Mary Landrieu

We are not sure if you can fish in the same waters that you can drill oil and gas.

It is time that we get back to doing what we do best in Louisiana, and that is, fueling our nation.

Idling the deepwater rigs that were permitted to drill in the deepwater Gulf will immediately impact as many as 46,000 crewmen.

Our Federal Government has a responsibility, particularly in these difficult times, to make sure that their paychecks will not turn into pink slips.

This decision to halt all new energy production in the Gulf of Mexico appears to have been made in an uninformed manner and, in my view, borders on reckless.

The only company drilling in the Gulf of Mexico today in deep water is the company that caused the spill--British Petroleum.

I sent a letter to President Obama yesterday announcing my intention to hold another hearing no later than September 16th.

I share the Administration's goal of a safer oil and gas industry, not their method to achieve that.

By stopping drilling in the Gulf, are we helping the environment or harming it? I believe we are actually harming it.

I would say to the Administration, listen to your own experts. Listen to the facts, as the Chair of this Committee has so articulately pronounced them today, and let us have our jobs back.

The irony of this decision is that they are the only ones drilling right now in the Gulf.

My question to President Obama and to his Administration after they scrambled to put an economic analysis together that they should have put together before they made this decision is: Who is going to pick up the cost of this?

This decision was wrong-headed, it is irresponsible, and it is reckless.

Unnecessary, ill-conceived, and a second economic disaster for the Gulf Coast. The BP oil spill was the exception rather than the rule.

Lifting this moratorium can give us back its 'Joie de vivre.'

I too believe the moratorium is arbitrary and capricious.

We must get the Gulf of Mexico back producing for national security, for our environmental, and for small businesses.

And that is assuming the best-case scenario, and we are not on a glide path to that right now, in my view.

We cannot close down the offshore oil and gas sector without devastating economic impacts to our region.

Increasing our dependence on foreign oil has direct ramifications on our national security.

We are going to continue to have hearing after hearing in this committee, if necessary, until this issue is brought squarely before the American public.

The Administration's decision to halt drilling activity did more than threaten the livelihood of thousands of rig workers and oil and gas service crews; it drastically reduced the amount of economic activity taking place in the Gulf Coast…

This Administration seems to be ignoring the fact that this action has actually increased environmental risk.

And this is a letter I sent to President Obama on July 26th, and that should be reflected in the record.

I tried to explain to them that, first of all, TARP was a $700 billion fund for banks that had troubled assets. This is a $30 billion fund for healthy banks to lend to small business. There were lots of bankers opposed to TARP. I tried to…