Florida offshore drilling proposal scuttled (stripped from budget bill)

Posted on Thu, Nov. 10, 2005

BY FRANK DAVIES


WASHINGTON - A controversial plan to allow oil and gas drilling closer to Florida's Gulf Coast has been blocked for this year as U.S. House leaders decided to drop the measure Wednesday night, Rep. Clay Shaw said.

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Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and the acting majority leader, acceded to Shaw's request and the firm opposition of several Florida Republican members and decided to remove the drilling provision from a deficit-reduction bill that is scheduled for a vote today in the House.

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The drilling proposal had the active support of Gov. Jeb Bush, who portrayed it as a compromise that would loosen the ban on drilling in the Gulf but keep a 125-mile buffer zone to protect Florida's coasts. The plan would have allowed drilling closer than 125 miles only if a state's legislature and governor approved it.

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Because of the current ban, drilling is now more than 200 miles from Tampa.

But Sen. Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican, and some House Republican members -- including Rep. Katherine Harris of Sarasota who is running for the Senate in 2006 -- said they could not support the compromise, even as other Republicans in Congress cited rising fuel costs as a reason to open up more of the Gulf.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/13127602.htm

it was Jebediah who decided, temporarily, that he wanted to keep his beaches pristine . . .

The rethugs are not waiting any longer to be convinced that the oplitical tide is against them! I love it, love it,love it!

This from NYT online:

House Republican leaders were forced to jettison a plan for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on Wednesday night to save a sweeping spending bill, a concession that came one day after the party suffered significant election loses.

The last-ditch effort by the leadership to avoid an embarrassing legislative defeat was the latest symptom of party unrest arising from instability in the leadership and anxiety about the 2006 elections. Those concerns were heightened by election results on Tuesday that Democrats and some Republicans said exposed the party's vulnerabilities and threatened its policy agenda.

Just the beginning!

House leaders were having trouble putting together the 218 votes to pass the overall budget bill, which was intended to cut up to $54 billion in federal spending.

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"It's all a function of where the cheapest votes you can buy come from," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, who serves on the House leadership team and favors the drilling deal. By Wednesday afternoon, GOP leaders did not yet have enough votes and were evaluating what they could add to or subtract from the bill to win over individual lawmakers.

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Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, led the GOP opposition, bucking his governor and most of the 18 Republican House members from Florida.

Mack argued that drilling in the eastern Gulf would not solve the nation's energy problems but could lead to environmental problems that could damage Florida's beaches and tourism economy.

Rep. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter; Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Longboat Key; and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, also pressured leadership to take the drilling out of the bill.

Shaw is one of the most senior members of Congress and runs for re-election in one of the country's most competitive congressional districts. He said he thought strongly that the drilling deal shouldn't be in a massive budget bill with little debate.

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The Senate, where Florida Sens. Mel Martinez and Bill Nelson both vigorously oppose it, did not include offshore drilling in the Gulf in its version of the bill.

Environmentalists who had fought the House deal on drilling said Wednesday that they will not let down their guard because the provision could be slipped back into the bill during negotiations in coming days.

Drilling plan dies in House for now