VIDEO: Obama’s Anti-Drilling Agenda Endangers Gulf Coast Economy

Last year in the midst of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Heritage sent a team to the Gulf Coast to view the clean-up effort firsthand. At the time, the deepwater drilling moratorium was only beginning to disrupt the region’s economy. Today, one year after the oil spill, the Obama administration’s anti-drilling agenda poses a serious threat to recovery.

Heritage recently returned to the Gulf Coast to hear from business owners. Partnering with the Institute for Energy Research, we produced a video featuring Leslie Bertucci, owner of R and D Enterprises. She welcomed us to her warehouse with a weary smile, handed us hard hats and cheerfully guided us through her equipment yard, even as she explained the difficulties she’s endured since the spill — most especially as a result of the offshore drilling moratorium and the subsequent slowdown in deepwater permits.

Bertucci is a hard-working mother of six, who, with her husband, built her business from its start in a spare bedroom of her home to the industrial campus it is today. She says the drilling moratorium has caused her company’s revenue stream to all but dry up. R and D Enterprises supplies equipment to transport chemicals to and from deepwater oil rigs. When those rigs aren’t allowed to drill, R and D’s equipment sits idle in Bertucci’s once-empty-but-now-full equipment yard. Click here to share her story.