So goes Florida, so goes offshore drilling

Florida’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives supported a measure yesterday to allow drilling in state waters. It is a major change in policy as supporting such legislation even just a few years ago would have almost been political suicide as so many citizens in the state feared for the cleanliness of the their beaches. The likelihood that the bill will pass this session, as the Senate has not considered similar legislation, remains remote. But with Florida facing fiscal shortfalls and the opportunity of a windfall estimated at $31 billion over 20 years from offshore revenue, politicians are facing a new reality.

Florida has been the linchpin to maintaining the moratorium on federal offshore drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and certain areas of the Gulf of Mexico due to the size of its poltical clout, its coastline and the abundance of oil and gas off its shore. While Jeb Bush was governor, his brother supported his anti-drilling stance and ensured no new oil and gas activity would begin in federal waters off the coast of Florida (Federal waters on the outer continental shelf begin roughly ten miles from the coast, while the states control the sea floor until that point). In fact, the federal government bought back leases in federal waters in 2002 to placate Florida’s political leadership.

Now, the winds now appear to be shifting in Florida, and odds are they will eventually blow across the rest of the federal outer continental shelf.

The reality is that expanded offshore drilling will not be decided on after an exhaustive environmental or energy policy debate, but whether or not the government needs the proceeds from drilling and how it plans to spend them.