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Drilling bill puts senator on offense

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By WILLIAM MARCH wmarch@tampatrib.com

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 13, 2009

TAMPA - U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson mounted a major public relations offensive Friday against a new move for near-shore oil exploration in Florida, holding a news conference at The Florida Aquarium and vowing to "grind the Senate to a halt" if necessary.

Nelson, D-Fla., used easels and charts to dramatize what he said is a major new threat to Florida beaches.

"The oil boys are at it again," he said, referring to attempts in the past few years to expand oil and gas drilling into the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The charts included a picture of an oil spill on a Pinellas County beach, a map of the Gulf showing the central and western shores pockmarked with oil rigs, and a view of downtown Tampa buildings from the west end of the Howard Frankland Bridge. That's the same distance, he said, that oil rigs would be from Florida beaches under a measure passed by a Senate committee this week.

The committee voted 13-10 to expand offshore exploration boundaries in a major energy bill likely to come to the Senate floor in the fall.

Even though the rest of the energy bill "is needed legislation," Nelson said, "I'll use every parliamentary tactic that is available to me" to stop it. "I'll grind the Senate to a halt if I have to."

The proposal would allow drilling 10 miles from Panhandle beaches and 45 miles off the rest of Florida's Gulf Coast.

"It will convert our world-class beaches into industrial waste zones," with pipelines, storage tanks and drilling rigs, Nelson said.

He argued that the eastern Gulf is the last remaining U.S. offshore military aircraft and naval training area and displayed a copy of a 2005 letter from then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying oil drilling is incompatible with military activities.

Nelson also contends:

•That drilling in the eastern Gulf won't have any near-term effect on gasoline prices, which are the result of speculation in oil futures.

•That oil companies want to drill in the eastern Gulf only because it's close to their western and central Gulf oil fields, where existing infrastructure means more profit.

•That "Big Oil" is breaking an agreement reached three years ago that allowed new exploration in parts of the eastern Gulf for the first time in return for a ban on drilling within 100 miles of Florida's shores.

Nelson said he has one important ally, Republican Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, but so far he hasn't persuaded Gov. Charlie Crist to join them.

As rising gas prices caused public outrage last year, Crist reversed his position to favor more drilling in the Gulf.

Nelson acknowledged that his crusade could be undercut by the Florida Legislature, which came close this spring to voting to allow drilling even closer to Florida beaches than the Senate provision would allow. It could pass such a measure in the spring.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.

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