Senate Bill sb0406

    Florida Senate - 2006        (NP)                       SM 406

    By Senators Klein, Jones and Campbell





    30-477B-06

  1                         Senate Memorial

  2         A memorial to the Florida delegation to the

  3         United States House of Representatives, urging

  4         unified resistance to proposals for the

  5         revision of measures protecting the coastline

  6         of Florida against oil and gas drilling.

  7  

  8         WHEREAS, Florida's Congressional Delegation has long

  9  stood united against proposals for oil and gas drilling off

10  the state's coasts, and

11         WHEREAS, across party lines, Florida's Congressional

12  representatives have long recognized that protection of

13  Florida's fragile coastal ecology is vital to the state's

14  economy as well as its ecology, and have understood that, in

15  Florida, the economy and the ecology are indeed inseparable,

16  and

17         WHEREAS, temporary energy shortages in the wake of

18  Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have encouraged oil- and

19  gas-drilling interests to attempt to break down defenses that

20  have thus far protected Florida's coastal resources from many

21  of the pollution and contamination risks of our time, and

22         WHEREAS, the United States Department of the Interior

23  has estimated that hydrocarbon reserves off western Florida

24  and the Panhandle would meet only about 200 days of the

25  nation's gasoline and heating oil needs projected for this

26  winter, and

27         WHEREAS, in practical terms, these reserves would not

28  become available for at least 2 years, and a possible maximum

29  of 10 years, after drilling begins, and thus do not constitute

30  a solution to the immediate shortfall or a justification for

31  

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    Florida Senate - 2006        (NP)                       SM 406
    30-477B-06




 1  proposals to change current laws limiting coastal drilling,

 2  and

 3         WHEREAS, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have demonstrated

 4  beyond doubt the extraordinary risks of placing additional

 5  drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, risks that are both

 6  economic in the short term and ecological in the long term,

 7  and

 8         WHEREAS, scientists have alerted us to the presently

 9  unpredictable results of contaminating marine organisms and

10  ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, which are a vital part of

11  the food chain throughout the Southeastern United States and

12  the entire country, and

13         WHEREAS, our society stands at a point at which our

14  almost exclusive reliance on oil drilling has led to the

15  problems we face today, and our energy policy should be based

16  on the use of viable 21st-century energy sources, NOW,

17  THEREFORE,

18  

19  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:

20  

21         That the Florida delegation to the United States House

22  of Representatives is urged to stand strong and united against

23  any attempt to allow oil or gas drilling along Florida's

24  coastline.

25         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be

26  dispatched to the Speaker of the United States House of

27  Representatives and to each member of the Florida delegation

28  to the United States House of Representatives.

29  

30  

31  

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