Oil drilling bill faces tough going

But opponents keep a watchful eye on future House Speaker

But Senate President Jeff Atwater of North Palm Beach blocked a similar bill in the Senate last year, and has indicated he plans to block it again.

“Unless something changes, I do not see a bill coming out of the legislature this year,” said Paul Johnson, a Tallahassee policy advisor to Reef Relief. Johnson is a former president of Reef Relief, based in Key West.    “The Senate president has made it clear that he does not intend to bring the [oil-drilling] bill up,” Johnson said.   “But we still need to keep track of it pretty closely,” he added. “When the Legislature is in session, anything can happen.”

Monroe County State Rep. Ron Saunders agreed with Johnson’s assessment.    “It sounds like the Senate is probably going to hold it up this year. There’s not even a bill introduced in the House yet,” Saunders said.    “It’s hard to know anything until there is a House bill, but its chances [of passage] probably are pretty slim.”    However, Rep. Dean Cannon of Winter Park, among the Legislature’s most vocal supporters of oil exploration, has been selected as the next Speaker of the House, which means he drives the agenda for the 2011 session.   “When the Speaker-designate is pushing something, there’s always a chance it could happen,” Saunders said.

Sen. Mike Haridopolos of Melbourne, who introduced SB 2622 this year, is the Senate’s president-designate.   The Legislature’s session ends April 30.    After Cannon and Haridopolos take over leadership positions next year, Saunders said, it means “very powerful legislators” will be advocating in the 2011 session for increased oil exploration in Florida waters.

Cannon told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper that he will include requirements in a drilling bill that any oil exploration or pumping activity not create “a visual blight” for coastal communities that base their tourism economies on scenic waterfronts.

The Florida House passed a bill last year to allow exploration and drilling in state waters, but the bill died after no action by the Senate.

Legislators asked the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, based at the state Collins Center for Public Policy, to review the issue of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The report was released earlier this week, giving both sides in the drilling debate some comfort.

The report concluded that Florida may not have enough submerged oil in its Gulf waters to create widespread pumping like that seen off Texas and Louisiana coasts. Any oil removed from Florida waters would not be enough to result in cheaper gas, the report noted.

The report acknowledges that the danger to shorelines from a major drilling-related spill probably is overstated by opponents.

Offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf were damaged by the 2004-05 hurricane seasons, the report notes, but the most significant spills were caused by flooding of onshore facilities.

However, it also points out that a single major spill could be highly damaging, especially to the Florida Keys marine ecosystem and the state’s East Coast, where currents would carry the spill.

“Spills are not our biggest concern, although a spill would be horrible,” said Millard McCleary, program director for Reef Relief. “What’s going to hurt is that basic drilling creates sludge that will be carried into the mangroves and to the reef every day.”

The Key West City Commission and the citizen advisory board for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary have passed resolutions that protest any move to remove protections for Keys waters, “some of the environmentally and ecologically sensitive areas in the world.”