“Oh no!” they shouted.

“Doom and gloom!” they screamed.

“A six-month moratorium on deep water drilling?! There go thousands of jobs and zillions of dollars!” they bellowed.

President Obama, what the heck are you doing to America!?

Turns out, not so much:

[T]he worst of those forecasts has failed to materialize, as companies wait to see how long the moratorium will last before making critical decisions on spending cuts and layoffs. Unemployment claims related to the oil industry along the Gulf Coast have been in the hundreds, not the thousands, and while oil production from the gulf is down because of the drilling halt, supplies from the region are expected to rebound in future years. Only 2 of the 33 deepwater rigs operating in the gulf before the BP rig exploded have left for other fields. [...]

[I]t now appears that the direst predictions about the moratorium will not be borne out. Even the government’s estimate of the impact of the drilling pause — 23,000 lost jobs and $10.2 billion in economic damage — is proving to be too pessimistic.

So why is Big Oil doing just dandy, thank you?

Drilling firms have kept most of their workers, knowing that if they let them go it will be hard to field experienced teams when the moratorium is lifted. Oil companies have shifted operations to onshore wells, saving industry jobs.

P.S. Deep water drilling is here to stay. Way to have foresight, world.

UPDATE:

The chairmen of the presidential panel investigating the Gulf oil spill are expressing disappointment that the Obama administration didn’t consult with senior U.S. environmental officials before announcing plans to expand offshore drilling before the accident.