Offshore drilling plan ditched
Republican leaders in the U.S. House dump a proposal to allow oil and gas drilling within 125 miles of the Florida coast because it jeopardized a budget bill.
By WES ALLISON and GRAHAM BRINK
Published November 10, 2005
A controversial plan to allow oil and gas drilling within 125 miles of the Florida coast was scrapped late Wednesday night by Republican leaders in the U.S. House.
After months of negotiations that caused a rare rift among Florida Republicans in the House, Republican leaders decided a plan that would have allowed drilling in vast swaths of the eastern Gulf of Mexico jeopardized a larger budget bill.
Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, worked with House leaders late into Wednesday night to strip the drilling provision from the bill.
Shaw said he and several other Florida members of the House convinced the leadership that more time and study were needed before the state could accept such a momentous change to the current ban on drilling off the state's shores.
"We need to take another look at this. We need to take a long look," Shaw said shortly after the decision was made, about 10 p.m. "We need protection from offshore drilling, and we need to talk."
The proposal is likely to resurface.
Shaw said hearings should be conducted throughout Florida to make residents aware of the plan.
The plan, which Gov. Jeb Bush had helped negotiate with Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee, was uniformly opposed by Rep. Jim Davis and other Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, including Shaw and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack.
The drilling measure threatened to sink a massive budget bill that House leaders have pledged to pass this week.
"The fact the vote is close certainly gave us a leg up," Shaw said. "There is a need to protect us from offshore drilling, but this just isn't the bill. I think we can do better."
The governor has said that he wants a long-term drilling ban to replace current piecemeal restrictions on individual parcels of gulf bottom that can be lifted by presidential or congressional decrees.
He also wants to secure a permanent ban on drilling in the Florida Straits on the east coast and in the Atlantic Ocean.
The deal that Bush and several Florida Republicans endorsed would allow oil rigs 125 miles off the Gulf Coast, beyond sight, and would permit energy companies to negotiate directly with the state Legislature to put drilling operations closer.
The current patchwork of deals prohibits drilling within 200 miles of Tampa Bay, which has preserved an area off the Pinellas County coast called Lease Sale Area 181, a region that energy experts believe is rich in oil reserves.
As recently as 2001, Bush staunchly opposed drilling in Area 181.
Advocates of the compromise, including Bush, argue that the force of the national energy debate has changed in recent years, making the all-out ban on Florida's coastline an unrealistic goal.
And recent hurricanes in the gulf have shown how vulnerable the nation's energy network is for having oil rigs concentrated along the coasts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
Bush's position puts him at odds not only with Democrats, but with some Republicans in the state's congressional delegation, including Sen. Mel Martinez.
Some opponents of offshore drilling have criticized Bush for flip-flopping on the issue. They also argue that it's meaningless for Bush to advocate a drilling ban off the Atlantic Coast because the oil industry has never expressed interest in that area.
The first of several federal bans on drilling in the eastern gulf expires in 2007, with the rest expiring in 2012.