Reporting on the negotiations between BP and White House.

 

Marketplace radio passed along to listeners the oil industry assertion that it was spending $300 million a month on the wages of workers on offshore drilling rigs that have been idled by President Obama's moratorium on new deep water drilling. The Washington Post reports that the ban has idled 33 deep-water drilling rigs.

If the average worker on a rig earns $100,000 a year, the industry's claim about lost wages would imply that it was employing 36,000 workers, or more than 1,000 on each idled rig. This seems implausibly high, and should cause reporters to question the industry's claim rather than just report it as being true. (The industry has an incentive to exaggerate the impact of the moratorium on workers since it helps to advance its agenda of ending the moratorium.)

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