Scott, Nelson vow to fight drilling off state coast
Governor and senator oppose Trump plan
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, widely expected to battle this year for Nelson’s Senate seat, said Thursday they both intend to fight a Trump administration plan to open previously protected parts of the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil and gas drilling.
Scott said he has requested a meeting with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to discuss opposition to President Donald Trump’s effort to expand domestic energy production.
“I have already asked to immediately meet with Secretary Zinke to discuss the concerns I have with this plan and the crucial need to remove Florida from consideration,” Scott said in a statement.
In the announcement Thursday, Zinke said nearly all of the nation’s outer continental shelf — a jurisdictional term describing submerged lands 10.36 statutory miles off Florida’s west coast and 3 nautical miles off the east coast — will be considered
Floridians will get a chance to comment on the proposal Feb. 8 at the Four Points by Sheraton in Tallahassee.
for drilling.
Scott was not the only Florida Republican criticizing the proposal.
U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, of Longboat Key, called the proposal “reckless, misguided and potentially catastrophic to Florida.”
But the Florida Petroleum Council, an industry group, hailed the Trump administration move as a way to benefit state consumers by potentially creating jobs and additional government revenue while strengthening national security.
“Allowing us to explore our offshore energy will boost our state economy and spur investment — all while safely co-existing with our agriculture, tourism and fishing industries, as well as U.S. military operations,” council Executive Director David Mica said in a statement.
Aliki Moncrief, of the Florida Conservation Voters, described the proposal as “reckless” and added that “it’s refreshing to see [Scott] catching up with what Sen. Nelson has been saying for years.”
The topic of oil drilling did not come up Sunday when Scott had lunch with Trump in Palm Beach County, Scott spokesman John Tupps said.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday said the administration will continue to work with Scott.
“Our goal certainly isn’t to cross Gov. Scott,” she said during a daily press briefing. “Just because we may differ on issues from time to time doesn’t mean that we can’t have an incredibly strong and good relationship.”
Under Zinke’s proposal, which must still go through a public comment period and potential revisions, 90 percent of the nation’s offshore reserves would be open to leasing between 2019 and 2024. Money raised from the leases would go toward improving national parks.
Nelson, a Democrat, panned the plan as “an assault on Florida’s economy, our national security, the will of the public and the environment.”
“This proposal defies all common sense, and I will do everything I can to defeat it,” Nelson said in a statement.
In 2006, Nelson and then U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, RFla., brokered a deal to ban drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast through 2022.
Nelson has long maintained that oil rigs being “too close” to Florida’s shoreline could affect the state’s tourism-driven economy and military training areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Environmental groups expressed a similar view Thursday.
“The plan proposes to expand offshore oil drilling everywhere, including in our most sensitive waters,” Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen said in a statement. “It puts irreplaceable wildlife and coastal communities at risk for the sole benefit of big oil, and it takes us in exactly the wrong direction on the urgently needed transition to a clean energy future.”
Nelson’s statement Thursday came a day after he announced plans to invoke a procedural rule known as the Congressional Review Act to try to block efforts to roll back safety standards the Obama administration put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster that poured millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Floridians will get a chance to comment on the proposal Feb. 8 at the Four Points by Sheraton in Tallahassee. The hearing is one of 23 that will be hosted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management across the nation between Jan. 16 and Feb. 28.