Trump administration exempts Florida from offshore drilling expansion

Well that's interesting? Florida?

Continuing its effort to unravel Barack Obama’s environmental legacy, the administration announced last week that it would open virtually all offshore waters to oil and gas exploration — a stark reversal of Mr Obama’s move to prohibit energy extraction across hundreds of millions of acres of ocean.

While the change drew praise from top Republicans and energy industry officials, it also generated a bipartisan backlash from elected officials in states that border the ocean — among them Florida’s Republican governor and senator, who warned of environmental degradation.

www.independent.co.uk...

...and the Mar O Lago?

What's funny, the excuse was that Florida's coasts were heavily 'reliant on tourism' and they didn't want to risk further expansion of drilling. Funny that? This drew anger from other State officials. California had a response:

“California is also ‘unique’ & our ‘coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.’ Our ‘local and state voice’ is firmly opposed to any and all offshore drilling,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said on Twitter. “If that's your standard, we, too, should be removed from your list. Immediately.”

I thought offshore drilling was nice and safe and necessary for energy independence? So explain why this Republican governor from Florida so concerned when it comes to his own state? But it's perfectly fine for other states to be subjected to more drilling?

Florida has a sizable off shore oil reserve as with other Gulf states so the explanation there isn't enough reserves anyway is pure nonsense.

My attitude to all this is what's good for the goose is good for the gander. But this is a classic case of do as I say, not as I do.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

Your second link is bad.

And half of Florida is reliant on tourism, not merely stoked by it. Cali has Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Humbolt Valley, the west coast ports the state is built upon. FL is built upon tourism.

Shouldnt you be be glad at least some part of US coasts would be kept something pristine?

a reply to: Southern Guardian

yep he did it, whacha gonna do but zoom, zoom, zoom and a boom boom, another hate thread we get it you don't like the guy but but but, it's all about the benjamins....

Okay you got me curious, but I couldnt find a map of 'Florida's off shore oil reserves'.

Also has me wondering, if they did open up the waters and blotted all the beaches with platforms, what good would that end up doing any of the residents of Florida?

Meaning what good does se all those Louisiana platforms do any of the residents there?

so you'd rather more offshore drilling or less?

or are you insinuating the location of Trumps lair and many other rich cronies and kiddie fiddlers is what was the impetus for Florida s exemption.

a reply to: Southern Guardian

Stick around people, this is where all the conservatives defend their hypocrisy. Go ahead. Please explain, while I sit back and laugh.

I don't see what the problem is.

It promotes jobs

Who cares if some cruise liner or fishing boat sees an oil rig in the distance. It's not unsightly. Not to mention, fish flock around drillships, platforms, jackups and floaters. They come for the garbage food that is tossed over various times a day and seeing so many schools of fish during those times is an amazing sight.

It's not going to have any effect on tourism. Unless there is an oil spill and that's not all that common.

Besides... Those idiots still don't see that when there are more oilfield jobs, the economy does much better. Rig hands have good paying jobs. They spend more on homes, vehicles, food and restaurants. The last recent downturn caused a trickle down effect that we're only just now barely recovering from. Oil companies give jobs and spend a LOT of money that all gets pushed into more jobs and the economy.

a reply to: StallionDuck

Yeah those guys do shifts like a month on month off and get fat stacks. Okay so how many jobs per platform? And what percentage of them would be FLoridians???

And is that all the ordeal does for anybody besides the Federal Government cronies / the Oil Tycoons?

But dont kid yourself: if people can see them from the beaches it WILL affect tourism.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Also has me wondering, if they did open up the waters and blotted all the beaches with platforms, what good would that end up doing any of the residents of Florida? Meaning what good does se all those Louisiana platforms do any of the residents there?

Jackups doesn't "blot" our beaches in Louisiana. That's not how it works. When you look off into the horizon, you MIGHT see specks of oil rigs in the distance. Most rigs are many miles offshore and you can't see them from the beach. They are far beyond what you can see.

The same thing for Florida. You MIGHT see a speck on the horizon once in a while. You WONT be tossing out a beach towel and look out and see a rig blocking their precious sunlight.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: StallionDuck

Yeah those guys do shifts like a month on month off and get fat stacks. Okay so how many jobs per platform? And what percentage of them would be FLoridians???

And is that all the ordeal does for anybody besides the Federal Government cronies / the Oil Tycoons?

But dont kid yourself: if people can see them from the beaches it WILL affect tourism.

Well, it depends on what kind of rig we're talking about.

Jackups:

So you have your standard floor crew which is no less than 10 people. That's per shift. So anywhere from 20 to 30 floor hands including driller, motor, mud and derrick. (I'm basing this on average and it depends on how many shifts per day. 2 or 3.

You then have galley crew. this is likely at least another 10 people. You may have extra depending on if the galley crew does laundry, cleaning and beds or if there are others for that job.

Then you have 3rd party. These are guys that do random jobs at various times through out the job, like cementers, directional, solids control, techs fixing issues, and so forth. This is an unknown number from day to day so I'll say 4-16 people. Solids control itself has about 4-5 people. So the number could be more still.

Then you have seniority which are the pushers, rig managers, company men, clerks etc. These guys are also shift work so you may have 2 each per day. It depends

Then you have mechanics and welders and electricians. 1 to 2 each per day.

You might also have on board divers.

You have a safety guy / medic.

This is all off the top of my head.

Jackups are usually in 'shallow' waters, say up to 10k feet of water. These are small rigs. You have barges, which are a little smaller which are used in really shallow areas like bays.

You have drill ships which can hold WAY more people. You have Floaters which are no less than double what a jackup has and some are even miniature city sized. They're frigging huge. There are 7 different kinds of offshore rigs and each one bigger than the other and each type carrying many more people.

Now, not only are you giving mad stacks to those guys working on those rigs but you're giving mad stacks to all the people involved that are not on the rigs. Company side, rig side, 3rd party side all have offices and staff. Managers, secretaries, HR, techs, billing, and so forth. All companies are likely to have cleaning staff and vendors for food and coffee.

The company I'm with staffs an unbelievable amount of people. For instance... During one of the most recent layoffs, we laid off over 5k people just in one 'store'. Here where I work our of my divisions home office, we have around 500 people in this building and we have many stores/locations around the country, all around the world. We staff thousands of people all around the world. And that's just my division under a multi national company. We have MANY divisions.

So it's not just the rigs. It's everything that connects to it. So many jobs are reliant on them. When the company on the rig makes money, everyone connected to them make money. They don't just spend money... they spend it stupidly. On a slow down, I can charge 20$ for a wrench. Probably not much over what it's worth. When it's kicking, I can charge 1000$ for the wrench and 500$ to deliver it or charge 200$ per day renting it to them. It's an example but a good one. Anyone who works in the oilfield can back that up for me.

That money trickles down. Everyone who's employed in the oilfield related industry gets a cut and when it's booming, we all get a really GOOD cut and we support many many jobs.


ETA - on the jackups, you also have crew boats and work boats moving fuel, supplies and what not, back and forth every day and many times a day. You also have helicopters in and out. So all those attach to one rig one way or another. Like I mentioned, the spider web is vast for any 1 rig.



Opps.. forgot the other question. It depends on who gets the jobs. Usually companies like to hire people as local as possible. If there isn't anyone local to take on, they will fly others out to do the job. In this case, our company would likely open a store there, hiring all local except for management. That's just 3rd party. Oil companies like to open shop local and base everything out of one small area but when they do and it's big, they might buy up a huge chunk in that area and employ way more people. It's kind of like walmart or a casino. They come in, buy up lot of land and employ everyone around it.

Houston is a great example. A very large chunk of Houston is oilfield based and so many people are part of that.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

This is Galveston in Texas and an example

a reply to: StallionDuck

Too bigly for FL beaches.



a reply to: StallionDuck

Okay so 500 rigs = how many jobs | total added income for Florida's workforce?

And who else does all that ordeal benefit (besides the tycoons & cronies)?

a reply to: StallionDuck

That also doesn't look like the ocean blue, kinda the ocean brown.. I'm sorry I really liked texas when my family took me there, Now they need a straight jacket cuz I'm going to Bikini Atoll..

That's right, Texas....


This might affect tourism:
www.kristv.com...

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

CORPUS CHRISTI -
What do you think should happen to what will happen Bliss?


edit: it's early

a reply to: StallionDuck

You have yet to provide any evidence that this is good for Florida. Oil rigs might provide a few thousand jobs, many of those jobs not going to Florida residents while risking the inevitable oil spills that will hurt tourism on the beaches.

[snipped]

Wgo benrfits here? Certainly not the citizens of Florida!

Stop exporting our non renewable resources. That’s really dumb, just to make a couple of billionaires. We wouldn’t need to destroy our oceans for more.

But, til then the party in power will take care of their friends and property.

Oil "seepage" is the factor.

Why are mysterious balls of tar washing up on Texas beaches?

Tarballs wash up on Gulf Coast beaches every summer. But where do these gooey glops of gunk come from, anyway?

That’s the mystery Steve Buschang works to solve every time one appears on the Texas coast. Buschang is the director of research and development at the Texas General Land Office’s Oil Spill Prevention and Response Division. He’s working to develop a tarball database to help match tarballs on Texas beaches to known sources of pollution.

“Tarballs can range from a pesky nuisance to an economic nightmare for a tourist town,” Buschang said. “The science behind this project may give us a better understanding of where these are coming from and possibly how to better manage these events.”

a reply to: network dude

Bwaahaha WHAT?!? That was too funny too early. Thank you