Want to Create 230,000 Jobs and Increase GDP by $44 Billion? Start Drilling.

From Big Peace:

The Obama Administration has long been hostile to domestic oil and natural gas production. The impacts of these policies are becoming clear. One recent study found that the Administration’s moratorium and slowdown in permitting in the Gulf of Mexico has cost the United States over $4 billion in economic output and nearly 20,000 jobs.[i] A new study has found that there is great economic potential if the Administration speeds up their slow permitting process.
The Gulf Economic Survival Team, a group of energy and business interests based largely in Louisiana,  had IHS Global Insight and IHS CERA study the impact of faster permitting of oil leases on offshore oil production and the economies of the United States and affected states.[ii] They determined that increased exploration and permitting approval in 2012 would:

• Create 230,000 U.S. jobs
• Increase U.S. GDP by more than $44 billion
• Increase tax and royalty revenues for state and federal treasuries by almost $12 billion
• Increase oil production by more than 400,000 barrels per day (150 million barrels per year)
• Reduce U.S. payments for oil imports by about $15 billion.

Other findings are:

• Almost twice the number of exploration and development plans are pending from the Department of Interior compared to pre-moratorium levels
• Approvals of exploration plans have decreased by 85 percent.
• The median number of days for approving an exploration plan has increased from 36 days to 131 days.

Further, ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the moratorium for more lucrative areas offshore in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Brazil.[iii] Although federal officials announced they were lifting the restrictions last October on a moratorium put in place in May 2011, a “de-facto moratorium” remains in effect that lowers oil and natural gas production and impacts businesses in the Gulf region.

There's more at the link.

This is such an easy solution to many different problems, but yet Obama continues to be an environmental ideologue who thinks we can build cars that run on sunshine and rainbows.