Louisiana oil rigs set the stage for a national energy debate

Visitors to Lafayette might be forgiven for wondering whether the BP oil spill and subsequent drilling moratorium ever happened. As The Los Angeles Times reports, “Now hiring” signs are plastered on billboards around the city, and hotels such as the Crowne Plaza are chock full of seminars training students to work on offshore rigs. Many offshore companies can’t find enough workers for the jobs they’re listing. The parish boasts the lowest unemployment rate in Louisiana, 4.8%. The Obama administration takes credit for this sea change in an area that was all but closed during a six-month moratorium on offshore drilling in 2010. But companies there complain about a sluggish permit process and say the hiring signs are up now because so many workers left town during the moratorium. When Mitt Romney came to Louisiana this spring, he picked up on their complaints. Obama “made it harder to get energy in America, and so he shouldn’t be taking credit for that,” Romney said, standing on a natural gas rig. As gas prices fluctuate and the economy remains stagnant, energy is becoming one of the more contentious issues in the 2012 campaign. Nowhere is the energy issue more sensitive than in Louisiana and along the Gulf of Mexico, where environmentalists butt heads with economic development officials after one of the biggest environmental disasters in U.S. history. The strange thing is, experts say, that despite the politics, Romney and Obama have essentially the same position on offshore drilling. Check out the full feature here.