 The Times-Picayune, which has steadfastly opposed the moratorium, cited the role of the economic impact of the moratorium on the development of Judge Feldman's ruling.

But, what if the job losses were imaginary, or worse, part of a hoax?

There can be no doubt that a total shutdown of deep water drilling would have a significant economic impact on Louisiana. But, that is not what has been proposed, despite the fact that this is precisely how some opponents of the moratorium have tried to frame the issue. What has been proposed is tighter safety, environmental and liability regulation on an industry that has called the shots in the Gulf of Mexico for several decades. The moratorium was used to allow new rules to be set and to determine what had gone wrong on the Deepwater Horizon.

The suit against the moratorium, though, was not brought by the companies that own the leases and are responsible for the drilling activity in the Gulf. That would be the big oil companies.

Instead, the suit was brought by essentially three groups of service companies who have bet their respective banks on deep water drilling. Those are Hornbeck Offshore Services, and companies controlled by the Bollinger and Chouest families.

These companies and those families have gotten rich helping the energy companies exploit the Gulf and Louisiana's offshore waters. In their view, no ecological or environmental cost has ever been too high a price to pay to enable them to continue their work.

Not even the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

What is equally tragic is that most of Louisiana's political class feels exactly the same way about the price the state pays for the few thousand jobs, the pittance of oil revenue (compared to, say, third world countries), and political contributions through which the industry controls the state.

The Jindal Tragedy

No politician exemplifies this craven attitude more so than Bobby Jindal. Confronted with the ruin of Louisiana's seafood industry, Jindal sided with the Bollingers, the Chouests, the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association and others in the 'no price is too high' crowd.

There was a moment after the Deepwater Horizon explosion where Jindal nearly appeared to appreciate the importance of Louisiana's coast. It proved fleeting. When he began prattling publicly for permits to build berms, it was nearly over. Any and all thoughts that Jindal cared about Louisiana's environment (other than as a backdrop for press conferences) were obliterated on June 20 when his attorneys added his voice to those of his patrons' voices in challenging the moratorium. Jindal was back 'home.'

The irony is that this so-called reformed governor is more deeply committed to protecting the interests that have dominated this state for decades than any governor in modern history, including Edwin Edwards. Edwards first came to office in the 1970s while oil and gas were still booming and jobs in the industry were plentiful.

Jindal is governor at a time when the industry has pulled its best jobs out of the state, leaving a few thousand drilling jobs. The refineries are still here. Today, the oil and gas industry in Louisiana has the distinct look and feel of a colonial power. A few tokens are thrown to the locals in the form of jobs and money for politicians, but the wealth is shipped out of state.

President Obama recognized that the interests of Louisiana and the interests of the industry are separate and distinct. He chose the interests of the state in allowing the Department of the Interior to proceed with the moratorium.

Jindal, who dreams of replacing Obama in the White House one day, either does not grasp that divergence, or he does get it but does not have the courage to act on that knowledge. Either way, it's a pretty damning assessment of the governor who is supposed to be the smartest guy in the room.

HOAX!: Moratorium job loss projections deceived a Judge and the Public

Three months into the the U.S. Department of the Interior's moratorium on deep water drilling and it is abundantly clear that the doom and gloom prophesied by opponents of the moratorium have not materialized.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission's (LWC) latest report shows record employment in the state in July, with falling unemployment in every metro market, including the Houma and Lafayette markets — the areas that opponents of the moratorium said would be devastated by the pause in deep water drilling.

The Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA) shows drilling rig activity holding steady in the range of about 185 rigs.

The Lafayette Economic Development Authority (LEDA) web site offers users the opportunity to examine drilling rig counts over time. In April of this year, LEDA's site shows that there were 75 more drilling rigs active in Louisiana than there were in the same month last year (April is the most recent month available in the LEDA site).

Even the Associate Executive Director for the LSU Center for Energy Studies (LSU CES), David Dismukes, has had to climb down from his predictions of gloom and doom and admit that the job losses the center predicted have not materialized.

Interestingly, all of the above parties were players in the drum beat leading up to the Rally for Economic Survival that opponents of the moratorium organized in Lafayette in July. LOGA was the prime organizer of the event. Presentations by the Louisiana Workforce Commission (PDF) and the LSU Center for Energy Studies (PDF) drove home the supposed dire consequences of the moratorium.

But, at the same time the Louisiana Workforce Commission study was being bandied about on stage in Lafayette, the weekly employment updates from the Commission were reporting falling numbers of new unemployment claims. This trend has continued all summer.

The LWC presentation at the rally was propaganda, pure and simple.

In the three months since it was declared, it has become clear that the moratorium has not had anything remotely near the devastating impact predicted by the oil and gas industry, its apologists and paid hangers on. It has also become clear that the LWC and the LSU CES played key roles in what amounts to a hoax that has been perpetrated against a federal court and the public regarding the moratorium on deep water drilling and its impact.

How do we know this? Steady drilling rig counts. Record employment. Low claims for new unemployment. And court documents.

Confecting A Hoax

To most outside observers, the worst oil spill in U.S. history justified a pause in deep water drilling activity until the causes of the disaster could be determined and new rules promulgated to govern the industry going forward. This is precisely the intent behind the deep water drilling moratorium issued by the Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on May 28.

What Salazar and the Obama administration did not immediately appreciate is that the moratorium threatened the web of offshore service companies in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. Those companies, especially those headed by Gary Chouest and Donald Bollinger, have become the financial muscle behind the rise of the Republican Party in Louisiana.

In fact, when Hornbeck Offshore filed suit against the moratorium, they were joined by 37 companies controlled by Chouest (16) and Bollinger (21). The fight against the moratorium in Louisiana was political from day one. The Office of the Governor filed an amicus brief on June 20 with the court in support of Hornbeck, Chouest and Bollinger. Bobby Jindal has been the beneficiary of the political largess of Chouest and Bollinger and has displayed a certain extravagant gratitude using public dollars — particularly to Chouest.

The anti-moratorium hoax appeared fully formed in the Jindal administration's amicus brief (PDF) on the case. In that filing, the state-endorsed purveyors of gloom and doom for the anti-moratorium forces were in place — the LSU CES and the LWC.

The state's brief points first to LSU CES as the source of its concerns about job losses. In the brief, the State of Louisiana, citing the center, claimed:

The impact of the moratorium is neither speculative nor remote. According to the LSU Center for Energy Studies, within only five months the moratorium will result in the direct layoff of 3,339 Louisiana workers and the loss of an additional 7,656 jobs indirectly in the State. (page 3)

The brief then puts the Louisiana Workforce Commission to work on behalf of the anti-moratorium effort.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) administers Louisiana's unemployment compensation system, its workers' compensation program and its workforce programs, including job training and work search services. Because of the moratorium, many thousands of Louisiana workers have lost their employment and many more are at risk of losing it in the near future. All of the programs administered by LWC have been and will be heavily impacted by its effects. (Emphasis added)

There's only one problem with these claims. They are false.

According to a news release issued by the LWC on June 18, new unemployment claims were falling not rising, as would have been the case if the moratorium were having the impact declared in the state's court filing. Here's the lead paragraph of that release:

Initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) for the week ending June 12, 2010, decreased to 4,902 from the previous week’s total of 5,188. Initial claims were below the comparable week ending June 13, 2009, figure of 5,139.

The LWC release from the following week also contradicted the assertions in the state's court filing:

Initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) for the week ending June 19, 2010, decreased to 4,450 from the previous week’s total of 4,902. Initial claims were below the comparable week ending June 20, 2009, figure of 6,113.

The four-week moving average of initial claims decreased to 4,927 from the previous week’s average of 4,975.

So, the state — through the Office of the Governor as represented by the State Attorney General — was making claims in federal court that it should have known were false.

Those false claims served as a significant reason that Judge Martin Feldman ruled against the moratorium:

The effect on employment, jobs, loss of domestic energy supplies caused by the moratorium as the plaintiffs (and other suppliers,  and the rigs themselves) lose business, and the movement of rigs to other sites around the world will clearly ripple throughout the economy in this region. (Page 22 of the ruling PDF.)

The argument that played so well with Judge Feldman would prove equally effective when it went public in support of the anti-moratorium rally in Lafayette.

Creature Comforts

The LSU Center for Energy Studies (LSU CES) is, to put it mildly, a creature of the oil and gas industry. The Center's has an Advisory Council that "provides research direction and guidance and frequently assists the Center in securing finances." The phrase 'bought and paid for' comes to mind.

The Advisory Council is comprised of a who's who of Louisiana energy company executives, including officers from the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association and the Louisiana Mid Continent Oil and Gas Association, the Louisiana Chemical Association, the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, and interim Lt. Governor Scott Angelle.

Would it be a stretch to imagine that someone on the Advisory Council suggested that the Center take the lead on producing the worst case scenarios that would serve as the basis for the anti-moratorium fight in Louisiana? Would it then be advantageous for the various members of the Advisory Council to begin parroting those 'findings' through their various communications channels to their members and the media?

That certainly appears to be what took place.

The moratorium was issued on May 28. Statistics from LSU CES were cited in the state's court filings on June 20. Those figures became a staple of the anti-moratorium propaganda thereafter.

Political Workforce

The Louisiana Workforce Commission offers a stark example of how the Jindal administration has politicized the upper level management of some state agencies. The proof is in the data that continues to flow from the LWC and how that data has regularly contradicted the claims being made publicly by the LWC's leadership as part of the heavily orchestrated political opposition to the deep water drilling moratorium.

The clearest public display of how Jindal has politicized the LWC can be found on slide two of the commission's presentation used at the Rally for Economic Survival. That slide ("Industries Directly Impacted by Moratorium") includes the questionable use of two employment categories — "Chemical and petroleum merchant wholesalers: includes bulk stations and terminals" and "Gasoline stations."

An argument could be made that there might be some slowdown in business at bulk stations and terminals if, say, the oil and gas industry was completely shut down (which is clearly not the case). But, under what set of circumstances could the moratorium possibly affect people working at gasoline stations?

The only reason these two categories were included in the presentation were to enable moratorium opponents to inflate the size and importance of the oil and gas industry in Louisiana. Including the gasoline station workers (does that include cashiers at, say, Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Valero stations?) ads 18,000 workers to the rolls of the 'potentially' affected.

This distortion was essential to the creation of a climate of fear needed to, at the very least, get 11,000 people to turn out for a political rally against the moratorium.

Follow the Money

The first threat of layoffs resulting from the moratorium was made by Edison Chouest Offshore at Port Fourchon on June 4. The first rally against the moratorium that Jindal attended took place in an Edison Chouest facility at Port Fourchon on June 10. The second event took place at the Gulf Island Fabricators facility in Houma on June 24. Gulf Island Fabricators just happens to be the company building Chouest's LaShip facility that Jindal has supported with state funds.

Jindal was the featured speaker at the Rally for Economic Survival. That was no accident considering the role he and his office have played in orchestrating the politically driven response to the moratorium.

Gary Chouest, though, has maintained an active role in the campaign through the dispersing of campaign contributions to Republican members of Louisiana's congressional delegation.

Contributions from individuals associated with Edison Chouest Offshore are make that firm the largest single contributor to Sixth District Congressman Bill Cassidy, according to the campaign finance website OpenSecrets. Cassidy of Baton Rouge called the deep water drilling moratorium, "a jobs moratorium."

Chouest Offshore-related contributions to An "Joseph" Cao rank that firm at the top of the freshman Republican's contribution list.

Chouest Offshore-related contributions ranked second among all contributors to Senator David Vitter's current campaign, again according to OpenSecrets.

The Chouest/Vitter connection should not be a surprise considering the fact that Chouest pumped $100,000 in to the Vitter-founded Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority in 2006.

Other than Jindal, no Louisiana politician has benefited more from the anti-moratorium furor than Vitter. It provided him a forum to discuss something other than his own sordid past and/or those of his staffers. In leading the fight against the moratorium at the federal level, Vitter spared no effort to ramp up the potential damage (Cassidy cites Vitter as the source for the claim of 150,000 families affected by the moratorium while Vitter cited Cassidy in radio spots.) nor to demonize President Obama.

Donald Bollinger has also been active on the campaign contributions front, but less so than Chouest.

The Fig Leaf

Interim Lt. Governor Scott Angelle has provided cover for the deeply partisan nature of the anti-moratorium effort. Angelle is a Democrat by party registration but, like Jindal, is most interested in pursuing his own ambition.

Angelle was appointed secretary of the Department of Natural Resources by Governor Kathleen Blanco in 2004 and was reappointed by Jindal in 2008. In addition to heading that department, Angelle has acted as a legislative liaison for Jindal in each session of the Legislature. He's also raised money for Jindal, having arranged an over night hunt for thus far unnamed donors earlier this year at a hunting lodge owned by a prominent Louisiana Democrat.

Because this is not an election year, the identity of Angelle's guests at the hunt will not be known until Jindal's campaign files it annual report on this year's activities after the first of the year. Angelle was still DNR secretary at the time. If the campaign party included members of the industries supposedly regulated by DNR, it will raise ethical flags. Of course, the Ethics Governor™ has so screwed up the state's ethics code when it comes to campaign finance, it is unlikely that anything could happen to Angelle even if it were proven that he took Tony Hayward with him out into the marshes of Cameron Parish.

Angelle's stint at DNR earned him some good friends in the oil and gas industry. Some of that friendship was the product of the St. Martin Parish native's winning personality. Some of it might have been related to the haphazard way his department tracked royalty payments the industry owed the state.

Nonetheless, Angelle has been an effective public face on the anti-moratorium farce. He has attack and mocked President Obama at every turn. He wowed the crowd at the anti-moratorium rally in Lafayette with a stump speech he'd been perfecting for at least a month before that event. He also led the effort to get thousands of people to sign a petition calling for the end of the moratorium.

All of that effort was made possible by the fear generated by the claims of the damage that the moratorium would inflict on Louisiana — none of which has come true.

The Circular Citing Squad

Angelle inadvertently revealed the self-fulfilling nature of the gloom and doomers when he testified on August 17 before a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship conducted by Senator Mary Landrieu. At that meeting in Lafayette, in prepared remarks Angelle cited numerous anecdotes from businesses about the supposed impact of the moratorium.

He cited a litany of businesses reporting sales being down in anticipation of the impact of the moratorium. Since the moratorium has had little or no economic impact in terms of jobs or drilling activity, Angelle was really testifying about the effectiveness of the hoax that he, Jindal and the industry have inflicted on the people of south Louisiana.

None of their predictions have come true. Yet, that has not stopped the grandstanding and political opportunism, nor the spreading of their particular brand of fear.

Consider this fact. The disgraced financier Alan Stanford allegedly scammed $8 billion from people through a Ponzi scheme involving IRAs. An estimated $2 billion of those losses came out of Louisiana, primarily in Lafayette and Baton Rouge. Those losses became known last year. The impact is hitting home this year.

The Stanford scam is hitting Louisiana harder than the moratorium. Yet, there is no Republican political gain to be scored by going after a criminal whose activity took place under the noses of the Bush/Cheney edition of the asleep at the switch Securities Exchange Commission.

The politics of fear is something about which Republicans are well-versed on the national level. The anti-moratorium hoax is a clear display of its power in state politics. As the deception becomes apparent, will those who perpetrated this hoax — Jindal, LOGA, Angelle and their allies — pay a price for it?

Louisiana faces some very tough choices. As the impact of the moratorium proves minimal, will the leaders who ran that fear campaign have the reservoirs of credibility to lead us through these challenges? Or, will they resort to gimmickry, trickery and deception — as  they have done with the moratorium — to accomplish political objectives that leave us diminished as a state?