Louisiana Oil & Gas Association – Don Briggs -

Part of that is due to current economic factors but political factors have the potential to do even more damage and according to former State Senator Craig Romero. Government Agencies like the Minerals Management Service have already inflicted some serious damage.

Craig Romero:  “Just a month ago we were dealing with another issue involving MMS making a decision based on a court case in Washington D.C. Saying they were not going to issue any drilling permits that were relative to leases that were obtained in 2007 and 2008″.

Romero is referring to the results of a federal lawsuit filed by environmentalists in Alaska against the Department of Interior.

Their aim was to halt a deep water drilling project off the Alaskan coast. The judge hearing the case agreed to do that and more.

In explaining his decision the judge ruled the Department of Interior did not consider impacts on marine animals before putting areas of the ocean bottom up for a lease sale.

And for that reason the judge found the government’s entire leasing program to be irrational.

The new director of the MMS appointed just last week is refusing to comment on the pending litigation.

She is also refusing to even discuss the current situation in the oil and gas industry.

She has also turned down offers from Eyewitness News to simply provide some reassuring that might help to some extent to stabilize what is currently a very unstable situation.

Some say that’s not surprising considering her boss, President Barak Obama has made it very clear he thinks the oil and gas industry should be shelved in favor of green energy alternatives.

Senator Mary Landrieu, a long time champion of the state’s energy industry says the president just doesn’t get it.

Mary Landrieu: “Part of my job is trying to straighten out that message and help move the president I think in a more informed and appropriate position. With all due respect I think they have under estimated the importance of the oil and gas industry and the importance of continuing domestic production at as high as levels as possible as we transition toward wind and solar.”

In Houston Devin Engineering has laid off 65 engineers. They are also in the process of reorganizing their Lafayette production office.

But the real problems still lay ahead.  To what extent will our overall economy be impacted? We will have to wait and see.

Don Briggs tells Eyewitness news he thinks the current downturn could last as long as three years.

Part 1

For consumers falling gas prices are good news, but for those in the oil and gas industry they are just another indication of reduced demand.

For the tens of thousands of people along the Gulf Coast who rely in one way or another on the oil and gas industry for their pay check, it is not good news at all.

Ninteen Eighty Six, that was the year the bottom fell out of the nations oil and gas industry, leaving thousands of Louisiana men and women out of job.

In many respects the industry never recovered because many of the best and brightest were laid off and never returned, and this time it’s even worse.

A lack of demand combined with what many in the oil and gas industry consider to be an adversarial relationship with the Obama Administration, has drilling activity in Louisiana alone at an all time low.

Don Briggs, the President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association says it’s the worst he’s ever seen.

First in our special series of reports on the oil patch well take a closer look at just how bad things are, and what that will mean to the tens of thousands of us who rely in one way or another on money from the oil and gas industry to feed our families.