Tamara Lytle | Chief Washington
Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- An 8.3
million-acre swath of the Gulf of Mexico off Florida's coast would be open to
oil and gas drilling as part of a deal worked out by lawmakers Thursday after
years of fierce debate.
The House was scheduled to vote today in favor of
the drilling expansion as part of an unrelated bill offering tax breaks. The
Senate likely will follow suit in what could be the final hours of the
Republican-controlled Congress.
The legislation also would allow Floridians and
residents of other states with no income tax to deduct sales taxes on their
federal returns. That tax break, which would otherwise have expired, will be
available for the 2006 and 2007 returns.
If the drilling measure passes
today, it would settle the dispute between energy-exploration advocates who say
the nation is starving for more resources and environmentalists who say drilling
could wreck Florida's pristine beaches and tourism
economy.
Florida lawmakers won a buffer of 125 miles or
more for the state's coastline until 2022.
The drilling would be allowed
in an area south of the Panhandle that runs roughly from the Alabama border to Fort Walton Beach and from 125 miles south of
the state to a point even with the bottom of the state. The tract is about 235
miles west of Tampa in federal waters.
The drilling
measure moved forward as the lame-duck Congress scurried to finish its work for
the year.
Richard Charter, head of the environmental group National OCS
Coalition, called it a "train robbery in the late of night on the way out of
town" and the largest new drilling in a formerly protected area in
decades.
Florida's delegation was once nearly united
against drilling off the state's shores. But Gov. Jeb Bush and much of the
Republican delegation began negotiating to allow drilling in exchange for the
buffer after energy prices spiked last year and pressure mounted for new
domestic sources of natural gas and oil.
The Florida delegation's vote
was expected to break down mostly along party lines, with most of the state's
Democrats opposing it and most Republicans favoring it.
Republican Mel
Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson worked together in the Senate to stop broader
bills that would have brought drilling closer to Florida's shores.
Martinez, an architect of
the compromise, said it offers far more assurances than doing nothing. Without
legislation, the Bush administration would open 2 million acres off Florida to drilling next
year. And without the bill, a future administration could drill just 25 miles
off Florida's coast near Pensacola.
But Mark
Ferrulo, head of the anti-drilling group Environment Florida, said the state
would have been better off without the bill because Democrats next year are more
likely to bar more energy exploration. "Why snatch defeat from the jaws of
victory?"
The Senate is expected to take up the bill today in hopes of
sending it to President Bush for his signature. But Democrats in the House may
try to hold out until they can close a loophole that allows energy companies to
avoid paying some drilling royalties to the federal treasury.
The White
House had urged passage of the measure, and spokesman Blair Jones called it "a
good step in expanding access to domestic resources and providing states a share
of revenues."
The new drilling area holds about 1.26 billion barrels of
oil as well as enough natural gas to heat 6 million homes for 15
years.
The bill is disappointingly narrow for the energy industry, which
had favored a House version that would have ended a 24-year congressional
moratorium on drilling along much of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in federal waters above the
outer continental shelf. That broader bill's hopes died when Democrats won
control of Congress for the session that begins in January.
The critics
who just months ago had opposed it as not doing enough to pump up production
decided that during the final days of the Republican-controlled Congress they
would push the narrower bill to at least win more drilling in the eastern Gulf
of Mexico.
Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., said the waters off Florida are near
pipelines and other equipment stationed farther west in the Gulf so production
can begin quickly.
But without more natural gas, he said, industry will
suffer and lose business and jobs to foreign competitors. He favored gas
drilling throughout the coastlines. "If America continues to lock up 85 percent of our
coastline, we are going to give America a second-rate
economy."
Athan Manuel of the Sierra Club called the bill dangerous to
the environment.
"This is one last gasp for Big Oil and their allies in
Congress. This election year, Americans spoke out about a new direction for the
country, including on energy policy."
The bill also offers four
energy-producing Gulf Coast states -- Louisiana, Texas,
Alabama and Mississippi -- a slice of the new federal
royalties for drilling and gives all 50 states a small percentage to use for
projects such as parks.
Tamara Lytle
can be reached at 202-824-8255 or tlytle@tribune.com.
