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WES ALLISON and JONI JAMESHe says critics have misunderstood his comments about a 100-mile buffer.
WASHINGTON - The way Gov. Jeb Bush has been referring to protecting Florida from offshore drilling has prompted some legislators to question his commitment to keeping drilling rigs as far off the state's shores as possible.
As lawmakers battle congressional attempts to open the state's waters to more oil and gas exploration, the governor has made several statements about the importance of maintaining "a 100-mile buffer" around Florida's coast.
Prohibitions on drilling already extend far beyond 100 miles in much of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, including more than 200 miles off Tampa Bay. That made some wonder whether Bush was willing to relinquish part of that territory, as some in his brother's presidential administration would like.
On Thursday, Bush said they misunderstood him. He said his comments about the 100-mile buffer broadly addressed his desire to create a safe zone around the entire state.
Currently, there are no protections off the southern tip of the state, including the Florida Straits.
"I believe whatever we've got, we ought to keep and we should get more," Bush said. No one should "be reading any tea leaves" into his reference to a 100-mile buffer.
On June 2, after the Florida Cabinet agreed to buy the in-shore drilling rights from a private company, Bush had said he hopes to maintain a 100-mile buffer.
"A hundred miles is a pretty extensive boundary that ... would be a victory over the long term," Bush said then.
And Tuesday, after U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., threatened to filibuster unless a provision to allow more gas and oil drilling closer to Florida was removed from the Senate energy bill, Bush said he appreciated the effort but didn't approve of the filibuster.
"I don't know that the energy bill will have in it, but at a minimum we ought to have a 100-mile buffer around our state where there won't be offshore drilling," he told reporters then.
His comments alarmed environmentalists, as well as Nelson and Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, who have been fighting recent attempts in Congress to open the eastern gulf to drilling. This week, Nelson and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez won a provision in the Senate energy bill to protect the waters off Florida, but other proposals are pending.
Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Gale Norton also has stated, in a March letter to Martinez, that the Bush administration's policy is to allow no new oil or gas leases within just 100 miles off Florida's coast.
"To start from a position of a 100-mile buffer zone, that puts us in a really precarious position," said Mark Ferrulo, director of Florida Public Interest Research Group. "That is definitely a concern of ours, and it's raising flags among the environmental community."
Davis said Gov. Bush has always been a staunch ally against drilling, but he would "urge the governor to speak up in a very clear and convincing fashion, which he's not been doing lately."
Nelson asked the governor's office for a letter clarifying his remarks last week. The governor's office declined, aides said.
"We asked for a letter because the comment we read was sort of the mirror image of what Gale Norton wrote in a letter about the governor's brother's view of the world," Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.
Gov. Bush said he didn't know about Nelson's request. But he said he met with Norton two months ago and discussed the Interior Department's next five-year plan for oil and gas exploration nationwide, including the gulf.
Nelson and Martinez will visit St. Petersburg today to discuss their plans for fighting another provision of the energy bill, which would mandate an inventory of gas and oil reserves in all U.S. waters.
They'll hold a public event at North Shore Park at 11:45 a.m., then address Leadership Florida's annual convention at the Vinoy.