Fla. House panel discusses offshore drilling

Texas and Alabama get far less money every year from offshore drilling in their state waters than advocates say Florida can expect, the state's environmental chief told a House panel Wednesday.

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole said Texas gets about $45 million and Alabama anywhere from $50 million to $300 million. That compares to an estimate by the pro-drilling group Florida Energy Associates that Florida's treasury can expect to rake in $2.25 billion a year from oil and natural gas production.

A drilling opponent jumped on that gap to cast doubt on the estimate.

"The math doesn't add up," said Eric Draper, policy director for Audubon of Florida.

He said the $2.25 billion estimate is based on an assumption 150 million barrels of oil could be pumped from Florida waters annually although Texas produces only 2 million and Louisiana 6 million.

Pro-drilling lawmakers argued that oil reserves in other Gulf Coast states, which have allowed drilling for decades, are dwindling while Florida's have yet to be explored.

"We need to find out what we have by exploring," said Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights.

Existing law prohibits drilling in Florida waters, which extend three miles into the Atlantic Ocean and 10.35 miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

Opponents and proponents joined Sole, who said he was neutral, in testifying at the first of a series of meetings being held by the House Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning

The panel is chaired by Rep. Dean Cannon, R-Orlando. Cannon sponsored a bill that would have opened Florida waters to drilling as close as three miles from shore during this year's session. The House passed the measure, but it died when the Senate declined to take it up.

Senate leaders still are wary of reversing a long-standing policy against drilling. That again may short circuit what's potentially one of the hottest issues facing lawmakers as they prepare for the 2010 regular legislative session that opens in March.

Petroleum interests and other supporters argue drilling would provide the cash-strapped state with a new revenue source while helping the nation achieve energy independence. Environmentalists and their allies in the tourism industry say the risk of spills and other pollution to the state's beaches is too great.

"We will listen to experts and citizens from all sides of the issue and remain focused on helping restart Florida's economy while protecting our state's environmental treasures and our important tourism economy," Cannon said in a statement.

Sole said he's keeping an open mind but told the panel it also should consider competing uses for state waters including shipping lanes, fishing, aquaculture, military training and weapons testing and alternative energy such as harnessing wind and ocean currents.

He said another important factor is sand on the gulf bottom needed for beach renourishment because half of Florida's 825 miles of sandy beaches are critically eroded.

"The probability of a major oil spill admittedly is low," Sole said. "The data does show the higher risk issue is transportation. It's not the drilling so much, but it's the pipelines, the barges."

He showed the panel of map of hundreds of pipelines crisscrossing the gulf off Florida's neighboring states. He later said the state faced significant challenges to site just a single pipeline off Tampa due to the beach erosion issue.