Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

New deal would bring offshore drilling closer

The deal is not as generous for Florida as the one rejected by Florida House members late last year, which would have kept drilling at least 125 miles off the state’s shores.

By WES ALLISON
Published June 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - A small group of key lawmakers have reached a deal to allow oil and gas drilling 100 miles from the nation’s shore, or closer if states choose to allow it, marking a major change in U.S. policy and setting up what is likely to be a bruising fight among coastal-state lawmakers in Congress.

U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, reached the agreement over the weekend with House Resources Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and a small group of members from Louisiana, Hawaii and Pennsylvania.

The House Resources Committee is scheduled to consider it Wednesday. The deal is not as generous for Florida as the one rejected by Florida House members late last year, which would have kept drilling at least 125 miles off the state’s shores.

But political pressure to open more of the nation’s outercontinental shelf to drilling has grown with rising energy prices, and Florida Republicans say their ability to thwart attempts to drill in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, as they’ve done for the past quarter century, has been significantly weakened.

As hashed out over the weekend, Resources Committee officials said, the deal would ban oil and natural gas exploration within 50 miles of the U.S. coast, unless states petition the Interior Department to allow it.

Drilling would be allowed 50 to 100 miles from shore, unless state legislatures affirmatively act to block it every five years. States would have one year to act to block natural gas leasing and three years to block oil leasing.

Everything past 100 miles offshore would be open to drilling.

If it passes the committee, the full House could consider it  as soon as next week, when House leaders have scheduled Energy Week. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has put Putnam, the highest ranking Flroida Republican, in charge of overseeing energy legislation. 

The deal is likely to find strong opposition from environmentalists as well as Democrats and some Republicans from Florida, California, North Carolina and other coastal states. They say Republican negotiators are too willing to give up too much.

"This undercuts 25 years of protections for Florida’s coast in one weekend of back-room negotiating," said Athan Manuel, director of lands protection for the Sierra Club. "This is really a significant step backwards for Florida and the rest of the country."

At a Resources Committee hearing last week, the secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said Gov. Jeb Bush would accept a 100-mile buffer as well as provisions to allow the state Legislature to decide to allow drilling closer to shore.

[Last modified June 19, 2006, 14:15:34]