Deals to Block Drilling in Everglades, Gulf
Bush Promises $235 Million to Buy Out Mineral Rights in Fla. Areas
President Bush announced two major deals yesterday to protect Florida’s natural treasures from oil and gas drilling, pledging $235 million to buy out mineral rights in the cypress swamps of the Everglades and off the white-sand beaches of the Gulf of Mexico....
The deals to protect some of the last refuges of the endangered Florida panther and Florida’s Gulf Coast could also provide a political boost to his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who is up for reelection this fall. They may also burnish the president’s environmental credentials in the state that decided the 2000 election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30379-2002May29?language=printer
This was done because of Florida election 2000 and Jeb Bush's reelection.
The everglades and offshore are two different things.
Unlike the frozen tundra in ANWR and offshore drilling, there is a delicate habitat in the everglades worth protecting. Not that I am for a ban on drilling, but its a different category from the other cases.