This is no time to stop offshore production

It’s not enough that our coastal economy is in such turmoil. Now, the President has called a halt to all deeper offshore explorations and drilling for oil that will cripple the livelihoods of many more of our residents.

Cause of the current oil spill has no relationship to the regular offshore production in Louisiana that has been done for years without any major problems.

And let’s look at it in other ways. If we quit producing off the Louisiana coast, we will be helping to build up production of oil off the coasts of other countries, many of them hostile to the U. S.

We certainly would not object to helping other well-meaning countries build their economies by exporting their oil to the U. S. But to help those who would use their profits to destroy us is not to be accepted.

In regards to our state, we need the production of oil in the immediate future to offset the losses likely to our other coastal industries. We don’t know yet just how severe the spill will be in killing off our commercial fisheries which certainly will not live well with oil floating alongside them.

But this is no time to cut off our coastal oil industry income to study a problem that has been no problem in the past. We need to go on with exploration and production and further our studies and efforts to prevent any future tragedies such as this.

The President should reword his order to allow exploration and production such as we have done in the past to continue and to put more stringent requirements on those that could in any way replicate what he have experienced with the recent oil spill.

It is the only way to help stabilize the coast of Louisiana.