Drilling to begin in Gulf of Mexico and off Virginia coast....Congress has 60 days to stop it.

[madfloridian]

But they won't, because even our Democrats supported it. They supported it in spite of reports of environmental hazards. They supported it in spite of the fact that the area is one of the favorite paths of hurricanes that enter the Gulf.

Final Drilling Plan Issued

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne released a five-year offshore drilling plan Monday that would set in motion oil and gas leasing off Florida that Congress approved last December. The department expects to begin leasing in a large tract south of the Panhandle this October, followed next year by leasing in a smaller section to the east. A third lease sale in a vast tract farther south in deeper Gulf waters is scheduled for 2009.

The plan, which covers July 2007 through June 2012, also calls for leasing in waters off Virginia that are currently off limits and would expand production off Alaska. Congress would have to pass a law allowing the Virginia leasing, which the state legislature requested under conditions that Kempthorne said the department has exceeded.

"This program gives great weight to the desires of coastal states regarding oil and gas development near their shores," Kempthorne said.

All told, he said, the plan sets 21 lease sales and opens about 48 million acres where drilling has not previously been allowed, including 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico that begin 125 miles south of the Panhandle and 234 miles west of Tampa Bay. The plan for the Gulf adheres to legislation that was the subject of protracted negotiations and battles with lawmakers from Florida.

Congress has 60 days to block the plan or Kempthorne would implement it.

So, it's done. We never got the real story on the oil platforms in the Gulf after Katrina. One of those little pesky items the media failed to cover.

This article shows that environmental warnings have been ignored in the rush to drill in the Gulf.

Gulf Drilling Is Unclean, Spills or Not

WASHINGTON - The federal government says the odds are a minuscule 0.5 percent that an oil spill from expanded drilling in the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico would hit Florida beaches. Environmentalists scoff at the math. Even if the number is correct, however, installing new drilling rigs and pipelines is certain to gouge the ocean floor with anchors and trenches and release billions of barrels of sediment, cuttings and contaminated water.

Moreover, some planned lease sales are expected to prompt hundreds of tanker trips per year to bring oil from the deepest platforms to shore, a practice that would be new to the Gulf and which some drilling foes argue would boost the odds of big spills.

..."Laying pipelines in shallow waters requires trenching that buries acres of surrounding sea floor. Platforms in deeper waters are held in place by tethers and anchors that scrape the bottom.

Drilling mud, cuttings and byproduct waters are discharged into the Gulf, causing plumes and mounds below. Some chemicals used in the process are released as well. Mercury levels have been found to increase around rigs using certain drilling compounds and some drilling refuse is low-level radioactive, the report says.

...."Charter said there's no avoiding cumulative effects. "It's the industrialization of the ocean," he said, "and it doesn't happen without a cost to the living marine environment."

So it's done. Right in the paths of hurricanes.

[bananas]

1. Call Pat Robertson!

Doesn't he live in Virginia Beach?

[madfloridian]

2. So many things we never expected have happened since 2000

I always thought our congress would realize that drilling in the paths of hurricanes to get a finite amount of oil that will only last us a short time...would not be worth the cost to the environment and the state.

But then this is the administration that bombed a whole country for no reason.

I just did not expect Nelson to vote for it. That saddened me.

[madfloridian]

3. More about Virginia drilling...

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/147-05012007-1339473.html

"A number of New Jersey politicians have lobbied heavily against the plan. They say it would endanger the New Jersey shore if oil from a spill near Virginia were to drift north.

"Allowing drilling off the coast of Virginia puts New Jersey's shores and wildlife at risk of contamination from oil spills and leakage," said U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg.

Lautenberg and New Jersey's other senator, Robert Menendez, said the plan would also encourage more oil and gas drilling along other coastal states. They said the Bush administration should put more money into developing renewable sources of energy."

Florida is not that lucky. No other state is taking up for us on the drilling. Louisiana's politicians pushed for it, Texas folks love it.

So there is no one to help us out since Bill Nelson joined with Martinez to say yes.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

4. k&r--good find. What else is being hidden by dumbed-down 24/7 "news"?

[Perky]

5. People you are mising the upside of this attempt

The oil companies have wanted to get deeper into the gulf for the lastdecade or more. It went nowhere because floridians opposed it and who was governor. Now that Jeb is gone the need to protect him is gone as well..


But it looks like they are pretty short sited because Floridians or as opposed to this as Nevadans are to Yucca Mountain.


This will bite them hard on the ass in '08

[madfloridian]

6. Democrats helped on this bill.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/09/DRILLING.TMP

"So industry groups, led by the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Chemistry Council and the American Gas Association, began pressuring the White House and Republican House leaders to accept the Senate bill to secure some new energy supplies before Democrats took power.

Gulf Coast lawmakers, especially Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who's been on a crusade to get more oil and gas revenue for her hurricane-stricken state, also aggressively pushed for the bill. She enlisted Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid to back her cause. Reid helped persuade House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco not to whip up Democratic opposition to the drilling measure.

In the end, the measure narrowly survived. The House, on a 207-205 vote, rejected an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., to require oil companies to repay royalties owed on leases from the 1990s before they could bid on any new leases. The Senate has no time to change it, so the change would have killed the drilling provision."

And another article about the passage of the bill that really caught us off guard. Nelson had opposed, but then he supported it.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/03/15/Opinion/Floridians_betrayed_b.shtml

"When Nelson and Martinez convinced Floridians that last year's compromise was the best deal for the state, the lawmakers assured the public that there would be no new encroachment until at least 2022. And while neither senator is happy about the new development, they need to express their unhappiness a lot louder.

Especially Nelson. This is his signature issue, and his fellow Democrats are in control of both branches of Congress now. Instead of his meek response to Dorgan - "this was debated fully last year, it was decided, and that's that" - Nelson should show as much outrage as he did when Republicans were doing the oil industry's bidding.

Meanwhile, Florida is an important state in the upcoming presidential election. Voters should punish any politician who breaks his promises. The offshore drilling issue was settled, at least for the next decade and a half, and Congress needs to keep its word. For a change."