panel. what about this? the moratorium and where we are politically going forward? there are two issues. one is the question of the deception. if you read the report and you read the let they re the engineers sent saying in effect don t pretend that this is what we were saying when in fact, really we were saying precisely the opposite, the deception is not a small issue. you have to say if this were the bush administration this would be huge news discussed all the time. president obama, is he hiding behind science that, in fact, the scientists themselves don t believe? that is the first issue. the second issue on the economics of this is i think particularly disturbing when you look at the impact, the potential impact of this. you had mary landrieu on the hill the other day talking about it, just in louisiana. she extrapolated from the people on the rig, on the 33 rigs, 100 to 200 people per rig, four to five people supporting those directly. she came up with a total of 330,000 peopl
documents saying they contain confidential advice. arlington national cemetery is getting a steady stream of calls from worried relatives about the possibility the remains of loved ones have been misidentified or misplaced. thursday as we told you, the pentagon forced out the top two officials at arlington, after complaints about such problems. oil drilling experts came out against the president s plan for a moratorium. we ll dig that some more. up next, the forced relocation of billions of dollars worth of art.
stressed research and backing of oil experts and engineers. however, now the engineers are speaking out saying their expert analysis has been misrepresent misrepresented the support the moratorium, writing a letter to the interior secretary, a blanket moratorium is not the answer. it will have the indirect effect of hurting thousands of workers and impact state and local economies suffering from the spill. since then the interior secretary sent a letter admitting the administration independently concluded that the moratorium should be stopped. meantime, barrels of oil per day, 6,000 the original 5,000 barrel estimate and it s equal to exxon valdez spill in the gulf every eight to ten days. that s what we are looking at as the gulf oil spill continues. let s bring in the panel. haystephen hayes, the weekly standard. juan williams, national public radio. syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. steve, welcome back to the
think his name is robert bea from berkeley said listen, most of this report is, in fact, quite good and excellent. it s just that we never specifically signed off on a quote moratorium. we agreed there might be a pause and the pause was intended to allow for safety precautions, in other words we don t know what caused this rig to explode. we don t understand the amount of the spill. it s almost unprecedented in nature. so there was a suggestion maybe there should be a pause. i think where ken salazar and maybe e.p.a. also overstepped their bounds here was by then later inserting language after the scientists had seen the document calling for the moratorium. from what we understand that came from the white house. that was a political decision. that s where this thing then goes over the line. but i will say this, i think that most people at the time that this happened, especially given as you just earlier reported that b.p. has not been a reliable partner telling us the extent of the s
moratorium immediately kind of a panic. perhaps in some way, reasonable move. let s immediately hold up everything and see what happens. but the declaration of a six-month moratorium is far different from asking for a pause that you could do for a quick safety check. bret: let s talk briefly about the jones act, if i could. you want to finish? it s economically devastating. the gulf has already lost fishing, and lost tourism and now it s going to lose a huge industry, the oil support industry. that does not make any sense. bret: the problem for some, that some are charging is some of the skimmer boats from overseas that are not u.s.-owned and operated cannot work in coastal waters because of the 1920s act called the jones act. therefore, they re barred from working in coastal waters. what about this? and does this have an impact? charles? i think, look, this is a fairly serious issue. if it s true that people who