Posted on 08/29/2011 11:40:40 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Wasserman Schultz attacks Bachmann suggestion of Everglades drilling By Michael O'Brien - 08/29/11 01:28 PM ET
Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), thwacked Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for saying she would consider allowing fossil fuel exploration in the Everglades.
Wasserman Schultz seized on comments by Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate, suggesting she would allow exploration for oil or natural gas in the preserved Florida areas if it could be done responsibly.
"We need to look forward and invest in the future, and we won’t get there with unthinkable, reckless and irresponsible Republican proposals like drilling for oil in the Everglades," Wasserman Schultz said Monday in a statement. "As a Floridian, I can see that Michele Bachmann's outrageous proposal to drill for oil and natural gas in the Everglades, demonstrates just how out of touch Republicans are with the needs of Floridians and all Americans."
Bachmann raised the possibility of allowing exploration in the Everglades during a video interview Sunday with The Associated Press.
"The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy, and more dependent on American resourcefulness," Bachmann told the AP. "Whether that is in the Everglades or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region or whether that is in North Dakota, we need to go over the energy rules."
The congresswoman, a Tea Party favorite, has made energy a key element of her campaign trail rhetoric as she pursues the Republican presidential nomination. Bachmann vowed earlier this month in South Carolina that, were she elected, the price of gasoline would fall to less than $2 per gallon. She didn't back down from that remark.
Bachmann said that her approval of drilling in the Everglades — or anywhere else — would depend on whether she thought it could be done responsibly.
"If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades, then we shouldn't do it," she said. "No one wants to hurt or contaminate the earth. We don't want to harm our water ... From there, though, that doesn't mean that the two have to be mutually exclusive. We can protect the environment, and do so responsibly, but we can also protect the environment and not kill jobs in America, and not deny ourselves access to the energy resources that America's been so blessed with."
The issue of offshore drilling has always been a touchy political issue in Florida, where the tourism industry depends on clean beaches. That industry was jeopardized last year as a result of the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana, the effects of which extended to Florida. Support for drilling offshore in Florida, in the past, has often hinged on its distance from the shore.
That makes Bachmann's comments even more politically thorny, given Florida's status as both a key primary state and a key swing state in the general election.
"Michele Bachmann’s latest proposal to drill in the Florida Everglades is just another example of the Republican Party supporting policies that would only further enrich the special interests, while putting our environment and working families at risk," the Wasserman Schultz said.
I wonder what her family land development interests are in the area.
her brother in law and sister are local political creatures who have had “ahem” difficulties with laws.
Two-thirds of voters (65 percent) said that restoring the Everglades was an important issue to them personally, and 55 percent were opposed to Scott’s budget proposal to cut Everglades restoration funding from $50 million to $17 million next year.
Are you saying they wanted to build Disneyworld in the Everglades? I have never heard that.
Seems to me that most opposition to oil drilling comes from a lack of understanding, usually driven by people who deliberately cloud the issue.
The environmentalists pushed the great lakes directional drilling ban with photos of offshore oil rigs and oil soaked sea birds. Neither of which are remotely honest in regards to directional drilling from shore (actually 1000 or more feet from the waterline) BTW there have been 8 directional wells drilled under the lakes before the ban with no problems.
My neighbor has certainly changed his views, in part because of me but also because he has more time to study the facts since his retirement. He votes in Florida now because that’s where his primary residence is.
She’s gotta learn to be smart and pick her battles better.
“Our Debbie” will hopefully become unelected Debbie.
In the meantime, what Lil’ Debbie doesn’t know is that the Evergaldes has an oil bearing formation going from the raccoon Point area well out onto the Continental Shelf off the Florida West Coast. As a matter of fact, a friend who is an oil industry consultant verified the above.
PS I have seen oil samples from the well which was just a couple of stone throws from my place in the interior of the ‘Glades.
PPS What is the reason for the infestation of Lil Debbies? First it was Debbie Jansen, who couldn’t call sex on an anesthetized puma (she said a female was a male!) and now we get another Lil Debbie.
As Kennedy said, “There just ain’t no justice.”
“They take the glades very seriously.”
It has been drilled for decades.
“It is probably the case that a catastrophic oil drilling accident which occurred in the Everglades would be an environmental disaster of monumental proportions, at least for the state.”
In which alternative universe would such a straw dog of a hypothesized spill be an environmental disaster of monumental proportions?
Calm thy self and do try to remember that when the Everglades lawn dart crashed when full of fuel just after taking off, the area of “impact” was minimal and some 20,000+ pounds was slammed into a very small area.
The impact was in an area I had been in before. After a few months had passed, it looked the same as it had previous to the crash.
So much for “hydrocarbon caused monumental disaster” syndrome.
“People still talk about the super mega screw up of the miami politicians when they rejected disneyworld.”
I first heard that from Dr. Earl R. Rich, who stated that Audubon, and a faculty member, and a notorious Audubon ‘activist’ who shall remain unnamed, other than my dubbing him “Fat Bob”, was in it as far as he could wriggle.
If Miami could trade its Liberals and enviro/whacko types for DisneyWorld, it would so do in a New York moment.
Michigan is physically very similar to Florida in fact its probably swampier and our people are far more environmentally touchy about things and we drill everywhere. Swamps are natural filters.
The Embridge spill didn’t pan out to be the vast catastrophe some hoped it would be and there are some facts that were missed by the media. One big fact that was missed is the fact that there wasn’t a state inspector on the payroll as required for some ten years or more.
I'm all for drilling wherever there are significant enough reserves to do justify doing so, without excessive environmental risk. For Florida, that means drilling in the Atlantic, and any candidate who wants to make a drilling in the Everglades part of their agenda will disappear faster than that lawn dart did...
The real 'Glades Guru, of course, was Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. Her legacy and influence have probably rubbed off on a lot of us Floridians. Worse things could happen. There are simple better, more productive, less risky places to drill for oil off the Florida coast. If oil exploration and production ever happens in Florida on a large scale, the Atlantic ocean is the probable location.
But I say "Drill, baby, drill" wherever it makes the most sense. But the Everglades aren't the place where it makes the most sense, thankfully.
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