Ok, I admit that's a bit of an exaggeration, but some of the things that Kerry said in the speech on the environment that he gave earlier this week in Tampa didn't exactly go over so well in Florida.
Kerry apparently made the statement that he's supportive of oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which was reported in an article on the speech in the independent University of Florida student newspaper. Oil drilling in the Gulf is a big issue in Florida, and back several years ago the Bush Administration tightened restrictions on drilling and oil exploration in the Gulf, largely because of the efforts of the President's brother Jeb, who is of course governor of Florida (the Clinton era rules on drilling, which were never challenged by our last governor, a democrat, were too lax). So, anyway, when Kerry said that he supported additional drilling in the Gulf, Jeb Bush was none too happy about it, and lest anyone think it was just partisan politics at work, Jeb's been the most environmentally friendly governor since Bob Graham, and no Republican would have come into this state and said what Kerry did because they know what Jeb's position on the issue is.
Continuing the story, when Jeb Bush publically called Kerry on the drilling issue, Kerry, in one of his famous flip-flops, claimed that all he really meant was that he supported drilling in the areas where there is drilling already. That's not what he said though. He said "I support oil drilling in the right places...[where] they’ve already had the leases.” That's not the same thing as saying you support drilling where they're drilling already, because back when Jeb Bush got Dubya's administration to tighten the drilling rules and stop drilling that was planned, the area where they were going to drill was an area where they already had leases, but in the eyes of pretty much everyone in Florida, drilling in that area was unacceptable and putting the environment and Florida's coastline in danger. The qualifications Kerry makes are totally meaningless, because there are still leases on those areas where Jeb fought to stop drilling, and there are other even worse areas that also have leases for drilling, and with Kerry's policy, it would be ok to drill pretty much anywhere in the Gulf.
Kerry claims he wants to protect the environment because he's opposed to drilling for oil in ANWAR, an area where the danger of a large scale environmental disaster is small, but he favors continuing and expanding drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, where even a small oil spill could cause massive environmental impacts.
Posted by kathryn at Abril 24, 2004 03:59 AM | TrackBackForgive me for my possible ignorance, but is it possible that the environmental danger in ANWR is about the same, just not the population density? Hence, the NIMBY factor doesn't come into play there.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at Abril 25, 2004 01:55 AMNo, I'd say that there is less danger of environmental disaster in ANWR than the Gulf of Mexico, if only because oil spilled in the ocean is going to cause problems that are much more widespread than oil spilled on land, and cleanup on land is easier than in water. The main reason for opposing drilling in ANWR is that putting people and oil rigs there will disturb the wildlife, which, I've been informed by an Alaskan, isn't a particularly valid argument because the we're talking about a tiny amount of space in a massively vast region. The problem of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is that even with the best of efforts, some oil will end up in the water, where it becomes an instant problem, and if there's ever a spill, it's an environmental disaster. Add in that this is a region that regularly gets slammed by hurricanes, and there are too many risks for it to be environmentally responsible to drill in the Gulf.
I'm not particularly fond of the idea of drilling in ANWR either, but given the choice between the two, I'd pick ANWR because there are fewer risks.
Posted by: kathryn at Abril 25, 2004 02:24 AM