“Today’s report from the Obama Administration on the job losses caused by their blanket deepwater drilling moratorium downplays the true impact being felt in the Gulf Region,” said Randall Luthi, President of the National Ocean Industries Association. The report, released at the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship hearing, reduces the original projections of 23,000 lost jobs resulting from the gulf drilling moratorium to between 8,000 to 12,000, and predicts that most of those will be temporary losses. “The original estimate of 23,000 job losses was based on the assumption that offshore energy companies would lay off their entire drill-rig related workforces,” said Luthi.