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Gold/Mining/Energy : coastal caribbean (cco@) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bobby1418 who wrote (1228)	1/1/2000 12:40:00 PM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4686

Friday's little uptick may have just marked the end of tax loss selling. Or perhaps Mr Gross was just trying to fill out his portfolio and take advantage of a few people who don't understand the situation. <G>. Jeb Bush's (Proposed) Speech to Justify Investing Money in CCO <G> Florida needs to stop wasting money fighting lawsuits and trying to illegally and immorally prevent this small oil company, CCO, from exercising it's contractural right to develop oil leases that Florida sold to them in the '40s. Florida insisted at that time that CCO HAD to drill every year or we would take the leases away from them. Then for many years (when the politics changed) we insisted that they shouldn't drill because there is no oil there and they will spill this nonexistant oil and make a mess. Not only that, we insisted that CCO should post a multi billion dollar bond before they drill for the nonexistant oil because they will spill it all. Florida was hoping that CCO would just dry up and die. The Courts are now telling us that Florida has the right to prevent CCO from drilling. They really didn't have to tell us that because our lawyers have told us from day one that the Government of Florida can prevent anyone from doing just about anything with any property through the simple exercise of Florida's power of eminent domain. This power permits the State to take anyone's property rights for public purposes any time we want. Unfortunately, the US Constitution says that Florida should pay "just compensation" for the property so taken. The Appeals Court here in Florida reminded us of that last October. The State can argue that there is no oil there so "just compensation" should be zero. Unfortunately there are secret memos that suggest that there may actually be some oil there(I'm guessing). In addition, a geologist had the nerve to publish an article that was accepted by the Oil & Gas Journal where He suggested that there might be a little oil there, "tens of billions of barrels" at just the Apalachicola site. We could let a jury settle this. Any Floridian sitting on a jury would have to say there is no evidence of any oil rather that have to actually pay for it. Unfortunately for Florida, CCO will request a change of venue to say, Texas or Louisiana or Missisipi or maybe Alabama. They'll obviously get the change of venue because Floridians would have a clear financial interest in the outcome. Taking "tens of billions of barrels of oil" away from CCO could cost $100 billion or maybe more. It's simple arithmetic and based on legal precedent (such as the Michigan vs Miller Oil Case). Rather than risk a Court and Jury determined damage award that could be calculated into at least tens of billions of dollars if not the magic $100 billion, I, Jeb Bush, have come up with an alternate proposal. If there really is that much oil there, it is a super windfall for the State and the Florida taxpayers because there is a royalty that will accrue to the State. The Country would be greatly benefitted by such a hugh oil find right in our own backyard and under the control of Americans. Such a new suppply of billions of barrels would probably lower oil prices immediately upon announcement and keep the economic boom here in the US going into the future. It is in the best interest of the United States and Florida if we do uncover and verify that there are billions of barrels of oil there. The future President of the United States, George W. Bush, has said that the way to lower oil prices is to encourage exploration for oil. No one disputes that finding more oil is actually a good thing. The immediate problem for Florida is that we could be saddled with paying a multi billion dollar damage award. Rather than paying this large lump sum award, I have decided to support a plan that was proposed on an obscure Internet Bulletin Board at Silicon Investors. (Actually Jeb can take full credit for the idea if He wants to <G>). That plan would have the State paying a small fraction of any likely damage award. We have settled on a payment of $0.5 billion up front with additional yearly payments while the Company, CCO, defers drilling. All of the money paid under this plan would eventually be refunded to the State out of Oil and Gas revenues whenever the development takes place. The timing of any development will be totally up to the State of Florida. Such a deal! Florida already has the money in hand to fund such a deal. It would come from the Environment 2000 Tax Free Bond Fund. the only ultimate long term cost to the Florida taxpayers would be the interest on the tax free bonds to cover the payments for not drilling.