Crist, Barbour clash on drilling

[NNN0LHI]

http://politicalinsider.blogs.heraldtribune.com/11278/crist-barbour-clash-on-drilling/

June 13th, 2010 07:03pm

Crist, Barbour clash on drilling

by Jeremy Wallace

While Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour agree the media is over-hyping the impact of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the two couldn’t have disagreed more when talking about the future of drilling in the Gulf.

On CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Crist said the spill shows the federal government should continue the moratorium on drilling, while Barbour said the moratorium only serves to hurt the U.S. economy by resulting in lost jobs in the drilling industry.

“If this spew in middle of the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t tell us we need to be more cautious and more careful about doing this in the future, I don’t know what else would,” Crist said. “I mean, we don’t have these rigs off the Florida coast. We are suffering from the one off the Louisiana coast. It troubles me greatly that that’s occurring.”

Barbour, a Republican, said if drilling companies can’t drill here, they will take their jobs and equipment overseas to West Africa and Brazil where oil is plentiful.

[Jennicut]

1. Barbour doesn't want to deal with reality. Let them pollute West Africa and Brazil then.

Deep sea drilling is not safe in any way. BP obviously cut corners and has a terrible safety record. But would even good regulations ensure no accidents will happen? It is an unstable process and one spill is so hard to stop that deep in the ocean.

[EC]

2. They'd take the jobs and equipment there anyway.

That's what is causing a lot of the trouble in Africa already...oil companies using outside labor and when they do hire the locals they pay them in rubber checks...so it doesn't matter one way or another what we do here...it's a lot cheaper there - without labor laws or safety regs...


On edit: labor and regulatory laws have to be international