Powerful group pushing for legislative approval of oil drilling off Florida

[seafan]

Source: Bradenton Herald


TALLAHASSEE — A secretive group of powerful legislators, business groups and Texas oil companies has been laying the groundwork since December to win legislative approval to open Florida waters to oil exploration and end the 20-year drilling moratorium.

Florida Energy Associates, which identifies itself only by saying it is financed by a group of independent oil producers, has hired lobbyists, public relations experts, a financial consultant and a pollster to help advocate for the sale of drilling leases in state waters between the shore and 10 miles off Florida’s Gulf Coast.

And the group has influential friends: Associated Industries of Florida, the Association of Builders and Contractors, and several petroleum companies.
Between the start of April and the end of July, the group spent as much as $234,000 on legal work and lobbying to push a bill through the Legislature last session. The measure passed the House, 70-43, but died in the Senate.

.....

“I predict we’ll pass the bill and the governor will sign it,” boasted Barney Bishop, president of Associated Industries of Florida.
But he declined to say which members of his group are backing the effort. “With the nature of public discourse today, they don’t want to have a target on their backs,” he said.

Read more: http://www.bradenton.com/news/breaking_news/story/1672172.html

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Instead, these secretive operatives have painted a target on Floridians' backs.


This wholesale rape of Florida's pristine land and sea habitat must be halted in its tracks.

[Lorien]

1. Florida seems to be wholly owned and governed by developers as it is

What's happening to the Everglades and the coral reefs is nearly as bad or as bad as what's happening to the mountains in West Virginia. I don't know if citizens have any power anywhere anymore.

[ensho]

2. agree, it must be stopped. the upper Gulf is all but dead now

oil is not the way to go to save the earth

[Craftsman]

8. The oil will get drill one way or the other

China and Russia are looking at doing it base out of Cuba in international waters.

[WriteDown]

9. Surely you are joking....

I fish the upper gulf all the time and the last few years have been gang-busters for Redfish, Amberjack, Blue Fin, Yellow Fin, and Black Fin.

[seafan]

3. The outrage:This secretive, oily crowd promises $$$ to environmental causes in exchange for drilling

Aside from greasing the palms of Republican legislators who will seize Florida's Senate Leadership and House Speakership in 2010.... the ultimate slap across the face of Floridians is the promise of money to *protect the environment* and *fund children's health care* while this secret coalition of predatory oil drillers endanger it even further by setting up rigs 5 miles offshore.


<<<<One glaring problem with these *promises* to provide funds for children's health care---- two Florida Republican lawmakers have already started the drive to block federal health care in Florida, claiming it's a "power grab" by Obama.

They are Sen. Carey Baker of Eustis, a candidate for agriculture commissioner, and Rep. Scott Plakon of Longwood.

OOOOPS.>>>>

.....

The group has sponsored legislative leadership dinners and has recruited two of the most powerful state lawmakers to sponsor the oil-drilling bill in 2010: Sen. Mike Haridopolos, a Melbourne Republican slated to become Senate president in 2010, and Rep. Dean Cannon, a Winter Park Republican set to become House speaker in 2010.

The group’s cash contributions go beyond politics: Florida Energy Associates has offered to donate to the St. Johns River Alliance, the Apalachicola Riverkeeper and other environmental organizations in exchange for their support for oil drilling.
Cannon and Haridopolos say they’ll earmark the revenue raised by oil and gas to programs such as the Everglades cleanup, conservation land-buying, renewable energy development and children’s health care.

“I think it’s smart economic policy, and it’s the way to fund environmental protection and preservation,” Cannon said. ....

<<:puke:>>

.....

Lining up on the other side: environmentalists, including Audubon of Florida, which says it has fewer resources but strong public support.
Susan Glickman of the Natural Resources Defense Council calls it “a David and Goliath situation.”
“Funders with deep pockets are coming to our state trying to ram down a drastic policy that the public will reject,” she said, dismissing the polling data as inaccurate.
“When people have the ability to look at the real facts in this situation, Florida will reject offshore drilling as they have for decades.”

.....

Cannon, who sponsored the previous House proposal, said he has revamped it to “raise the bar” for oil companies.
His first plan would have allowed drilling as close as 3 miles from shore. This one, he said, will require staying at least 5 miles away and will include stronger provisions to make sure beachgoers can’t see drilling rigs from shore.

.....

Eric Draper of Audubon of Florida welcomes the debate as a chance to examine the numbers that proponents are using. For example, he challenges whether lawmakers could bank on the $2 billion revenue estimates any time soon, since it could take years to get permits and start drilling.
“They are throwing out a lot of assumptions that are not testable assumptions, which is shifting the debate,” he said.

.....

Daniels (a Daytona Beach lawyer representing Florida Energy Associates) said that the group has kept a low profile because “the independent oil and gas business is pretty competitive, and they just don’t want people to know what it is they’re doing.”

.....

I think Mr. Daniels meant to say, 'the independent oil and gas business is pretty rapacious, and they just don’t want people to know what it is they’re doing.'



This is an abomination.


And because these Republicans squatting at the levers of power in Tallahassee have engineered their lasting control via redrawing their own legislative districts to ensure their re-elections, Florida will continue to be victimized by these creeps.


But, we are fighting back

January 30, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for a 2010 ballot amendment designed to end political gamesmanship in drawing district boundaries, in what could be the first step to reshuffling the state's Republican-dominated political landscape.

.....

The unanimous ruling hands a long-sought victory to Florida Democrats, who have virtually no way to loosen the Republican grip on the state Legislature without changes to the way voters are grouped into districts.

The amendment bars districts from being "drawn to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party."

Districts also must be "compact," the amendment says, and can't be created to block racial or language minorities from having "equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice."

The Supreme Court decision is only a first step, however. Now, the group Fair Districts Florida has to gather 677,811 valid signatures by Feb. 1, 2010, to secure a spot on the November 2010 ballot. And then, 60 percent of voters must approve.

.....

The next once-in-a-decade round of redistricting comes in 2011, so putting the issue before voters in 2010 is a critical mission for Democrats and good-government groups like Common Cause that are pushing the initiative.

"Right now, we have a situation where there are no races because districts are so unbalanced and gerrymandered," said Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston. "The goal of this is to make sure that people, constituents, get to pick their representatives and the representatives don't get to pick their constituents."

It will still be some time before we can remove this foul stench from Tallahassee.

[lib2DaBone]

4. Just call Jeb Bush.. he's always available to sell out Florida for the right price..

[liberal N proud]

5. Will Florida give up its gold mine pristine white beaches for oil?

The tourist industry in Florida has always been king, are they willing to allow those White Sand Beaches of the Gulf Coast to be stained with the tar and the sunsets polluted with drill rigs?

Are they willing to give up the clear emerald water that stretch from Pensacola all the way south to Key West?


I hope someone down there has a clear head and stops this once again.

[oct2010]

6. They should build wind farms on the oil rigs with oil under $70 barrel

Might as well get some sort of return til the next oil scare

[ngant17]

7. The difference between the beaches of Texas and Florida

is like the difference between night and day.

How would you like to have tar sticking to your feet after a casual walk on the beach?

This is why most native Floridians have opposed offshore oil drilling, you can't have it both ways.