The Economy: As if the latest measly numbers on our jobless recovery weren't bad enough, along comes the administration to pile disaster upon disaster by slapping a six-month ban on deep-water drilling.

When President Obama visited Louisiana on May 1, he talked about the possibility that the oil gushing from BP's Deepwater Horizon well could "jeopardize the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who call this place home." Now the administration's response could jeopardize the livelihoods of tens of thousands more.

In a letter sent to Obama on Wednesday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal challenged the president's decision to suspend deepwater drilling for six months while a presidential commission to which the buck has been passed tries to sort things out.

It's another chapter in the administration's inept response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which has included seeking the advice of "Avatar" and "Titanic" director James Cameron, presumably because he knows how to operate cameras underwater. Perhaps Cameron, as one wag put it, told the White House how to rearrange the deck chairs.

"The last thing we need is to enact public policies that will certainly destroy thousands of existing jobs while preventing the creation of thousands more," Jindal wrote. The moratorium, he said, will shut down 33 deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, including 22 near Louisiana, costing as many as 6,000 jobs in the next three weeks and 20,000 by the end of next year.

We expect his plea to fall on deaf ears. Jindal was last seen begging the federal government to provide millions of feet in containment booms and to approve an emergency permit for a state plan to dredge and build new barrier islands to keep the oil from reaching the marshes and wetlands. Both could have been done in a single White House phone call.

The ban requires all Gulf wells in more than 500 feet of water to shut down, and also prevents permits from being issued for any new deepwater drilling. According to the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association (LMOGA), as many as 1,400 jobs are at risk for each of the 33 idled rigs. The jobs average $1,804 a week, meaning lost wages could be as high as $330 million each month.

Also at risk is a major portion of the nation's energy supply and the entire Gulf economy. LMOGA reports that fully 80% of the Gulf's oil production comes from operations in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. One-third of all U.S.-produced oil and gas comes from the Gulf.

A study published by Texas A&M University in 2007 said the oil and gas industry accounts for half of all Gulf economic activity, at $234 billion. The U.S. would spend $10 billion to buy imported oil to replace lost Gulf production through the end of 2011.

Jack Gerard, chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, says that since oil producers don't know when or if deep water drilling would resume, they'd probably ship their rigs to the coasts of less skittish countries such as Brazil and China or to the North Sea rather than let them idle. Some might never return.

The Obama administration has also announced a suspension of offshore drilling in the Arctic until 2011. "All that's going to do is raise energy prices and cost American jobs," Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said in an interview.

Deepwater Horizon is a disaster, whether through negligence or bad luck. The moratorium is a self-inflicted wound by an administration that also prohibits drilling in ANWR or extracting abundant shale oil in the Rocky Mountain West where risks are less and spills can be contained.

We need an energy policy that consists of more than sticking our heads in the sand or the tundra while counting tar balls on a beach.