Drilling Himself Into a Hole

Rick Scott has rarely backed off of a controversial remark, but he sure seemed to run like crazy away from his statement on Everglades drilling today.

From the Sun-Sentinel:
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"Gov. Scott has not called for an expansion of drilling in the Everglades," said spokeswoman Amy Graham in an email after the speech. "That discussion is not on the table."
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Disappointing, really. This would have been a great tool to bludgeon the governor with. But let's not forget what started the confusion. A single statement widely regarded as an cautious ok to exploration: "With regard to the Everglades, I think we have to be very cautious if there's going to be any more drilling. It's my understanding, we haven't had any problems to date, so my goal would be to be very cautious."

Now, Scott didn't really stop there. He noted that Oil Well Road exists in Collier County, and if they named a road after it, it must be safe. Of course, the Everglades parks are navigable thanks to roads made by people who dreamed of mining resources, but which are not used for that purpose today because that was stupid.

I don't know quite how to react. Should I be horrified the state's top executive could even entertain this thought while sitting in a room of oil-hungry Economic Club guests? Relieved that he would back off so quickly following public disgust? Concerned that he could turn around just as quick? Amused that the head of Florida's GOP is so politically tone-deaf?

One thing I cannot help but question is where Scott's heart truly is after making the statement. His original stance was off the cuff. He was asked about whether drilling in the Everglades was cool, and seemed very clearly to say sure, if we're careful. And I can't think of any BPeason not to think oil companies would fail to be careful.

This isn't an issue where he should have been ambushed. Michele Bachmann made headlines a week ago by campaigning in favor of Glades drilling in Florida last week, and has maintained that position as some sort of manifest destiny for America to rape the land.

The take-away has to be that if Bachmann or another oil puppet becomes president, Rick Scott would not put up a fight to save the Everglades. He couldn't even fight a group of people in his natural base.

Drill, Ricky, Drill

It astounds me how quickly Republicans forget about the most incredible of disasters when political expediency demands it. Gov. Voldemort has decided the first major policy announcement he makes on the environment is to stand up for big oil just a matter of months after the worst environmental disaster in American history.

Rick Scott's statement on oil drilling is not only wrong, but rings of amnesia. The Gov.-elect's statement via Naked Politics:

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"The Obama Administration's offshore drilling ban is yet another example of government regulation impeding economic growth. Florida is committed to pursuing energy independence, which is essential to national security. With sound policies in place, we could expand domestic drilling and eliminate our reliance on foreign oil. Furthermore, I am disappointed that the White House has chosen to unilaterally impose a policy that threatens job creation and economic growth in Florida without consulting our office."

Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/12/rick-scott-oil-drilling-is-great-obama-aint.html#ixzz19w6V7V8W

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Wonder where this man would have stood on drilling within 10 miles from the coast.

Of course, like so many of Rick Scott's public statements, this goes way beyond his jurisdiction as a state official can only affect what happens in state waters. But this does send a disturbing picture of what Scott thinks should be driving the conversation on oil. That was why it was so important to pass a drilling ban before this man took office, but alas, that was not to be.

But just as when he announced plans to mesh the Department of Community Affairs, Environmental Protection and Transportation into some sort of growth-steroid dispensing agency, this outlook shows that Scott is willing to take nothing into account in policy-making besides the ambitions of rich men who wish to get richer.

Getting back to oil for a second, one cannot underestimate the enormous amount of financial damage which the BP oil spill did to the state of Florida. In oil-stricken areas like Desdin, the environmental and economic damage has been huge. BP has paid out more than a half-billion to local businesses, but as the linked article in the Desdin Log notes, that is just a drop in the tar-sickened waters there. But even in regions that were never realistically at risk of being hit by oil, the damage was huge. International visits to Florida are down. Our reputation as a destination to vacation or retire has been deteriorated significantly.

But Scott says stopping drilling is "impeding economic growth"?!

The other thing Scott completely ignores is that Florida has never reaped any job benefits from oil drilling. Because of our long-standing (and very wise!) ban on near-shore drilling, combined with heavy bipartisan lobbying against deepwater drilling in our neighborhood, we have never become financially dependent upon drilling the way Louisiana or Mississippi have. It's worth noting again that Jeb Bush, a Republican's Republican if there ever was one, fought hard against offshore drilling in Florida at precisely the time BP was installing the Deepwater Horizon rig. So Rick Scott is defending financial interests with no stake in the future of Florida, and standing for not a single Florida job.

That's not even getting into a babyish complaint that President Obama didn't consult with a transition team when the sitting governor supports the White House 100 percent on a drilling ban.

It also largely ignores the severe environmental ramifications. I know Rick Scott doesn't believe in global warming, or even in saving the Everglades, but he really needs to take a deeper look at the issues than consulting with some CEOs who got rich off a single industry and then basing his entire position statements on the desires of those industries. If he did, he would realize offshore drilling has cost the state more than it has ever done for the state, and that Florida will be better off financially if Big Oil is restricted more, not less.

Unfortunately, I believe we are seeing right now an opening salvo from a governor determined to be the worst environmental disaster to ever move into the Panhandle, and six years after Ivan, that's a lofty goal.

Another Rig?

Update: At least the news seems to be getting better, not worse. The rig is in 340 feet of water, according to NOLA. Mariner Energy says this is an oil and natural gas rig, which makes me feel a need to link to this old post.

Also, just yesterday Mariner's leaders were protesting Obama's drilling moratorium, according to Climate Progress, making karma the leading cause of the explosion. I wonder if tourism leaders consider a moratorium on drilling to be anti-business?

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I don't want to over-react yet, but another oil rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, per The News-Press. Nobody has died, and this rig is in 2,500 feet of water, as opposed to the Deepwater Horizon rig's 5,000 feet of water.

We don't know if oil is leaking. Hopefully, we learn that very soon. But I hope the continuous lies from the oil companies suggesting offshore drilling is actually safe now are put to rest.

Special Session Called on Drilling

This news is long overdue, but quite welcome. Gov. Charlie Crist, according to the St. Petersburg Times, has called a special session of the Florida Legislature to debate placing a drilling ban on the ballot this year. If passed by voters, that would make a prohibition against oil drilling part of the Florida Constitution.

Of note, state waters extend 10 miles from the Florida coastline, so this wouldn't affect deepwater drilling. That is the perview of the federal government. And as we know too well now, our coasts can be threatened by an oil disaster hundreds of miles away from the coast. But this ban remains vitally important to protecting Florida's economy and ecology. Recall it was less than two years ago when the Florida House voted to give the Cabinet power to allow drilling as close as three miles from shore. That measure died in the Senate, thanks to Senate President Jeff Atwater, but was a significant demonstration of how much power big oil had harnessed in Tallahassee.

I lamented some time ago about the shift in Florida politics from a point when nearly every major political leader, from Jeb Bush down, was committed to saving our shores to a point where most state leaders, including Charlie Crist, favored oil exploration. Public opinion, sadly, also shifted rightward on this topic through the years. But the Deepwater Horizon disaster changed that. And I believe politicians recognize that. The most obvious sign, of course, is Crist, whose positions are historically less consistent than gelatin. Almost instantly after the BP explosion, Charlie changed his tune on oil, and within days touted opposition to drilling as a platform leg in his Senate run, leaving the impression to the ignorant that he fought offshore drilling for years.

But perhaps his chameleon-like change of mind can serve as leadership for our state lawmakers. Many who supported drilling in 2009 left voters back home aghast and confused. And that support for drilling was granted when most people in Florida supported drilling, and when re-election runs were more than a year away. That is not true today.

This session will run from July 20-23. Even if it runs long, a vote will have to be taken before Aug. 4 for a referendum to appear on the ballot this year. The next important date to consider is Aug. 24, when many lawmakers face voters in primary elections. The general election is Nov. 2.

Obviously, there will be politicians who confidently cast votes against a referendum regardless of statewide polls or the impending doom in the Gulf. Some represent inland counties, or extremely conservative areas. Amazingly, polls have shown the Panhandle to have the most enduring support for drilling, despite the fact tar is on those shores today. But my guess is most lawmakers will not want to vote in favor of oil company interests ahead of the needs and desires of most Floridians.

And everybody who does cast a vote against the ban will be on record doing so. The press will skewer them. The public will scorn them. And they will get a battering at the polls that has never been more deserved.

Natural Gas? Not So Fast!

I am seeing growing discussions online about how the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf would have been prevented if only energy companies focused on natural gas. It has been frustrating to me as I closely watched the drilling debate in the last couple years within the Florida Legislature, and everyone at all close to the debate was aware natural gas deposits were a big part of why people wanted submerged lands open for drilling.

As background, the Florida House in 2009 actually passed a bill which would have allowed to Cabinet to issue drilling permits within three to 10 miles of Florida's coastline. The Florida Senate refused to take the issue up without further research. At the request of Senate President Jeff Atwater, the Collins Center did an outstanding and thorough study of the matter which extended into this year's session. Lawmakers this Spring decided the drilling debate should wait until at least 2011, but the issue is pretty much off the table now for obvious reasons. I must take a moment to commend Atwater, a Republican, for single-handedly saving our coastlines from this greedy wager of our environment and economy.

Everyone should read this report if they have the time. The Collins report was issued well before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, so parts that describe the low probability of an accident can make you wince a bit. But it reveals a great deal about how the search for natural gas was truly at the heart of the drilling debate. And it also shows how that "cleaner" resource bears many of the same flaws and inherent dangers that oil drilling presents.

I want to draw attention to several key pieces of the report. For example, few realize the amount of waste materials discharged into the water just through the drilling process itself.

Excerpt:

Liquid muds are pumped down the hole to lubricate the drill bit and help bring the debris to the surface. The muds typically contain the metal barium as a weighting agent and are considered toxic.

In addition, the materials used to make the mud are taken from onshore sites and can contain minerals and impurities not commonly found on the ocean floor. While generally water-based, the muds can be oil- or synthetic-based, depending on the well depth and the type of drilling activity, such as that used on horizontal wells. The drilling also produces tons of what are called "cuttings,” the ground pieces of rock and other material the drill bit cuts. Life on the rigs produces its share of wastes, too, such as treated sanitary water, trash and debris. Bilge water, ballast water, waste oil, contaminated drainage from the rig decks and excess cement are also produced during offshore operations.

The muds and rock cuttings represent a significant portion of drilling wastes. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 1993 that for each exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico, companies discharged nearly 336,000 gallons of drilling fluids and nearly 113,000 gallons of cuttings into the water around the rigs. For development wells, the estimates were nearly 252,000 gallons of drilling fluids and 67,000 gallons of cuttings.

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That means just the lubrication and rock cuttings create a threat to the ecosystem when nothing goes wrong. In addition, we have substantial amounts of human waste that gets dumped into the waters. This latter part is probably a greater concern with deepwater drilling, as it is less convenient to dispose of bilge when you are hundreds of mile from the shore. But those cuttings offer a greater threat to our beaches and to shallow-water wildlife the closer drills are to shore. The report says the worst pollution is in the localized area immediately around the drill, again creating a greater problem with shallow-water drilling.

The seismic processes associated with drilling can also affect the marine mammals living in areas that are getting drilled.

Excerpt:

Seismic guns and other acoustic disturbances associated with oil and gas exploration and development can have significant impacts on marine life. Each species of marine mammal and each marine fishery varies in its sensitivity to sound frequencies. Acoustic disturbances that affect one species may not affect another. Impacts are possible over large spatial areas. Incidents of direct injury or mortality are possible but much less likely than more subtle behavioral effects associated with masking communications between animals. Protocols exist that attempt to limit these impacts.

Data presented at IESES suggested that whales and fish (especially grouper) may be more susceptible to the acoustic disturbances associated with oil and gas activities than small cetaceans like dolphins and manatees.

Mitigating measures are practiced in most parts of the world, including the Gulf of Mexico. The MMS requires certain measures, such as lookouts posted on vessels to warn operators to cease testing when mammals are spotted. Companies can also be required to begin the testing with low-volume air blasts that cause marine life to scatter before the blasts build to maximum volumes.

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And why do oil companies want to do all of this? We know there is plenty of oil in the Gulf, since we are watching it gush live and have seen it wash ashore in Louisiana. But the Gulf boasts just as much natural gas, something described by this report as an "oil equivalent."

Excerpt:

Government assessments suggest that estimates of oil and gas reserves in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico are moderate. Estimates for this region are much larger than those for Florida’s state waters, but much smaller than those for the Western and Central regions of the Gulf of Mexico. The mean estimate of 7.71 billion barrels of oil equivalents (oil plus natural gas converted into an "equivalent” amount of oil) includes 3.88 billion barrels of oil and 21.51 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These amounts are likely to be more than 10 times that of Florida state waters, pending a new round of assessments for areas covering the Florida Panhandle. However, as a comparison, this amounts to approximately one third of the estimated undiscovered reserves in the Western Gulf of Mexico and less than one seventh of the estimated undiscovered reserves in the Central Gulf of Mexico. Across the Gulf, drilling and production activities have steadily moved into deeper water, where assessments show greater resources.

Government assessments suggest that estimates of oil and gas reserves in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico are moderate. Estimates for this region are much larger than those for Florida’s state waters, but much smaller than those for the Western and Central regions of the Gulf of Mexico. The mean estimate of 7.71 billion barrels of oil equivalents (oil plus natural gas converted into an "equivalent” amount of oil) includes 3.88 billion barrels of oil and 21.51 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These amounts are likely to be more than 10 times that of Florida state waters, pending a new round of assessments for areas covering the Florida Panhandle. However, as a comparison, this amounts to approximately one third of the estimated undiscovered reserves in the Western Gulf of Mexico and less than one seventh of the estimated undiscovered reserves in the Central Gulf of Mexico. Across the Gulf, drilling and production activities have steadily moved into deeper water, where assessments show greater resources.

Of the roughly 7,300 active leases in the Gulf, 58 percent are in water 1,000 feet or deeper. That compares to 27 percent in those depths in 1992.

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So there is slightly more gas than oil in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, which is of course where this report focuses its energies. Of note, the report also points out that job opportunities from shallow-water drilling are likely small for Florida compared to the possibilities in deepwater, simply because energy companies want to go where the larger reservoirs lay. The report seems to indicate that the reason energy companies go toward deeper drilling areas is not because of a lack of access for near-shore drilling, but because there is just more stuff to suck up further out in the sea. But we are all painfully aware now of the risks associated with deepwater drilling, where pressure makes it hard to plug a hole.

From my point of view, the answer isn't for companies to invest more in natural gas. This report shows many of the environmental problems associated with drilling are just as present with gas exploration. I would rather see companies exploring alternatives like wind, solar, biomass, heat-to-energy and other low-risk sources. There should also be a much greater emphasis in out consumer regulations on energy saving, which is clearly the best way to cut down on the use of fossil fuels in this country.

Double-Dare them to vote 'No!'

Those who expected a special session on oil drilling in Florida may have to wait. Gov. Charlie Crist tells the Sun-Sentinel today that he still lacks the votes to get a ban on offshore rigs in Florida waters. But I say he should call a session and see if legislators truly have the guts to vote 'No' right now.

Just as a reminder, barely a third of voters in Florida support offshore drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, according to the most recent Mason-Dixon. And that was before the oil got into the Loop Current and started its crawl for our coasts. A state of emergency has been extended to Keys and to counties whose coasts don't even touch the Gulf of Mexico, which should remind voters there that this spill is a real threat to the entire state.

I think now may be a good time to remind people that state lawmakers and the Florida constitution have a jurisdiction that reaches only 10 miles from the coast. That means any action by members of the Florida Legislature would involve rigs getting built much closer to the shoreline than BP's rig. Deepwater Horizon was roughly 400 miles away from Florida when it blew, yet threatens our top industry. Also of note, the majority of the members in the state Senate and House have districts that either touch the coast or are close enough that much of the economy is dependent on beach tourism.

So call the session, Charlie. The chance of passing a drilling ban will never be better than they are now. You need to do it by August or it won't make it onto the ballot this year. And if a majority of lawmakers are foolish enough to shoot this one down in special session, you can say you tried, and they will suffer before their constituencies this Fall.

And who better is there to show the need for this in our state constitution? You have changed your position on this so readily as to demonstrate how dangerous it is to trust our coastline to the whims of ambitious politicians.

It's coming for us.

Meteorologists are now saying that crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster is in the Loop Current and coming for the Florida Keys. At least in the Sunshine state, this has been the great fear the entire time. It also is a pretty sure sign that there is far more oil here than any of the official estimates have calculated, but anyone following this disaster already knew that.

So what does this mean? The Florida Keys are the part of the state that should be the most concerned, and if I understand meteorologists correctly, then Southeast Florida is actually facing more danger than Southwest. Because the Loop flows well to the west of the state, then loops around the tip north of Cuba and flows into the Gulf Stream. Yes, that is a link to Wikipedia. This is a political site, and if you really want to know more about the science, I am sure there are better sources. What I can tell you is that behind Louisiana (the state with the closest proximity to the spill), Florida has always been the state most endangered by this incident because water in the Gulf of Mexico flows straight for us.

And in the Florida Keys, this is especially bad news. The delicate islands have a tourism economy, and also have little infrastructure for staging any type of massive cleanup. If this comes to Miami, the ability to respond is probably stronger, but there could also be a lot more money lost in canceled reservations. And God forbid if anything closes down one of Florida's major ports.

But we should all be concerned about this. The Huffington Post headline on the splash page now says "Flowing Toward Florida" in big type. I'm afraid anybody planning a vacation to Sanibel or Daytona will be reticent based on this news, even if those areas are less likely to be hit with large amounts of oil. Of course, most everywhere can still be affected. The panhandle is already dealing with reports of tar balls beaching, though reports last week seemed to have been exaggerated. That doesn't erase the bad publicity, though, and in the sale of paradise, bad publicity is not good publicity. If oil is coming down the west coast from east of the Loop, that could be bad along the Gulf Coast even as the bulk rushes toward the Keys and Miami.

I think it is time soon to start compiling the positions of Florida's major elected officials on drilling. Voters should beat the heck out of all of them for this.

A Changing Tide

A new Mason-Dixon poll shows a mere 35 percent of Florida voters now support offshore drilling. These are the "We'll Never Learn" voting bloc that Marco Rubio is trying to woo. The new poll numbers are impressive considering a Palm Beach Post poll right before the Deepwater Horizon disaster showed 64 percent in support. Granted, comparing different polls is like checking your weight on different scales, but this drastic a drop is something well outside margins of error.

The question now is how this will translate at the polls. At this point, I'm a bit stunned every statewide politician hasn't run from the oil at high speed.

There is other curious stuff about this poll. Somehow, in the conservative Panhandle, drilling still has a plurality of support even though it is the area closest to the spill right now. I keep wondering if Alabama is running low on idiots, but I know better.

Some are already suggesting this is just a blip, but I think it is worth remembering this oil will be with us for a long time. I'm still mad at Obama for throwing his support to drilling, but that isn't happening in the Gulf of Mexico anytime soon thanks to this spill. Even if the White House hadn't changed posture a tiny bit, you simply can't get out and drill right now when a change in wind could move the slick right onto your drilling site.

And I promise when the Legislature meets next year (the soonest when leadership shows any willingness to discuss drilling), they will deal with opposition like never seen before. I doubt any coastal representatives or senators will consider drilling, and without them, nothing will go through.

We've won this one. Too bad it happened the hard way.

A short, dynamic history of drilling and Florida opinion

While doing a bit of research about offshore oil drilling, I ran across a stunning poll from just a few weeks ago which I hope shows politicians the dangers of acting purely on public opinion. This Palm Beach Post poll came out of days before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It shows rather stunning support for offshore oil drilling - around 64 percent.

Now this was startling news at the time to anyone who watched the drilling question change in the past two years. Until 2008, this was the third rail of Florida politics (and we don't even have subways). Check this AP timeline. Democratic Gov. Bob Graham as governor in 1983 put a moratorium on any drilling in Florida waters, and Republican Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988 worked overtime to get Reagan's interior department to leave the Straits of Florida out of a drilling program. Interest wained after the Valdez disaster in 89, but not for long. The Congressional delegation in the 1990s, led by then-Sen. Graham and Republican Sen. Connie Mack, had to lock arms during the Clinton years to stop that administration from opening the gulf.

Then in the early '00s, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush fought his own brother's administration to stop it in the early '00s, and managed to convince the Interior to only lease out new land on the gulf as far from Florida as possible. Of note, that was when Deepwater Horizon was installed, so I must give Bush due credit here. If not for his fight regarding the Area 181 lease, this disaster may well have happened by Florida's panhandle.

And there was good reason for Florida to fight like hell in a unified, bipartisan way. This was the good bipartisanship, not seeking compromises but having people across a political spectrum stand up together to fight terrible proposals which offend regardless of ideology. In Florida's tourism economy, a spill could be devastating. We may learn that all too well very soon.

But gas prices went up in past decade, and global warming deniers found bigger soap boxes. Then John McCain, on the trail for president, put out an energy plan in 2008 calling for drilling. A dramatic shift occurred. Many Floridians, perhaps moderate Republicans trusting in their maverick nominee, suddenly felt more comfortable with oil. Mel Martinez, who a few years ago argued his support for drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve was based solely on the chance to distract from oil opportunities in the gulf, changed his tune on offshore. So did many Congressmen. And of course, so did Charlie Crist, then on a short list for McCain's VP slot. The polls started to shift and 2008 became the first year when any polls showed a plurality of Florida voters supporting drilling.

Earlier this year, some bizarre bug got in President Obama's head and he too announced he would favor drilling. Even Jeb Bush, fortunately out of office by then, changed his position. And somehow, this all brought us to where we were one short month ago, when more than six in 10 Floridians favored the drill.

They were always wrong. The evidence was always plainly there that drilling could still have devastating consequences, that technology to clean spills was still lousy and ineffective, and that plans announced by oil companies to drill safely from underneath the waterline was probably an outright lie. Still, the organized nonsense was enough to convince the Florida House last year to pass a bill allowing drills within a few miles of Florida's coast. Fortunately the Senate opted not to buy that logic bridge, and this year, no such a bill came to the floor in either chamber.

But with this black monster beaching in Louisiana and slowly extending its reach toward Florida's shores, you are suddenly seeing an enormous number of people reversing positions. Crist left oil island before announcing his independent candidacy last month. Incoming state House speaker Dean Cannon also sounded new skepticism.

This suddenly makes all those officials who held steadfast against oil drilling look really good. Even if 64 percent of the state, the governor, the president and a crazy percentage of state leaders were against them two weeks ago. I can't find any new polls yet on drilling, but I promise those numbers have shifted.

Unfortunately, a big black bob of environmental devastation makes it difficult to be too happy about this gloating opportunity. But every politician who gets to rub an opponent's past support of drilling in their nose will get their chance before November, and that chance will be well-deserved.

So drilling is perfectly safe...

Some barely-covered news in the Gulf of Mexico this week has reignited my personal sense of betrayal regarding Barack Obama and his amazing lapse of judgment when it comes to drilling. For those who didn't know, we had a rig explosion this week in which 11 people are most likely dead. We also had a very near-miss on an ecological disaster of Exxon Valdez proportions, with engineers initially suspecting the well opening on the ocean floor would leak everywhere. Still, we there is a growing oil spill off the coast of Louisiana.

But nothing to see here folks. The White House says there is nothing to worry about. Drilling hardware is safe. There isn't the same threat as there ever was, and besides, gas is expensive! Not that drilling offshore will change the price of gas in the next decade, when any number of external factors will have a much bigger effect, but hey, destroying the Gulf is bipartisan.

I still cannot fathom why Obama wants to open up parts of this water body surrounded by beaches so private companies can explore for a dirty fuel source. Last time he took an interest in Florida energy was when he came to Arcadia to celebrate the opening of America's largest solar farm. But the possible good produced by that clean energy source cannot begin to counter the potential damage from an oil spill off the coast. Imagine the white sands at Siesta Key or the shells on Sanibel being covered with a black residue, or if dying wildlife was running ashore along the entire West Coast of the state.

But that is all just common sense. Let's not forget that this was a politically disastrous move on Obama's part too. Let me remind you, the reaction of most Republicans when Obama just gave away an enormous and unprompted concession on an environmental issue was to say it wasn't enough. Mitch McConnell offered faint praise but said this step was "a small one that leaves enormous amounts of American Energy off limits." John Boehner said Obama was continuing to "defy the will of the American people," a reaction that was both staggering and completely expected.

Obviously, Boehner was especially wrong. I can admit the Obama on the campaign trail wasn't trumpeting notions like a stimulus package, and spoke directly against issues like mandated health insurance. So while it is still silly for Boehner to act like the voters are secretly pro-Republican and just punched the wrong part of a butterfly ballot, a clear mandate wasn't issued on many parts of Obama's agenda.

But drilling was a campaign issue. Remember "Drill, Baby, Drill!" This was a centerpiece of the McCain energy plan. This was Sarah Palin's rallying call. They wanted Florida to bask in the glory of the Texas tea, to smear it on our skins like German tourists using amplifier to get an especially leathery tan. But we said 'No!' Florida voted for a non-incumbant Democrat as President for the first time since 1976. And I assure you this issue was talked about in this state.

Then when it comes time for Obama to make good on a promise, to keep rigs away, to instead promote solar, natural gas, biomass, hydrogren or even nuclear power ahead of searching for hazardous materials off our coast, he fails us and gets nothing politically for it. He betrays us without even a cause.

It is a tragedy when Americans die during the hunt for a consumer product. It truly sickens me that human life is considered by some the cost of business in certain industries. But just as recent mining deaths have led to new scrutiny about underground safety, I hope these lost lives make people reconsider how we safe it is to drill for oil under our waters.