Distrust Hangs Heavy Over Session

July 20, 2010
By Bruce Ritchie – Florida Tribune

Supporters of placing a ban on oil drilling in the state Constitution say you don’t have to go far back in history — only to 2009 — to show why one is needed.

In 2009, HB 1219 by Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Keystone Heights, had simply directed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to study and make recommendations on how drilling could occur if the state’s nearly 20-year-old ban on drilling in Florida waters were ever lifted. A Sierra Club representative spoke against the bill at one committee meeting, but it didn’t rate the attention of other environmental groups.

On April 21, the bill was amended in committee to lift the state’s ban . Six days later the bill passed the Florida House.

Although the Senate never took up the bill, some environmentalists say those events — along with the recent BP oil spill — show why the issue can’t be left up to the Legislature. The drilling ban is the subject of a special session this week called by Gov. Charlie Crist.

“It showed the power of special interests that want to start drilling in this state,” said Preston Robertson, vice president and general counsel for the Florida Wildlife Federation. “It certainly showed us that.”

Crist said the constitutional ban is needed to prevent the Legislature from changing the law.

“I know it's already barred statutorily,” Crist told reporters earlier this month. “I also know just a year ago they tried to change that statute and drill holes three miles off the coast of Florida.”

House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala and Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island and the incoming Senate president, still say there’s no need for the special session because drilling already is banned under state law.

Haridopolos said he and Rep. Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park and the incoming House speaker, have vowed not to allow a vote to lift the drilling ban during the next two years. Haridopolos says the special session is political grandstanding by the governor.

“Once I let them know, the citizens, that there is already a ban in place in the Gulf, they ask, ‘Why does there have to be a constitutional amendment to ban something that is already banned?’ “ Haridopolos said. “That’s not going to help anybody in the Gulf.”

But it was Haridopolos who earlier this year introduced a bill that would have lifted the drilling ban. His bill was never heard in committee as Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said he preferred to study the drilling issue.

Last year, Cannon introduced the amendment to HB 1219 that would have lifted the drilling ban.

The committee substitute with Cannon’s amendment passed the House Policy Council 17-7 along party lines with Democrats opposing. Six days later the bill was approved by the House 70-43, again split largely along party lines.

Haridopolos said earlier this month that the BP spill, with the oil washing ashore in the Panhandle, means the issue won’t come up again for at least two years.

“Two years from now, if people feel strongly about banning drilling in the Gulf forever, they can do a petition drive to ban it forever,” he said. “I think cooler heads will prevail.”

Cretul, R-Ocala, told legislators last week they could expect a “very short stay” in Tallahassee, suggesting that the drilling ban won’t be given serious consideration.

“Nobody believes anybody is going to propose any offshore or nearshore drilling off Florida in the immediate future,” Jill Chamberlin, spokeswoman for the House speaker, said Monday.

But some environmental groups say they can’t trust the Legislature to not lift the drilling ban despite its leaders' claims. They are holding a protest at the Capitol on Tuesday to urge support for the ban.

Groups supporting the ban include the Florida Wildlife Federation, Audubon of Florida, the Sierra Club, Crude Awakening, Hands Across the Sand, Progress Florida and Save Our Shores! Florida.

“The threat is on from the Legislature,” said Judson Parker, executive director of Save Our Shores! Florida. “They could potentially lift this ban, and they already got it through one house last session (2009).”

Barney Bishop, president of Associated Industries of Florida and a leading drilling supporter, said the House won’t allow a constitutional ban to be placed on the ballot this year. And Bishop said drilling opponents are not being realistic about their prospects for the special session.

“The constitutional amendment is not going happen — that is very clear,” Bishop said. “The environmentalists don’t want to believe it, but having the governor on their side is not advantageous in the debate.”

Some environmentalists say they don’t care whether Crist called the special session for political gain. And they said they’re not deterred in wanting to get the ban on the ballot despite opposition in the House.

If the BP oil spill had occurred off the coast of Naples or Miami, said Robertson of the Florida Wildlife Federation, people would have become “unglued” — and that would have changed the political tenor. Even so, he said, the spill provides the best opportunity for getting the ban passed.

“I think we all just need to understand that, no matter our political stripe, we all owe a duty to future Floridians to keep the beaches clean,” Robertson said. “The one positive thing that can come out of this BP disaster is that we wake up to the possibility this could still happen — unless we ban it in the Constitution.”

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