http://www.theolympian.com/649/story/1144607.html
The Olympian By JOSH HAFENBRACK | Sun Sentinel * Published February 19, 2010

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – By now, the arguments are well rehearsed. Offshore oil drilling is either a dangerous gamble with Florida’s beach-driven tourism industry, or a potential job creation and tax windfall.

Either way, an emotional and politically charged drilling debate is taking shape in the state Capitol, a slow-moving political drama that is likely to unfold over the next two years on whether to allow oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, three to 10 miles from Florida’s West Coast beaches.

Republican legislative leaders are holding hearings and producing reports on the economic and environmental impacts of offshore oil and natural gas exploration. Even supporters say the drill bill is unlikely to become law this year, with lawmakers skittish about the 2010 election, gas under $3 a gallon and a reluctant state Senate taking a go-slow approach to the issue.

But the subtext is clear: With more drilling-friendly leadership taking over the House and Senate this November, the legislative session that starts March 2 could lay the groundwork for allowing oil rigs to set up off Florida’s Gulf Coast.

After the November elections, staunch drilling advocates state Rep. Dean Cannon and state Sen. Mike Haridopolos, both Republicans, will take over as powerful presiding officers in their respective chambers.

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who once was against drilling, has been open to the idea but hasn’t made it a central part of his legislative platform.

“I think we’ll lay the predicate this year for next year,” said Barney Bishop, president of the Associated Industries of Florida, which is lobbying for offshore drilling.

Since 1990, Florida has banned exploration or drilling in its waters, which run from three miles to 10.3 miles off the Gulf Coast shoreline. Oilmen are lobbying to repeal that ban and authorize exploration in the Gulf, which is thought to be rich in oil and natural gas.
Atlantic Ocean waters off the South Florida coast would not be open to drilling. However, drilling critics argue that South Florida could see fewer tourists if people come to think of Florida beaches as oil production sites or if a West Coast oil spill gets national media attention.
Legislators won’t authorize drilling outright. Rather, they are seeking to lift the 1990 ban and leave the decision on whether to offer drilling leases to the state Cabinet, which is comprised of the governor, attorney general, chief financial officer and agriculture commissioner.
Supporters say drilling could create up to 20,000 jobs and bring billions in permitting and severance tax revenue over several decades. They note there hasn’t been a drilling-related oil spill in the United States since an incident off the California coast in 1969.

“The beaches is a moot issue,” said Bishop. “There hasn’t been a single drilling accident in 40 years.”

Opponents counter that revenue and job projections are inflated and could take a decade or more to materialize – and there’s no way to guarantee against a tourism-destroying oil spill. Even if the rigs are safe, a damaging spill could happen during a major hurricane or from a faulty pipeline, they note.

“Our view is, you can’t make it both safe and profitable,” said Eric Draper, a lobbyist for the Audubon Society.

The methodical approach legislators are taking this year is calculated to take away the argument that drill-bent Republicans are ramming through a sweetheart deal for the oil industry.

The results are dry, hours-long hearings in Tallahassee on the geological and practical aspects of drilling. More meetings are planned even before a bill is written. That’s a stark contrast to last year, when the House pushed through a drill bill in the last two weeks of session with little debate. The proposal stalled in the Senate.

“No one can say we didn’t have an in-depth discussion,” said Florida House Speaker Larry Cretul.

Democrat Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, who represents a coastal district in Sarasota, praised House Republicans for holding extensive hearings, but said he remained unconvinced that the financial benefits from drilling outweighed the risks.
“They’re not sweeping potential problems under the rug,” Fitzgerald said of legislative Republicans. Still, he said, “People have to decide – do the benefits outweigh the costs? I’m a long way from being convinced. If you look at where I live, the entire economy is based on the beach. Anything that might detract from that is very costly.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Special thanks to Michael Blades

http://www.newsherald.com/articles/drilling-81444-oil-military.html

News-Herald.com  Panama City
Oil drilling legislation not likely this year, lawmakers say
Patronis: Constituents’ views ‘a mixed bag’
February 15, 2010 06:00:00 AM

Area legislators expressed doubts Friday that the Florida Legislature will pass any offshore oil drilling-related bills in 2010 due to concerns about impacts on military missions, the region’s tourism industry and the environment.

“My gut tells me it won’t be this year,” said Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Panama City.  The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill late in the 2009 session that would have allowed the governor and his three-member Cabinet to consider and award drilling leases in state waters as close as 3 miles to shore.  The Florida Senate refused to take up the House bill, with no other drilling legislation reaching the Senate floor for a vote.

A few months after the end of the 2009 legislative session, Bay County military advocates and business interests expressed reservations about offshore oil drilling in Florida waters, with the Bay Defense Alliance and Bay County Chamber of Commerce releasing a joint statement in October 2009 that opposed any legislation in conflict with the military’s gulf training missions.

The statement included a University of West Florida Haas Center estimate putting Tyndall Air Force Base’s and Naval Support Activity Panama City’s annual economic impact at $2.3 billion and a list of some of the missions performed by those bases and Eglin Air Force Base in the Gulf Test Range.   Patronis said he not seen any proposed House offshore oil drilling legislation filed thus far.  Senate President Jeff Atwater has asked a committee to study the environmental impacts of drilling, Patronis said.  He said the Senate leader, who has announced his intention to run for the state’s chief financial officer post, won’t be rushing any drilling bills to the Senate floor.  “Jeff Atwater has been pretty blunt about not taking up drilling until he’s seen the facts,” Patronis said.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said the House seems more interested than the Senate in taking up oil drilling legislation, and he would be surprised to see any oil drilling legislation taken up on the Senate floor this year.   In October 2009, Gaetz said oil drilling did not appear to be at the top of his constituents’ priorities in terms of legislative issues.  Since then, Gaetz said Friday, his constituents have displayed significantly more interest in the offshore oil drilling issue.  The Niceville senator said he has talked privately to some military officials about the issue.

Eglin Air Force Base Commander Col. Bruce McClintock told the House Military Affairs and Local Policy Committee in January he had concerns about oil and gas drilling and its possible disruption of flight testing in the gulf.   Without specifically citing McClintock’s committee testimony, Gaetz acknowledged the military has been more public about its concerns that he ever has seen, something the senator said the Legislature should take into consideration when it looks at offshore oil drilling.  He said his vote on the issue continues to be motivated by any effect drilling would have on military missions.  “The military missions in this area are the basis of Northwest Florida’s economy,” Gaetz said.

Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna, said she continues to educate herself on the drilling issue, which still provokes strong opinions from voters in her district.  “It honestly, it is divisive,” Coley said of the issue.   Coley said she and Patronis, as well as Tyndall Air Force Base and Navy leaders, recently met with Speaker-designate Rep. Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, to talk about the impact offshore drilling would have on gulf military missions.   Coley said she thought Cannon, a proponent of offshore oil drilling, came away from the meeting with a better idea of the military’s economic and national defense importance in the region.   She said she still would vote no on any bill that adversely affects military missions or the area’s tourism industry.

Patronis said his constituents’ views on drilling are “a mixed bag,” with some opposed and other voters adamant about exploration as a way to achieve energy independence.

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-02-14/story/people_hold_hands_across_the_sand_to_protest_offshore_drilling_in_flori_0
Jacksonville.com
Jacksonville, Florida
People hold hands across the sand to protest offshore drilling in Florida
A statewide initiative was planned on Florida’s coasts.
        *       BY MAGGIE FITZROY
        *       STORY UPDATED AT 1:18 AM ON SUNDAY, FEB. 14, 2010
MAGGIE FITZROY/The Times-Union
Scores of people hold hands at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Jacksonville Beach to protest possible off-shore oil drilling in Florida, part of a statewide “Hands Across the Sand” initiative.

Scores of people lined up on the shoreline in Jacksonville Beach on Saturday afternoon and held hands for 10 minutes as they looked out at the ocean.

As part of a statewide initiative called “Hands Across the Sand,” they joined thousands who planned to hold hands up and down Florida’s beaches at 1:30 p.m. to protest the possibility of oil drilling off the state’s coasts.

The Jacksonville Beach event, which met at the foot of Beach Boulevard, was organized by the Beaches Sea Turtle Patrol. And as suggested on the project’s Web site, www.handsacrossthesand.org, participants began gathering on the beach at 1 p.m.

“It’s been in the news that the Legislature wants to allow offshore drilling, but we are a fragile ecological state,” said Valerie Pickett of Atlantic Beach, who arrived with her daughter Dawson, 17, and neighbor Diana Froehlich, 18.

“We don’t need to have the issue of possible oil spills or contamination of our waters,” she said.

Steve Fouraker of Atlantic Beach, who came with several friends, said he doesn’t want to see “unsightly platforms” off the coasts, and would rather see alternative energy sources explored.

“Hopefully people feel strongly enough that they can brave being cold for 10 minutes,” said Sea Turtle Patrol director Jennifer Burns as she watched people arrive at the otherwise nearly empty beach. She said she was pleased with the turnout, despite unseasonably cold weather around the state, and hoped for good turnouts in other planned locations as well, including a protest organized by Surfrider Foundation at the St. Augustine Beach pier.

Carolyn Antman, who attended the St. Augustine protest as a member of the Duval County Audubon Society, said later that day that about 50 people came to that event just south of the city’s pier. “The morning was cold and gray,” and “it’s not a beach time of the year,” she said.”So I’m pretty well pleased that many showed up.”

While oil drilling is being considered off the Gulf Coast, “theoretically, they could drill around the entire coastline,” Burns said. While Saturday’s protest was the only one planned so far, “depending on how it moves along through the government, we might hold other events,” she said.

Tom Larson of Jacksonville Beach, who came as a member of the Sierra Club and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said “the coastal and estuarine environment of Florida is exposed to great risk” if oil drilling proposals are pursued.

Damage from oil spills around the world have proven almost impossible to repair, in addition, there is not that much oil off Florida, compared to what world markets demand, he said.
“Florida stands on tourism, and offering the world our wonderful scene. We’d be putting that at risk for the relatively minor benefits of this local oil.”

maggie.fitzroy@shorelines.com, (904) 249-4947, ext. 6320.
special thanks to Richard Charter ________________________