Obama’s Oil Moratorium Victims Speak Out: “We Need to Return to Work”

Vincent Coglianese / August 19, 2010

Businesswoman Lori Davis didn’t mince words at Tuesday’s U.S. Senate field hearing in Lafayette, LA: “The Obama administration has done absolutely nothing to protect, help or support us as an industry that feeds and powers this nation.” Davis told the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, “We need answers, we deserve answers, we need to return to work.”

Davis, owner of RIG-CHEM, was one of many victims who gave a very human face to President Obama’s ongoing Gulf drilling moratorium, currently not scheduled to be lifted until November.

The adjustments we have to make just to move forward are deeply cutting every day into a quickly diminishing savings. …We have determined that [we] can maintain without cutting salaries or benefits for our employees. … I’m sad to say this can only last until December. After this we will be forced to lay people off and cut benefits.

Charles Goodson, owner of Charley G’s Restaurant in Lafayette, has already seen his profits plummet nearly 57 percent, and expects to end the year at a loss should the moratorium stay in effect. (more…)