This is sad and takes place all over the country.  See Exxon fighting regulatory “pirates” in Gulf of Mexico.  While pretending to be pro-drilling, this is what happens behind the scenes.  It is costly and damaging for all of us, via higher energy costs, lower tax receipts, more dependence on the Middle East, higher welfare costs and the unemployment it causes.

ExxonMobil, and its Norwegian partner Statoil made the biggest discovery of all — a field worth a billion barrels of oil — 7,000 feet below sea level in its “Julia” field in 2007.

. . . Instead of marvel at the continuing treasures of the New World, or hail the human ingenuity that made retrieval of so much oil possible, or simply quantify how this discovery will boost U.S. energy security, Interior Department bureaucrats moved instead to snatch Exxon’s permits and shut the whole thing down.

Employing an extreme technicality, these regulators claimed that Exxon’s request in 2008 for a short suspension of activity to upgrade and make safer its drilling operation amounted to an abandonment of three of its five permits, simply because Exxon hadn’t signed a contract with another partner, Chevron, by the time the suspension was completed. …

Exxon is now fighting the permit action in a federal court in Lake Charles, La., calling it “arbitrary,” “capricious” and “an abuse of law.” It’s also a textbook case of the anti-business climate fostered by the Obama administration which should be bending over backward to help Exxon create jobs and profits.

So let’s look at what the Obama administration is trying to accomplish, and what it’s costing you as a result.

Well, it’s going to cost us jobs in the Gulf, and not just there, either.  As IBD points out, drilling requires a lot more support than just people working on the rig.  The rigs have to be built, and then the heavy machinery has to be manufactured — “in places like Youngstown, Ohio,” at a steel plant that makes the pipes for the rig.

So killing the project means killing those jobs, which means less tax revenue for Uncle Sam,  And speaking of revenue, let’s not forget that Exxon would have to pay taxes and royalties on production, with revenue reaching into the billions.  Wouldn’t that help us out with our fiscal troubles in Washington, at least in some small measure?  You bet it would.