Florida willing to get tough over oil drilling ban

[sabra]

Source: FT

The governor of Florida would consider going to court to guarantee his right to permit offshore oil exploration around Florida’s coasts. But Charlie Crist, who has been cited as a possible running mate for presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, told the Financial Times that in preference to court action it would be “more productive” for Congress to overturn its ban on offshore drilling.

Oil exploration in all but a few sectors of US coastal waters has been prohibited since the 1980s by separate congressional and presidential bans. However, George W. Bush on Monday lifted the White House’s moratorium and called on Congress to do the same.

That move followed calls from Mr McCain last month to end the federal bans. He argued that domestic oil production needed to rise to assure affordable fuel for Americans, who have seen the price of petrol increase by a third to more than $4 a litre in the past year.

Mr Crist echoed that view. “It is a significant crunch on Florida families,” he said. “And I think the difficult decision that I have to make, as somebody who cares about the environment, is to realise that my fellow Floridians are hurting financially right now.”

Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9bbf175a-5428-11dd-aa78-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

[islandmkl]

1. these RW asshats cannot wait to pander/promote the party line...

the first opportunity they get, especially if they see some 'bright shining path' to an 'elevated' position...

these f***ers don't even qualify as flip-floppers...they just operate with two faces...

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Guess he's showing how different he is from Jeb.

http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/Bush-to-Bush-No-Drill.htm

Jeb Bush to Bush administration: No new drilling in Gulf off Florida
AP 26jan01
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Jeb Bush has told his brother's new administration not to open up Florida's Gulf Coast to more offshore oil and gas drilling -- a message President Bush already has said he will heed.

The president advocates increased energy exploration in the United States, but he said in a pre-inauguration interview with The Associated Press that he would support governors who want drilling banned off their coastlines.

Gov. Bush's letter to the U.S. Interior Department opposes the sale of an oil and gas lease that could allow drilling on nearly 6 million acres in federal waters south of Alabama near the Florida line.

[flashl]

3. Is it about oil?

A Brotherly Feud Over Energy
2001

Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, strongly opposes the administration's plan to open up an area off the Florida coast in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration.

At issue is Lease 181, an oddly shaped area of the gulf that covers about six million acres and may contain 400 million barrels of oil. What most appeals to drillers is the area's cache of three to seven trillion cubic feet of natural gas, whose price has been rising in part because it is the preferred fuel for almost all new power plants.

Nearly all of Lease 181 lies beyond the 100-mile limit, except for a narrow stovepipe section that juts northward to within 30 miles of the Florida coast near the Alabama border. (Pensacola)

---

During May of 2002, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his brother President George Bush reached a highly-publicized $235 million OCS agreement that was to lead to the buyback of 9 of a total of 11 leased-but-undeveloped offshore natural gas tracts along the Florida Panhandle.

...

Existing petroleum industry offshore leases on two of the most highly prospective natural gas tracts on Destin Dome, off of Pensacola, Florida, were not actually "relinquished"- or bought back by the federal government - at this time, although the State of Florida was assured by the Interior Department that it would have near-veto authority over any subsequent federal decision to develop and drill on these OCS tracts, which in any event would not occur for at least ten years from the date of the agreement (until 2012).

---

July 29, 2005
Last Friday, Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, released a leaked White House email that urged negotiating lawmakers to adopt a Bush administration's plan to redraw offshore state boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico and grant Louisiana control over waters currently controlled by Florida.

---

November 14, 2005

If Congress allows the boundary for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to move within 125 miles of Florida, a broad segment of the state's coastal beaches would be at risk for pollution, oceanographers say.

...

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives was poised to vote on a bill that would have moved the boundary, but at the last minute the language was removed from the bill. Advocates of the move say they will try again.

The proposal that the House was to vote on was crafted partly by Gov. Jeb Bush and said that after 2012 all U.S. waters would be open to gas exploration as close as 25 miles offshore and oil exploration as close as 50 miles. States such as Florida could then petition the Interior Department to keep drilling 125 miles offshore.

[RT Atlanta]

4. being selfish

I sure hope that this (drilling offshore) does not come to pass. I know there are rigs out in the Gulf, but the last thing I want to see when I vacation on the panhandle, and beautiful St. George Island in particular, are oil/gas rigs on the horizon.

Please folks wake up and don't support this crock of shit.

[Auggie]

5. I can't stand the site of rigs off Santa Barbara, CA. Good luck in the fight.

[eagertolearn]

7. I grew up there and after every day at the beach I spent hours

getting tar from the 1968 or 69 oil leak out of my hair and off my legs and feet with terpintine. When I got older they tried to say that that was from the natural tar pits that ooze constantly. It was a mess but I grew up thinking it was part of a day at the beach!

[angrycarpenter]

9. hello from franklin county

We have a very personal stake in the dispute. The rigs are bad enough but they will also want to build support facilities right where our seafood industry is now.

We are very proud of our isolated near pristine county. It is only unspoiled because we have always stood up to developers. We cannot stand against big oil. We will only win if people elsewhere care to keep us one of the last places in Florida where the water is not closed off to locals by development.

[Newsjock]

6. You'd think the governor would know ...

Never, ever use petroleum-based lubricants with latex products.

[Blaze Diem]

8. Ya, look what happened when George & Babs tried it.

*