Offshore Drilling Debate Heats Up in US Senate
Date: 01-Mar-06
Country: USA
Author: Chris Baltimore
Republican Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said his panel will review legislation next week that would open about 2.9 million acres in the Outer Continental Shelf 100 miles off Florida to drilling within a year of passage.
Domenici's bill targets natural gas in Lease Sale 181, a politically contentious area near the Florida panhandle that the state's lawmakers have fought to keep off-limits to drilling.
The area was shut to drilling after Florida officials complained that an oil spill or other exploration accident could foul beaches and hurt the state's multibillion-dollar tourism industry.
Timing is still fluid, but the committee could vote on the drilling plan at a business meeting scheduled for March 8.
Asked if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will allow the bill that emerges from committee to be debated by the full Senate, Domenici responded, "Oh yeah."
Florida's two senators -- Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Bill Nelson -- have a competing plan that would allow drilling on 740,000 acres of Lease Sale 181, which may hold as much as 7.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Two energy panel Democrats, including its ranking member Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, are co-sponsoring Domenici's bill.
Nelson has threatened to filibuster any legislation that threatens Florida's coast.
Legislation he is sponsoring would bar drilling within 260 miles of the state's western coast, and within 150 miles of Pensacola and Florida's eastern coastline.
The jury is still out on whether Florida senators can work out a deal with Domenici to allow legislation to proceed quickly.
"We need to make sure that we protect Florida," Martinez told reporters. "We're not at a time that we want to talk about compromises."
One wildcard on the energy panel is Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a pro-drilling senator who has threatened to oppose drilling in Lease Sale 181 unless the plan includes provisions to share drilling revenues with coastal states like hers.
And a competing plan by California's two Democratic senators would prevent drilling along its coast.
There are a slew of similar proposals for Lease Sale 181 drilling in the House.
The most immediate impact would come from a bill sponsored by Republican Rep. John Peterson of Pennsylvania that would lift all existing moratoria on drilling more than 20 miles off state coastlines.
"I'm concerned that most of the plans out there as they're currently written don't do enough to unlock the vital supplies of American natural gas we have so readily available," Peterson said in a statement.
Republican Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, will consider Peterson's proposal later this spring, a Pombo spokeswoman said.
However, Pombo supports softer language that would allow states to opt out of drilling moratoria, rather than lifting any bans outright, the spokeswoman said.