[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 53 (Wednesday, April 25, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S3923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRAHAM (for himself and Mr. Nelson of Florida):
  S. 771. A bill to permanently prohibit the conduct of offshore 
drilling on the outer Continental Shelf off the State of Florida, and 
for other purposes; to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague, Senator 
Bill Nelson, to introduce legislation that will protect the coast of 
Florida in the future from the damages of offshore drilling.
  In past Congresses, I have introduced similar legislation that sought 
to codify the annual moratorium on leasing in the Eastern Gulf of 
Mexico and ensure that state's receive all environmental documentation 
prior to making a decision on whether to allow drilling off of their 
shores.
  Today, I am introducing legislation that takes these steps, plus 
several others. The Outer Continental Shelf Protection Act will protect 
Florida's fragile coastline from outer continental shelf leasing and 
drilling in three important ways.
  First, we transform the annual moratorium on leasing and preleasing 
activity off the coast of Florida into a permanent ban covering 
planning areas in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida, 
and the Florida section of the South Atlantic.
  Second, the Outer Continental Shelf Protection Act corrects an 
egregious conflict in regulatory provisions where an effected state is 
required to make a consistency determination for proposed oil and gas 
production or development under the Coastal Zone Management Act prior 
to receiving the Environmental Impact Statement, EIS, for them from the 
Mineral Management Service.
  Our bill requires that the EIS is provided to affected states before 
they make a consistency determination, and it requires that every oil 
and gas development plan have an EIS completed prior to development.
  Third, our bill buys back leases in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico which 
are an immediate threat to Florida's natural heritage and economic 
engine.
  What does this bill mean for Florida? The elimination of preleasing 
activity and lease sales off the coast of Florida protects our economic 
and environmental future.
  For years, I have taken my children and grandchildren to places like 
Grayton Beach so that they can appreciate the natural treasures and 
local cultures that are part of both their own heritage and that of the 
Florida Panhandle.
  We have a solemn obligation to preserve these important aspects of 
our state's history for all of our children and grandchildren. Much of 
our identity as Floridians is tied to the thousands of miles of 
pristine coastline that surround most of our state.
  The Florida coastline will not be safe if offshore oil and gas 
resources are developed. For example, a 1997 Environmental Protection 
Agency, EPA, study indicated that even in the absence of oil leakage, a 
typical oil rig can discharge between 6,500 and 13,000 barrels of waste 
per year. The same study also warned of further harmful impact on 
marine mammal populations, fish populations, and air quality.
  In addition to leakages and waste discharges, physical disturbances 
caused by anchoring, pipeline placement, rig construction, and the 
resuspension of bottom sediments can also be destructive. Given these 
conclusions, Floridians are unwilling to risk the environmental havoc 
that oil or natural gas drilling could wreak along the sensitive 
Panhandle coastline.
  Because the natural beauty and diverse habitats of the Gulf of 
Mexico, the Florida Keys, and Florida's Atlantic Coast attract visitors 
from all over the world and support a variety of commercial activities, 
an oil or natural gas accident in these areas could have a crippling 
effect on the economy. In 1996, the cities of Panama City, Pensacola, 
and Fort Walton Beach reported $1.5 billion in sales to tourists. 
Florida's fishing industry benefits from the fact that nearly 90 
percent of reef fish caught in the Gulf of Mexico come from the West 
Florida continental shelf.
  For the last several years, I have been working with my colleagues, 
former Senator Connie Mack and now Senator Bill Nelson, Congressman Joe 
Scarborough, and others to head off the threat of oil and natural gas 
drilling. In June of 1997, we introduced legislation to cancel six 
natural gas leases seventeen miles off of the Pensacola coast and 
compensate Mobil Oil Corporation for its investment. Five days after 
the introduction of that legislation and two months before it was 
scheduled to begin exploratory drilling off Florida's Panhandle, Mobil 
ended its operation and returned its leases to the federal government.
  While that action meant that Panhandle residents faced one less 
economic and environmental catastrophe-in-the-making, it did not 
completely eliminate the threats posed by oil and natural gas drilling 
off Florida's Gulf Coast. Florida's Congressional representatives fight 
hard each year to extend the federal moratorium on new oil and natural 
gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. But that solution is temporary.
  Today we are introducing the Outer Continental Shelf Protection Act 
to make permanent our efforts to protect Florida's coastlines. I look 
forward to working with my colleagues on the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee to move this legislation forward and protect the 
coast of future generations of Floridians and visitors to Florida.
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