By Cory Reiss
Sun Washington Bureau
Like a monster in a horror movie that has been shot, stabbed and
blasted into oblivion, the specter of drilling close to Florida's
shores is rising from the dead once more to lunge for a state that
thought it was safe.
Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Larry Craig,
R-Idaho, plan to introduce energy legislation today that would allow
oil and gas drilling as close as 45 miles from Florida's shores in the
Gulf of Mexico.
Late last year, Congress ended a long battle over
the same issue by allowing drilling closer than previously permitted
but only as close as 125 miles until 2022.
That bruising fight
roiled the House and Senate, split the Florida delegation and seemed to
have ended with an uneasy peace among environmentalists, Florida
lawmakers and advocates of expanded domestic production.
Dorgan and Craig have scheduled a news conference today announce the bill, whose prospects may be dim.
"This
proposal goes back on everything the Congress dealt with last year -
everything we did to create a long-term buffer for Florida,'' Sen. Mel
Martinez, R-Fla., said in a statement. "I will fight this proposal
every step of the way.''
Sen. Bill Nelson, who used hard-line
tactics to stall drilling legislation from the time it began to gain
strength in 2005, said he would fight as well.
Congress probably
doesn't have the appetite to revisit the offshore drilling issue, aides
said. Moreover, Democrats are in charge now. Environmental groups are
not breathing too easy, but they aren't on the edge of their seats
either.
"We're not sounding the alarm bells,'' said Mark Ferrulo,
director of Environment Florida, "but we're also not turning the cheek
either....This may be a unifying opportunity for the Florida
delegation, which in some ways could be a silver lining.''
Florida lawmakers were torn during tense negotiations and some outright fights over the drilling issue last year.
The
new legislation pairs changes to energy policy that environmental
groups would support with drilling, which they clearly would not. The
measure would increase fuel efficiency standards for new cars and
trucks by 4 percent a year from 2012 to 2030 and increase the ethanol
mandate.
In addition to gutting the drilling deal for the eastern
Gulf of Mexico that Congress passed last December, the measure also
would allow inventories of oil and gas along the southeastern seaboard.
The
bill would allow drilling as close as 45 miles from Florida in areas
including the waters of Cuba, which has moved to drill close to the
Florida Keys, chafing drilling supporters who have cried foul. The
measure also would permit travel to Cuba for drilling-related work,
which Martinez complained would violate the U.S. embargo of the island.
