The US government has imposed a blanket ban on all existing exploratory drilling operations and it has also stopped issuing any new environmental clearances. Also each of the existing projects would be put through a stringent environmental review and only those that pass through the review would be allowed to re-start the drilling work.
This would mean loss of hundreds and thousands of jobs for the already battered US economy and it would also result in higher cost of imports for US in the long term because more oil needs to be imported to feed the growing gas needs.
Also over the next few months, if the ban continues, there could be a surge in crude oil prices, which in turn could push up the inflation rate. That in turn would pull down the future economic recovery of the US economy, which the US economy can ill afford.
So we need to see how the Obama administration handles the complex problem. If you go by the lax way in which the US government has handled the financial reforms issue, we can reasonably expect the US government to recall the ban in a month or two, after the oil spill issue is sorted out fully.
US oil drilling set for a downfall
May - 28 - 2010 - Friday
