http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/mar/24/mark-strain-mark—oil-and-tourism-not-good-mix/

Naples News

On The Mark – Oil and tourism: Not a good mix
By MARK STRAIN
Posted March 24, 2010 at 5:18 p.m.

It is surprising how quickly some Floridians are willing to reduce their standards if there’s money involved. It was easy during the boom years to initiate costly government programs, yet when the easy money is gone, instead of cutting not-so-necessary programs the first thing some elected officials do is support sources of revenue they may never have considered in the past. The most recent is offshore oil drilling.

There is a wide range of estimated revenues that could be realized by Florida from offshore oil royalties in addition to the benefit of the thousands of new jobs that would be created. But oil derricks moving into areas close to our shorelines can also have a negative impact on another industry that brings in a lot of revenue and provides a lot of jobs: tourism. Tourism figures are not estimated, they are real and well documented. Yet we are seriously considering jeopardizing not only that industry, but our fragile ecology as well in exchange for some quick money from a non-renewable resource.

Oil drilling is not foolproof and with the constant threat of annual hurricanes it would only be a matter of time before large blobs of black goo start to show up on our beaches. As someone who spent nearly two decades living in an oil area in Southern California, I can attest that the damage to the shoreline from oil is very real. One oil spill would eliminate millions in tourist revenue and we can certainly count on more than one occurring. While technology may have advanced a long way and some believe it to be foolproof, nature is not.

It is absurd to think the fact that oil derricks would be small, hard to distinguish silhouettes on the horizon, would mitigate their presence. Their appearance is far from the point. Our beaches are the asset that drives local tourism and a recreational source that many of us constantly enjoy. There is no comparison to losing that amenity in exchange for oil royalties.

When talking about oil it is easy to claim patriotism is the reason why we need to take action. Such claims stir folks up, especially in hard times. Our oil dependency needs to stop, but the best way for that to happen is not with a quick fix of oil from the Gulf. Oil from anywhere is non-renewable and has consequences to our environment that are still not completely known, despite being constantly debated. Drilling for more oil in very limited quantities at such high risks does nothing for America’s oil dependency.

For America, oil is easy. It is much easier for Americans to sit back on their laurels and enjoy the benefits of petroleum over the hardship and challenge of inventing new and alternative resources to meet our needs. Our country was founded by men and women of invention, who would try new things and fight with a problem until a solution was found.
That was once our way. Like many other aspects of our lives, until we reach a crisis we tend to not work as hard as we could. Making oil easier will only slightly delay the inevitable crisis we will have if we are not pushed harder to find viable alternatives. We can do it; the incentive just needs to be realized sooner rather than later.

We do not need to buy into the oil pitch. Politicians like to claim the only alternative to less revenue is cutting popular programs. If they were working for the interests of the citizens who elected them they would be cutting government waste, which includes the perks, benefits and freebies they all enjoy at our expense. We can survive without oil royalties. Less easy oil will strengthen America; not make us more dependent.
Many people were riled up over a potential challenge when Moraya Bay reduced the public use of a fractional piece of the beach; just one mistake on an oil rig will have far greater impacts on use of our beaches.

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/e77fdd4f5afd88a3852576b3005a604f/8d717a8525394687852576ef00595ffc!OpenDocument

Environmental Protection Agency

EPA Proposes to Add Sources to Greenhouse Gas Reporting System/Requirements target potent and persistent greenhouse gases

Release date: 03/23/2010
Contact Information: Cathy Milbourn (News Media Only) Milbourn.cathy@epa.gov 202-564-7849 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to include additional emissions sources in its first-ever national mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting system. The data from these sectors will provide a better understanding of where GHGs are coming from and will help EPA and businesses develop effective policies and programs to reduce emissions.

“Gathering this information is the first step toward reducing greenhouse emissions and fostering innovative technologies for the clean energy future,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “It’s especially important to track potent gases like methane, which traps more than 20 times as much heat as carbon and accelerates climate change. Once we know where we must act, American innovators and entrepreneurs can develop new technologies to protect our atmosphere and fight climate change.”

EPA finalized the first-ever mandatory greenhouse gas reporting requirement in October of 2009. That rule required 31 industry sectors, covering 85 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions, to track and report their emissions.

In addition to those 31 industries, the agency is now proposing to collect emissions data from the oil and natural gas sector, industries that emit fluorinated gases, and from facilities that inject and store carbon dioxide (CO2) underground for the purposes of geologic sequestration or enhanced oil and gas recovery. Methane is the primary GHG emitted from oil and natural gas systems and is more than 20 times as potent as CO2 at warming the atmosphere, while fluorinated gases are even stronger and can stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years. Data collected from facilities that inject CO2 underground would enable EPA to track the amount of CO2 that is injected and in some cases require a monitoring strategy for detecting potential emissions to the atmosphere.

The data will also allow businesses to track their own emissions, compare them to similar facilities, and identify cost effective ways to reduce their emissions in the future.

EPA is also proposing to require all facilities in the reporting system, including those proposed today, to provide information on their corporate ownership.

Under these proposals, newly covered sources would begin collecting emissions data on January 1, 2011 with the first annual reports submitted to EPA on March 31, 2012. These proposals will be open for public comment for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The agency will also hold public hearings on these proposals on April 19, 2010 in Arlington, Va. and April 20, 2010 in Washington, D.C.

More information on these proposals and the hearings: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/proposedrule.html

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100321/OPINION/3211023/2198/OPINION?Title=Access-to-federal-waters-may-be-the-real-goal-of-legislative-proponents
Herald Tribune
Sarasota, Florida
Opinion

Access to federal waters may be the real goal of legislative proponents

Published: Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, March 19, 2010 at 5:52 p.m.
The Texas oil men behind the proposal to drill off Florida’s Gulf Coast beaches are neither stupid nor dreamy-eyed optimists. So the information in a draft report presented Monday to a Florida House committee surely came as no surprise.

The report, by a commission the Legislature created five years ago to study Florida’s long-term future, largely shoots down many of the drilling proponents’ arguments.

It says that the minuscule amount of petroleum under the state’s near-shore waters would have almost no effect on gas prices or the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Efforts to extract the oil would eventually provide relatively few jobs for Florida and provide little revenue to the state.

So why was Dean Cannon smiling?

Maybe because Cannon — who is chairman of the House committee that heard testimony on the report, and is the Legislature’s chief proponent of coastal drilling — sees the big picture.

The debate over Gulf drilling is not really about passing state legislation this year, and might not be about drilling near Florida’s west coast at all. The big picture involves the ban on drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf — a longtime target of the oil and gas industry.

The industry wants the federal ban removed — despite the damage that drilling could do to Florida’s environment and economy — and Cannon appears ready to help.

Wait till next year
Cannon told reporters Monday that, after hearing from the Century Commission and many other experts, he still thinks drilling is worthwhile. “Nobody really knows how much is out there until you actually drill,” he said.

He said he expects his committee, the Select Policy Council on Strategic and Economic Planning, to introduce within two weeks legislation to remove Florida’s 20-year-old moratorium on coastal drilling.

The Florida Senate, led by offshore drilling skeptic Jeff Atwater, appears unlikely to pass such a bill this year — something, the Tallahassee Democrat reported, “Cannon acknowledges with a smile.”

Cannon, in fact, said Friday that he is not concerned about the bill passing this year because he will come back next year “with an even better bill.”
And next year, Cannon will be speaker of the Florida House, while Mike Haridopolos will replace Atwater as Senate president. Haridopolos has already introduced a bill in the Senate that would allow near-coast drilling.

Next year, with Cannon and Haridopolos occupying the two most powerful positions in the Legislature, passage of oil-drilling legislation would be practically a done deal. Even if the next governor were to veto the legislation, an important statement will be made:

If the Legislature is willing to allow drilling in state waters — three to 10 miles from shore — why should Congress maintain the federal ban, which forbids drilling within 125 miles of the Florida peninsula?

The Century Commission’s report acknowledges this risk: “Because a major reason for the imposition of moratoriums off Florida is due to political pressure from the state, lifting the state moratorium would undoubtedly weaken political and legal support for the federal moratorium.”

But there are good reasons for that “political pressure from the state” — applied for decades by both Republican and Democratic leaders — and they are just as pertinent for the eastern Gulf as they are for Florida’s near-coast:
While there is likely to be more oil under federal waters than there is close to the coast, numerous federal studies have shown — and the Century Commission confirmed — that there is too little in the eastern Gulf to ever have much, if any, effect on gas prices or the global supply.

An oil spill in the eastern Gulf could be disastrous for Florida’s coastal environment and tourism-based economy. “Accidental oil spills are low-probability events,” the commission reported, “but they have the potential to significantly impact coastal ecosystems and economies.” That is a risk that Florida cannot afford to take.

The potential revenue and jobs to be gained from eastern Gulf drilling do not justify the risks involved. The commission cites a recent study that found that federal and state revenues from that drilling “would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 20 years.” Florida’s share might be “roughly $20 million to $40 million a year,” depending on federal drilling legislation and production volumes. The number of total jobs resulting from the drilling are estimated to be 10,000 over 20 years, “with Florida securing 1,000 to 2,500 of them.”
Compare that with the financial impact of Florida tourism, an industry that generates some $65 billion per year for the state and employs 1 million workers.

Who benefits?

So what is offshore oil drilling — either in state or federal waters — worth to Florida? Not enough to warrant the risks involved.

What is removing the state ban on drilling worth to the anonymous Texas oil men who, under the name Florida Energy Associates, promote the plan? Potentially billions if it opens up the eastern Gulf, or if they hold Gulf leases until the price of oil skyrockets.
But the real issue may be: What is all of this worth to Dean Cannon and other legislators working on the oil men’s behalf?  That’s a question that Florida voters should ask.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.keysnet.com/2010/03/20/200966/oil-drilling-bill-faces-tough.html

A group of more than 200 oil-drilling opponents form on Key West’s Smathers Beach to show their feelings in a Feb. 13 rally as part of the statewide Hands Across the Sand project.

Moves to loosen Florida law on offshore oil drilling face steep obstacles in the current session of the Florida Legislature, but drilling foes are keeping a wary watch anyway.     Florida Senate bill, SB 2622, has been introduced that would allow drilling as close as one mile along some coastlines, or three miles out if the nearest community objects.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2010/03/cannon-oil-and-gas-bill-may-not-get-done-but-well-get-policy-right.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tampabaycom%2Fblogs%2Fbuzz+%28The+Buzz+|+tampabay.com%29
 
March 19, 2010

Cannon: Oil and gas bill may not get done but we’ll get policy right

After concluding the House’s final workshop on the exploration of oil and gas drilling off Florida coasts, Rep. Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, outlined three areas he expects the House bill to include when it is released in two weeks.
1. Preventing “any visual impact to our beaches” that could “cause visual blight.”
 2. Don’t disrupt military activity. He said he wants to give the military “essentially veto power over any drilling activity.”
3. Recognizing improvements in technology, such as the opportunity to use directional
drilling.  “Advancements in technology have resolved many of the concerns that were appropriately fears 20 years ago.”
Cannon also said he believes the bill should authorize the Governor and Cabinet, sittig as the Board of Trustess for the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, to develop the oil and gas permitting process.
Cannon said he plans to have a House bill emerge on week six of the eight-week session but is not concerned if it doesn’t pass this year becasue he is prepared to come back next year “with even a better bill.” Senate President Jeff Atwater and Gov. Charlie Crist have both said they oppose opening Florida’s coast to oil drilling in Florida waters.
“Whether or not it passes at the end of the day I’m less worried about because if we get the policy right, it won’t matter this year or next year,” Cannon said.

 Posted by Mary Ellen Klas at 11:30:45 AM on March 19, 2010

Special thanks to Richard Charter