Oil Drilling
Mr. NELSON of Florida. ... Another component of the argument is simply that there is very little oil out there. They have had several dry holes. The geology shows there is not very much oil. The oil, in fact, in the Gulf of Mexico, is where the 4,000-plus oil rigs are, which is the central gulf and the western gulf off of, primarily, Louisiana and Texas.
But then, of course, there is the fourth component of why we should not drill in the eastern gulf. That is our military preparedness. If you fly commercially from Tampa to New Orleans, you do not fly across the gulf. You hug the coast of Florida. Why? It is restricted space. It is the largest testing and training area for our U.S. military. It is what Secretary Rumsfeld memorialized in the letter to the Senate Committee on Armed Services in December saying: Do not drill east of that military mission line.
We are testing weapons systems such as the F/A-22. All pilot training is being done at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City. Why? Because the Gulf of Mexico is restricted space. In a dog fight with the F/A-22, compared to the F-15, the F/A-22 is engaging in air-to-air combat at a speed of 1.5 mach, not like the F-15 and the F-16 at .75 mach, three- quarters of the speed of sound. In other words, the new stealth fighter is engaging in air-to-air combat at twice the speed of our present fleet of aircraft. Therefore, the training area has to be so much larger.
We are testing right now a laser weapon shot from a ship, which goes several hundred miles. We have to have restricted space. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said oil and gas rigs are incompatible with the military uses of that space.
12 . POSTAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ENHANCEMENT ACT -- (Senate - February 09, 2006)
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Thanks, Nelson is an idiot.