This “it’s only 33 wells affected by the moratorium, so it’s no big deal” business is popping up in the wake of the judge lifting President Obama’s drilling moratorium, but here’s the Louisiana blog Bayou Buzz reporting on what’s really going on in the Gulf and the impact on jobs:

The social and economic consequences of President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium are starting to manifest themselves and will rapidly worsen. News spread this week that eight of the 33 deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico had either left or were finalizing their plans to do so. Workers, businesses, lending institutions, and our state and local governments have started making plans for dealing with the economic disaster that is accompanying the ecological one in the Gulf.

Unfortunately, the myth that shallow-water drilling isn’t being affected by the deepwater moratorium is rapidly being exposed as a cruel hoax. Not a single federal permit for shallow-water activity has been granted since the April 20 disaster. Some 16 shallow-water rigs that were all engaged before the incident are now sitting idle. In 30 days, that total will grow to 34 rigs. Approximately 50 offshore marine service and supply vessels are already out of work and that number will expand to over a hundred very soon. Louisiana’s shipbuilding industry—a critical player in our state’s economy—is bracing for a potentially devastating drop in new business orders and the likely cancellation of some existing contracts.

An economy is an organic entity. It is a complex, interdependent set of financial relationships that feed off each other in good times and kill each other off in down cycles. The ill-conceived drilling moratorium has now set into motion destructive economic chain reactions that won’t stop offshore or on the coast. They will spiral out to other parts of the state and nation very quickly.

The moratorium is another example of an obvious shortcoming of President Obama. He often lets his words outrun the facts. He did it, for example, when he said he would close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shortly after his inauguration. It is still there because no better alternative has been found to deal with the dangerous individuals housed there. The same thing is happening with the drilling moratorium.

The rest here.