Nearly 16 million Americans officially unemployed. “Real,” unofficial unemployment reportedly past 25 million. And another 11,000 Americans lost their jobs last month. You know what we need? We need a summit. That was the message offered by President Obama yesterday, joined at the White House by lots of folks who loved to be there (“Can I get a box of presidential M&M’s?!) – but not many who are actually on the frontlines of job creation in America today.

You know who is creating jobs, though? Creating jobs despite an aging workforce, winnowing access to resources, and the specter of confiscatory tax rates from the federal government? America’s energy producers. And even though that industry is responsible for more than nine million direct and indirect jobs in this country – and seven and a half percent of its GDP! – you’d have been hard pressed to find a single voice representing those interests at the White House yesterday. Wasn’t a single one of them there.

Guess it’d be sort of like convening a summit on annoying people and forgetting to invite folks like Joan Rivers and Carrot Top, are we right? Consider: One recent study found that 1.2 million jobs could be created if the Administration simply moved forward with a commonsense plan to unlock our nation’s offshore energy reserves.

Another study from the University of Alaska Anchorage study examined how many Alaskan jobs could be created if Washington would finally give us a green light to produce our energy resources safely offshore. Hope you’re sitting down while you’re reading this.

So, how are jobs are we talking? Economists say 35,000 — that’s more than 3 times as many jobs that were lost nationwide last month.

And in terms of payroll; ball park figure? Can you say $72 billion?

But what’s an enormous figure like that mean to every day Alaskans and Americans looking for work? These energy production jobs pay almost $110,000 each year — more than twice the national average income of $43,500.

These economists also determined that “OCS-related employment growth could more than offset losses from the decline of petroleum production on state lands and could help sustain the economy for several decades.”

Here are few key excerpts from the study entitled “Economic Analysis of Future O!shore Oil and Gas Development: Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, and North Aleutian Basin”:

Besides the direct jobs in the oil and gas sector, jobs would be created in other sectors of the economy; these jobs are referred to as indirect and induced jobs. These jobs are generated as a result of the multiplier effects of in-state spending—industry purchases from other Alaska businesses, government spending of OCS-related revenues, and household spending of wages and salaries.

It is estimated that total annual average employment from OCS development—including all the direct, indirect, and induced employment—could be about 35,000 per year on average through 2057, with a peak employment of over 50,000 in 2038. Total wages and salaries associated with OCS development over the 50-year period are estimated to be about $72 billion (2007$).

We weren’t entirely sure this moment would ever arrive – and who knows? It still might not – but in just four days, the comment period on the Interior Department’s five year energy plan for 2010 to 2015, barring hell, high water or holy hand grenades, will come to an end.

It’s a comment period that started in January, was extended by an additional six months by incoming Secretary Ken Salazar, and, if Salazar’s statements today are any indication, it’s a comment period that won’t get us a single step closer to gaining reasonable access to new offshore energy, at least anytime in the near future.

The Washington, D.C.-based trade pub E&E News (subs. req’d) was out first with the gory details:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today said it remains unclear whether offshore leasing plans his agency is crafting will supplant the existing 2007-2012 outer continental shelf program or take effect afterward. …

That [current] plan is in place until 2012. So, in a legal sense, we have until 2012 to redo a plan on the outer continental shelf,” Salazar said this morning. “Whether we take that long or not is something we’ll decide based on the information we collected and the analysis that’s been done during this period. I haven’t yet reached a decision yet on what the next steps are going to be.”

For teachers of seventh grade civics class who previously believed that only the president could execute a pocket veto, observe the maneuver that Secretary Salazar is trying to pull off here. Back in February, when he needlessly extended the comment period by an additional 180 days (on top of the 60 days already established), the real objective was extending the de facto ban on offshore energy exploration beyond the Gulf of Mexico that Congress had kept in place for 27 years, but was forced to let expire in 2008.

Now, with the time for reckoning fast approaching, Salazar informs us that the clock never mattered in the first place. You thought the comment period was six months? Think again: The law says we don’t have to even read those comments for another three years – and assuming we don’t, we’ll have been able to effectively continue the offshore ban that the American people THOUGHT they had gotten Congress to remove in 2008.

Salazar might claim membership in the Democratic party, but, to the extent he decides to sit on these comments and do nothing to accede to the will of the American people (and Congress) on offshore energy exploration, it’ll be quite the undemocratic act, indeed. Let’s hope he doesn’t do that, but let’s prepare as if he will.

When news broke a couple weeks back of the Obama administration’s decision to lend $10 billion of taxpayer money to aid in Brazil’s development of its offshore energy resources, reactions to the announcement were much more restrained than one would’ve expected. Certainly much more than we expected, if our post on the issue at the time is any indication.

Maybe it was that the story was initially reported by Spanish newswire EFE and no one else — and only picked up in the U.S. afterward by an outfit calling itself “Rig Zone.” Maybe it was the fact that the Export-Import Bank was involved in the transaction, and no one actually knows what that office does or why it’s important (although it was able to prepare a snazzy fact sheet in defense of the transaction). Maybe it’s the fact that we’re talking about Brazil – not exactly America’s closest friend in the hemisphere, but not exactly its greatest adversary either.

Whatever the reasons for the delayed reaction, the mainstream press eventually (if grudgingly) picked up on the story. A great editorial was filed in the Wall Street Journal subsequent to a quirky take on the decision offered up by Investor’s Business Daily. Other news outlets took note, but perhaps because we were only talking about a paltry $10 billion, it never really caught fire. Even considering the patent outrageousness of it all.

Thankfully, proof is starting to surface that our representatives on Capitol Hill are finally taking note of the story as well. Earlier today, Louisiana senator David Vitter sent the following letter to President Obama – applauding him for his recent interest in expanding the supply of oil on the world market, but inquiring also (reasonably, in our judgment) why he isn’t as keen on doing the same thing in the United States:

While I appreciate your efforts to expand offshore energy production in Brazil, it is my hope that your Administration will move forward quickly with a commonsense 5-year plan that opens our OCS, including the Eastern Gulf region, the Southeast region, and Alaska’s oceans.

Look at that – even tossing in a brief mention at the end of the struggle we’re having up in Alaska on this very same question. Actually, though, it’s not exactly the same. Alaska was included in previous five-year plans, and even still, areas in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas that scientists say hold more than 25 billion barrels of oil continue to lie in wait. Some of these areas, keep in mind, have already been bid on, leased, and paid for. But none of them have been explored – a distinction, albeit for different reasons, that we share with our friends along the Atlantic seaboard.

At any rate, Sen. Vitter seems to be onto something here – and best we can tell, he seems to be the only one on Capitol Hill currently onto it. His office number in Washington is (202) 224-4623. Maybe it’s worth giving him a quick shout and letting him know to keep asking the important questions. And maybe see if his colleagues might want to join him at some point.