Oil Lobbyist Gave Cover To Senator

When Sen. Mel Martinez voted in favor of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it drew protests from critics who said the vote increased the likelihood of drilling off Florida.
But Martinez had some political cover: what he contended was a promise from the Bush administration to extend a moratorium on drilling near the Florida coast from 2007 to 2012.

Martinez said it took him a month of wrangling with the administration to get the commitment. But the Florida critics said there was already a moratorium in effect through 2012, and that Martinez had won nothing new.

Largely unnoticed were comments by an advocate of drilling in the refuge, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News shortly after the vote that she had helped arrange Martinez's cover - and that his moratorium consisted of the administration agreeing to do what it had planned to do anyway.

Trying to help clear the way for Martinez's vote, Murkowski said, she met with Interior Secretary Gale Norton and other department officials, who told her they ``have no intention of going there . Don't worry about it.''

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http://news.tbo.com/news/MGB6OY8SS6E.html

Oil spills like at Valdez will do great things for the beaches from Miami to Daytona.

they're still there. One bad spill but that's it. Why is Florida so sacred. If it's good enough for CA, it's good enough for FL. They've elected Mr. Oil pollution twice (well not really but they were not able to stop the theft) and they're destroying the Everglades. Don't recall either Martinez or the Nelson caring too much about the environment anywhere else. Where do they get off being so environmental on this one issue? It is about as consistent and sensible as this Terry S logic we get from Jebbie. Screw it, drop a hole of the coast and let's get some good old USA fuel. There is plenty of it there. Less reason to go to war. And while we're at it, we can make friends with Venezuela, they've got the goods too.

If there is any place in the whole world that should be totally Green it's FL. But they're not. What about a 4-12" increase in the ocean level? That would devastate FL. Get that oil while we can.

... after this little tete-a-tete, and asking them for $2 trillion.

"Yer outta your mind. Whaddaya need that for?"

"Dikes."

at the number of oil wells here.

So why did the voters vote for this idiot?