Mark Ballard's opinion column in the Times Picayune of 11/7 titled, "Trump likely to boost Louisiana drilling" was dominated by how Trump's election would bring about great things for Louisiana offshore drilling. But the article failed to point out how under Trump's first term in office, offshore drilling went south and so did employment in the industry for Louisiana's workers. If Mark did his homework, he would have known that but failed to mention how Trump failed to "drill baby drill" when President.
The offshore rig count went down greatly on Trump's watch and never came close to the number of rigs working offshore on President Obama's watch in either of his terms. And President Obama had to deal with the BP oil explosion that took the lives of 11 workers and polluted Louisiana's coastline. Obama also declared a moratorium of drilling until answers could be found and Louisiana's GOP said it would kill offshore drilling. Of course it did not and as usual it was just the usual GOP lies. The U.S. became the world's leading producer of oil on Obama's watch and continues to be on President Biden's watch today.
The Louisiana offshore drilling rig count in Obama's second term averaged 38 rigs working per year. The rig count during Trump's first four years averaged 17 rigs working per year, less than half of what took place under Obama. The rig count in Obama's first term averaged 35 rigs working per year. The Times Picayune published a graft on 1/27/21 that showed the number of employees working in the industry from 1992-Dec. 2020. It showed top employment took place in May of 1998 when 59,500 were employed. The low point came in 2020 when only 29,200 were employed. Over that 28 year period, the high took place on President Clinton's watch, and the lowest on President Trump's watch. And the most consistent high took place on both Clinton and Obama's watch, both democrats.
The facts tell us, offshore Louisiana drilling does the best when democrats control the White House and that the democrats can walk the talk. The GOP and their supporters are unable to do the same.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
Rig count numbers were taken from the official records of The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, Office of Conservation.
