Protect Environment and Protect Jobs: During "Moratorium", A Rescue Well for Every Production Well

It is not necessary to choose between protecting the environment with a brief moratorium on off-shore drilling, and protecting jobs of rig-workers. Nor is it necessary to have a rush-to-judgment to reinstitute offshore drilling.

We can do both. Require a rescue well to be drilled for every currently producing well. That would keep the rigs here, the rig-workers employed, and create a safer Gulf of Mexico.

It requires no government funding.

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced a bill requiring all future deep-sea wells to have such a rescue well drilled as a pre-condition of licensing and certification.

Why not make it compulsory for all wells, whether currently operating or in the future?

Of course, the oil companies and the Republicans will object.

The American people will hear that loud and clear.