HOUSTON -- Congressman Kevin Brady will hold a special meeting Monday evening speaking out against the drilling moratorium that was put in place by the Obama administration.
Brady will be talking to a group in northwest Houston called the King Street Patriots. The group, which holds a lot of the same beliefs as the Tea Party, is now aligning itself against the drilling moratorium. Postings on the King Street Patriots' website address the need for guidance in order to protect the oil industry and jobs in the area.
Some of the people behind those jobs work at Diamond Offshore, a local drilling company. On Monday, a class was held for oil-rig drillers looking to move up the management ladder. Between number-crunching formulas and problems, the men said figuring out what the future holds for them and their crews is the trickiest calculation of all.
"All my people that work under me, all they can basically think about is if they're going to be there the next day or the next hitch, if they get that lucky," said Charles Smith, a Diamond Offshore driller.
Oil-rig crews are worried because of the uncertainty in the Gulf region. After the Deepwater Horizon explosion, President Obama ordered a ban on deepwater drilling.
"Already I've issued a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling," Obama said back in June while addressing the oil spill. "I know this creates difficulty for the people who work on these rigs. But for the sake of their safety and for the sake of the entire region, we need to know the facts before we allow deepwater drilling to continue."
A judge later lifted the president's ban, but the administration came back with a second moratorium, which halted deepwater drilling in the Gulf until November.
The new moratorium caused Houston-based Diamond Offshore Co. to move two of their rigs overseas. Workers wonder if more rigs will follow.
"It's a bad situation," said Smith. "In my eyes, all it's doing is taking our employment and taking it overseas."
"When you go to bed at night, you wonder if you're going to get a phone call the next day," said Diamond Offshore driller Kyle Lawler.
For now, Smith is looking to a higher authority to figure what's the best plan for the oil-rig workers in the Gulf.
"All I can do is hope and pray," said Smith.
