HM 509

1	House Memorial
2	A memorial to the Florida delegation to the United States
3	House of Representatives, urging unified resistance to
4	proposals for the revision of measures protecting the
5	coastline of Florida against oil and gas drilling.
6
7	WHEREAS, Florida's Congressional Delegation has long stood
8	united against proposals for oil and gas drilling off the
9	state's coasts, and
10	WHEREAS, across party lines, Florida's Congressional
11	representatives have long recognized that protection of
12	Florida's fragile coastal ecology is vital to the state's
13	economy as well as its ecology, and have understood that, in
14	Florida, the economy and the ecology are indeed inseparable,
15	and
16	WHEREAS, temporary energy shortages in the wake of
17	Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have encouraged oil- and gas-
18	drilling interests to attempt to break down defenses that have
19	thus far protected Florida's coastal resources from many of the
20	pollution and contamination risks of our time, and
21	WHEREAS, the United States Department of the Interior has
22	estimated that hydrocarbon reserves off western Florida and the
23	Panhandle would meet only about 200 days of the nation's
24	gasoline and heating oil needs projected for this winter, and
25	WHEREAS, in practical terms, these reserves would not
26	become available for at least 2 years, and a possible maximum
27	of 10 years, after drilling begins, and thus do not constitute
28	a solution to the immediate shortfall or a justification for
29	proposals to change current laws limiting coastal drilling, and
30	WHEREAS, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have demonstrated
31	beyond doubt the extraordinary risks of placing additional
32	drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico, risks that are both
33	economic in the short term and ecological in the long term, and
34	WHEREAS, scientists have alerted us to the presently
35	unpredictable results of contaminating marine organisms and
36	ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, which are a vital part of the
37	food chain throughout the Southeastern United States and the
38	entire country, and
39	WHEREAS, our society stands at a point at which our almost
40	exclusive reliance on oil drilling has led to the problems we
41	face today, and our energy policy should be based on the use of
42	viable 21st-century energy sources, NOW, THEREFORE,
43
44	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
45
46	That the Florida delegation to the United States House of
47	Representatives is urged to stand strong and united against any
48	attempt to allow oil or gas drilling along Florida's coastline.
49	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
50	dispatched to the Speaker of the United States House of
51	Representatives and to each member of the Florida delegation to
52	the United States House of Representatives.

CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.