Posted July 4, 2001
By LARRY WHEELER
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s decision to restrict new offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for the next five years may not be as big an environmental win as some politicians say it is, anti-drilling advocates in Florida warned Tuesday.
Although President Bush agreed to cancel about 75 percent of the planned lease sale of 5.9 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico, there is still plenty of opportunity for environmental damage and political maneuvering, conservationists said.
“I would like to see a permanent moratorium on offshore drilling,” said Enid Siskin of Gulf Coast Environmental Defense, a Pensacola organization opposed to offshore drilling. “We don’t want our protection dependent on two brothers getting along.”
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush took partial credit Monday for persuading his brother to grant the state a wide buffer from oil and natural gas exploration in federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf.
The agreement cleared the way for the Interior Department to auction the exploration rights to 1.47 million acres more than 100 miles due south of Alabama’s coast.
Known as Lease Sale 181, government officials expect the leases to generate significant quantities of crude oil and natural gas.
Dropped were plans to auction off leases on 4.4 million acres due south of the Florida Panhandle and a slice of Alabama.
Although some environmentalists saw a measure of good news in the Bush decision, Frank Jackalone, the Sierra Club’s Florida staff director did not.
“This is actually a worse plan,” he said.
Because the region being opened to new exploration and production is believed to be rich in crude oil reserves, he said, “The risk of an oil spill becomes that much more dramatic.”
The Bush decision also offers no guarantees on 146 older, but still active leases off Florida’s coast from Pensacola to Apalachicola.
The most prominent of these is Chevron USA’s Destin Dome leases, just 25 miles south of Pensacola Beach.
“It is by no means a given the White House will uphold Florida’s opposition to drilling on Chevron’s lease,” said Mark Ferrulo, director of Florida Public Interest Research Group. “We’re very concerned about where the White House is going to come down.”
Chevron wants to build a series of natural gas wells and an underwater pipeline, but opposition from Florida has blocked the company and its partners from proceeding.
Last year, Chevron filed a lawsuit against the federal government claiming breech of contract. It is also pursuing an appeal with the Commerce Department to overrule Florida’s objections.
Oil state lawmakers who just last week were highly critical of Florida’s opposition to offshore drilling, seemed to tone down their objections after the Bush administration announcement.
Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, supports Bush’s reduced sale.
“He also believes it will make us even more dependent on foreign oil in the future,” said Ken Johnson, a Tauzin spokesman.
“What choice did the president have when many members of his own party abandoned him on this issue?” Johnson said.
Florida’s two senators, Democrats Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, plan to continue pressing their legislation to enact a permanent ban on drilling off Florida’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts and to buy back those active leases.
In an attempt to win further concessions from the Bush administration, Nelson said he will keep his “hold” for as long as possible on the nomination of J. Steven Griles as deputy secretary of the interior.
“I will use every tool available to us to fight oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico,” Nelson said.