Fla. drilling advocate: Funds not come quick
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – An offshore drilling advocate acknowledged it’ll take years before the state can realize the promises of a revenue windfall from oil and natural gas exploration during a Capitol debate Tuesday.
Frank Matthews, a lawyer representing Florida Energy Associates, said the state likely wouldn’t see any money for at least three years.
“It’s going to take some time to do it,” Matthews said. “I don’t believe you’re going to get revenue in the next two years as a result of your passing this.”
It would take that long to get nomination, leasing and permitting procedures in place, he said, but urged lawmakers to take a long-range view of the state’s financial needs.
Matthews and Audubon of Florida policy director Eric Draper debated during a meeting of the House Democratic caucus. It was their first head-to-head confrontation on the issue in Tallahassee.
“Let’s let the games begin,” Draper declared.
The issue isn’t expected to come to a vote until the next regular legislative session that begins in March. The House earlier this year passed a bill that would have allowed drilling as close as three miles from shore. The vote was largely along party lines with Republicans in favor and Democrats against. It died without action, though, in the Senate.
Draper also spoke for a new group of environmentalists, coastal businesses and local governments called Protect Florida’s Beaches that has been formed in response to the push for drilling.
He argued the risks of spills and other pollution from drilling, pipelines and on-shore processing facilities was too great in a state with a $562 billion-a-year coastal economy including tourism, fishing and other water-dependent businesses.
“Why pit one economy, which is a dirty economy, an ugly economy and a dangerous economy, against what we currently have, which is clean, safe and, of course, very desirable because people come here to see our sunsets?” Draper asked.
He also said any oil from Florida’s waters would amount to only one thousandth of the world market.
Those are the same arguments most Florida politicians had been making until last year when the national Republican ticket adopted its “drill, baby, drill,” mantra.
Matthews dismissed Draper’s comments, accompanied by photos of oil spills, refineries and drilling rigs, as “hoopla and the horror of what might happen.”
He said the risk is nominal and pointed out Florida already faces a potential hazard from millions of barrels of oil that come into the state via ships from such places as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela.
“Is anybody screaming in horror? Is anybody out there picketing beaches?” Matthews asked. “We’ve got to get it from somebody.”
Retired Louisiana State University petroleum research professor Don Goddard, who accompanied Matthews, said the recent blow out of an offshore well that’s been polluting waters off Australia’s coast couldn’t happen in the Gulf of Mexico because of different technology and standards.
“Those things don’t happen here,” Goddard said. “Here, we’re way ahead of the game.”