by David Royse
The News Service of Florida
Senate President Mike Haridopolos said Thursday that while he’s in favor of boosting domestic oil drilling, and interested in studying “all options,” the Legislature will not pursue new drilling in nearshore Florida waters in the coming legislative session.
“Not in Florida waters, not this session,” Haridopolos told The News Service of Florida in an interview.
Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), who is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat up next year, said he and House Speaker Dean Cannon have agreed that the technology around the safety of oil drilling — and what happened that led to last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill — needed to be fully understood before moving forward with new drilling in Florida’s nearshore waters.
Still, Haridopolos said, as he has in a couple other recent interviews, that new drilling is needed anywhere it makes sense, particularly in Alaska, where, he said, residents are in favor of it.
Haridopolos said the spike in gas prices has changed the argument, shifting it in favor of looking for ways to boost domestic production.
“I don’t know about you, but gas at $3.88 a gallon isn’t easy,” said Haridopolos.
Haridopolos, who will lead the Senate during one more session before being forced out by term limits regardless of the outcome of the U.S. Senate race, has shifted his view on drilling off Florida’s coast.
He was one of the legislative leaders who pushed in the spring of 2010 for new drilling within 10 miles of Florida’s Gulf coast, and as near as 3 miles from the Atlantic shore.
Then came the April 20, 2010, BP spill, which fouled the Gulf and caused a massive slowdown in tourism at Gulf beach destinations, even in places completely unaffected by actual oil.
Haridopolos said then that was a “game changer” and said lawmakers needed to back away from the push for new drilling.
Since, then, however, oil prices have gone up and Haridopolos has said the state shouldn’t permanently forget about new drilling, saying recently that taking it off the table completely was “irresponsible.”
“We must ensure that innovative technology guarantees safe drilling and would not impact Florida’s environment or tourism industry.
When safe drilling is available, we have an obligation to provide for the long-term economic well-being of our country and state,” Haridopolos said in December.
But Haridopolos clarified on Thursday that now is not that time, pledging that when lawmakers look at the issue in the coming year, it will not be with an eye to an immediate end to the moratorium on new drilling in Florida waters.
Haridopolos did say he supported continued exploration in other areas of the Gulf where it is already allowed.
In the months after the BP spill, there was a federal ban on all new drilling in the Gulf, but that has since been lifted, and new deep-water drilling permits have been issued in the Gulf.
The state has its own two-decades-old ban on drilling in state waters, which extend about 10 miles from the Florida coast into the Gulf and 3 miles out into the Atlantic.