Lift the drilling moratorium

To a public traumatized by weeks of news stories about oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken British Petroleum oil rig, every explosion in those waters echoes the same way. That's unfortunate.

The timing couldn't have been worse for the failure Thursday of a platform owned by Mariner Energy Inc., located about 100 miles off the Louisiana coast in about 340-foot-deep water. Although all aboard the rig escaped and were rescued, within hours, some in Congress were wondering whether the Obama administration should lift its moratorium on new off-shore rigs, as contemplated.

The answer is: Of course it should.

The Mariner platform is in shallow water, at least as far as oil rigs are concerned. The BP rig was in 5,000 feet of water. Shallow rigs do not rely on the type of blowout preventers that failed on that one. They sit on legs drilled into the ocean floor and are more stable. A series of redundant valves can shut off oil and gas at various places. Oil leaks are easier to clean at such depths. Several such shallow platforms were damaged during hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and yet the redundant systems kept oil spills at a minimum.

Certainly, this week's explosion emphasizes the government's need to do a better job inspecting off-shore drilling. Records show Mariner's platforms have had several leaks and accidents over the past decade, and the company should be made to account for its record and ensure the safety of its operations.

But with 3,400 platforms in operation in the Gulf, and given the nation's need for domestic oil sources, the correct move is not to shut down drilling. For one thing, the economies of Gulf Coast states need the jobs those platforms create. For another, the nation's insatiable demand for oil, and the threats posed by oil-rich countries in the Middle East and South America, has turned domestic production into a matter of national security.

The good news is that the Obama administration seems to understand this. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs discounted any notion that this was a repeat of the BP spill, saying, "I don't want to marry those two up."

Yes, early reports said a sheen of spilled oil, about 100 feet wide, had been spotted near the site of the latest explosion. That ought to be enough to prompt serious investigation and punishments, if necessary. But it's no reason to continue the economic hardship caused by the moratorium on new drilling.