Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who was governor of Florida when the state imposed the moratorium on drilling for oil off Florida's coasts, today criticized state legislators for short-sighted thinking in its bill to pursue oil drilling off Florida's coasts. In an interview with the Herald/Times, he offered four reasons:
1. "It's very bad environmental policy.'' He said that once Florida lawmakers pass a bill to open the door for the governor and Cabinet to allow for oil drilling in the near-shore waters of the Gulf of Mexico, there is no turning back, he said. Congress will end its 25-year ban on oil drilling off federal waters as well, he said.
He said the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to protect our coastal land "now to open that land up to drilling doesn't make much sense.''
"If people who live in Lake Wales Florida can take this kind of attitude, what about people who live on Lake Erie. We are restricting ourselves to becoming a drilling state,'' Graham said.
2. "It's very bad tax poiicy,'' Graham said. "It's a mirage that this is going to solve all of our problems and I'm afraid we're looking for mirages.'' He said the same thing is happening with the wishful thinking lawmakers are attaching to expanded gambling on tribal reservations and at parimutuels. "All these are distractions from the fact we have to look seriously at our tax base.''
3. "It's bad energy policy,'' Graham said. "This reinforces that we're not serious about pursuing alternative energy if we're willing to risk the environment of our coast to oil drilling.''
4. Finally, he said legislators haven't learned from their own mistakes. "The last-minute, back-room, non-public action designed to build a single airport hangar last year is now happening again with a plan to open up oil and gas drilling. It doesn't seem the Legislature learned the lesson of 2008.''
Graham, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, challenged the argument by the bill's sponsors -- Reps. Charles Van Zant and Dean Cannon -- who argue that Florida needs to open its waters for oil drilling to increase our national security because our dependence on foreign oil makes us vulnerable.
"That's a misstatement,'' Graham said. "It's not that we are excessively dependent on foreign oil. It's that we are excessively dependent on oil.''
He noted that even if we were to tap into the oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. would still comprise less than 3 percent of all the reserves in the world while it consumes 25 percent of it. "These are unsustainable relationships,'' he said.
Graham commended Gov. Charlie Crist's attempts to push for legislation to require more use of renewable energy in electric plants in Florida. "I hope he's going to be successful.''
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