House acts to bar drilling off Florida
Copyright 2001
THE WASHINGTON POST
June 22, 2001
By Eric Pianin
WASHINGTON, June 22 — The Republican-controlled House voted by comfortable margins yesterday to block oil and gas exploration off the coast of Florida and to bar new oil, gas and coal exploration in millions of acres of national monuments, dealing a blow to President Bush’s efforts to increase domestic energy supplies.
IN A SEPARATE VOTE, the House also approved a proposal to prevent the administration from reviewing or altering new restrictions on hardrock mining on government land.
Although the measures now go to the Senate, where their fates are uncertain, the votes were the strongest indication yet of congressional unease with Bush’s energy and environmental policies. They suggested that even among Republicans there are serious doubts about the general direction of the president’s proposals.
The votes coincide with a decline in public approval of the president’s energy and global warming policies, which critics say place greater emphasis on production and exploration than conservation and environmental protection.
“This clearly demonstrates that the majority of Congress, by a sizable margin, is environmentally sensitive and wants [the administration’s] policy to recognize that,” said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert, a moderate New York Republican and leader among environmentalists on Capitol Hill.
The White House sought to minimize the importance of the votes, suggesting they were an early skirmish in what is likely to be a protracted debate. “These are all matters we are continuing to review, and we are going to continue working with Congress to make sure the president’s priorities are reflected in the final legislation,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
GOP FORCES BEATEN BACK
White House lobbyists and Republican leaders worked to try to stave off the action but were surprised by the overwhelming support for the measures. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) gave an impassioned floor speech in which he called the proposals “radical” environmental notions that rejected promising domestic oil and gas reserves and threatened to leave the country vulnerable to foreign oil producers.
In the most hotly contested vote, the House passed by 247 to 164 a measure to postpone any final lease agreement between the Interior Department and energy companies wishing to drill in an offshore tract in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Efforts to drill in the area have been opposed by Florida officials, including Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who has been pitted against the president, his brother, on the issue.
Seventy Republicans joined Democrats in approving the measure, which came as part of an $18.9 billion fiscal 2002 Interior Department spending bill.
Reps. Jim Davis (D-Fla.) and Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.), the chief sponsors of the Florida oil lease ban, declared that the administration was risking oil spills along the Florida coastline for the sake of modest increases in energy production.
“We are against quick fixes to solve our energy problems,” Davis said. “We don’t want to see oil drilling off the coast.”
Gov. Bush has repeatedly urged his brother’s administration not to proceed with plans to extend offshore oil and gas drilling to a tract that comes as close as 17 miles to Pensacola, Fla., and 200 miles from the Tampa Bay region. The tract, called Lease 181, covers about 6 million acres and may contain 400 million barrels of oil.
During last year’s campaign, President Bush expressed sympathy with Florida’s opposition to offshore oil and gas production, including Lease 181. Yet, the White House opposed any delay in leases and lobbied some of Florida’s Republican lawmakers on the issue.
By 242 to 173, the House approved an amendment to the spending bill by Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) that would prohibit new energy exploration in national monuments beyond that already allowed. Forty-seven Republicans voted in favor of the proposal.
“Some of the oil and gas companies have been hankering to get into these lands for years,” Rahall said. “Our national heritage must not be sacrificed on the altar of greed and profits.”
The Interior Department recently determined there are significant energy reserves within the boundaries of five monuments designated by President Bill Clinton, including large, low-sulfur coal deposits in the 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. The agency has also looked at monument land in California, Colorado, Washington and Idaho.
BACKING FOR CLINTON RULES
The House also voted 216 to 194 to prevent further administration review of Clinton administration regulations that would require mining companies to pay for the full cost of environmental cleanups on federal land. The regulations also impose strong environmental standards to protect ground and surface water from mining pollution and give federal agencies wide discretion in deciding whether to grant operating permits to mines that may pose a serious environmental threat.
Staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.