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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bald Eagle who wrote (248205)	4/16/2002 1:06:06 PM
From: ThirdEye	Respond to of 769670

Florida Oil and Water Blood may be thicker than water, but it seems that oil trumps both. Last summer, the Bush administration opened a 1.5-million-acre swath of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil exploration, despite long-standing opposition from the president’s brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush. The threat of a catastrophic spill looms over coastal communities, but the day-to-day pollution from the rigs is equally worrisome. Operations in the western Gulf are already causing problems: Tar balls wash up on beaches or wind up in the throats of endangered sea turtles, sometimes causing them to starve to death. Tons of "drilling muds" containing arsenic, lead, chromium, and other toxic metals are routinely dumped from the rigs, harming seagrass, coral, fish, and marine mammals. The contaminants jeopardize coastal estuaries and fragile wetlands as well as the state’s tourism and fishing industries. "Off-shore drilling platforms are like industrial facilities plopped into wilderness," says Florida Chapter conservation organizer Joe Murphy. The most immediate peril is Chevron’s push to plant a rig fewer than 30 miles from the white-sand beaches of Florida’s panhandle. The chapter has launched a campaign to stop the new drilling, pressuring their congressional representatives and Governor Bush to get the leases canceled, and holding community forums to expose the adverse effects of offshore oil exploration on the environment and the economy. sierraclub.org Florida Draws a Line in the Sand The feds want offshore drilling--but opposition is fierce businessweek.com Energy Exploration, If not now, when? lott.senate.gov Environmental Haze consortiumnews.com A few weeks ago, all signals seemed to point to Bush dropping his plan for drilling in the Refuge. With his comments at a press conference, he appeared to indicate that he was refocusing his attention on drilling in other locations, particularly in Western public lands. On Earth Day, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christie Whitman reinforced that impression when she announced that plans for drilling in the Refuge were not part of the recommendations from Bush's energy task force. The next day, however, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer corrected the record. Fleischer said Whitman "was speaking in ‘confusion’ Sunday when she announced that a White House energy task force would not recommend oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." [Boston Globe, April 24, 2001] If the confusion is not intentional, this administration has some work to do on improving its communication and planning. If it is intentional, the strategy would seem to be to keep the environmental community and the American people guessing as to what the real intentions are. Further evidence of the administration’s two-faced strategy on the environment can be found by looking past Bush’s pre-Earth Day newspaper headlines to a little-noticed announcement about drilling off the coast of Florida. During the most pro-environment week of his young administration, Bush’s Interior Secretary, Gale Norton, approved plans to auction 6 million acres of Florida’s Gulf Coast for oil and natural gas exploration. USA Today reported that Norton’s decision was a slap in the face to Bush’s younger brother, Jeb, who is opposed to exploration and drilling off Florida’s coast. The decision is also strongly opposed by Florida’s tourist industry as well as the environmental community and a majority of Floridians. [USA Today, April 17, 2001] greenpeace.org "ARCO's determination to proceed with new oil development flies in the face of the necessity to take immediate and dramatic measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Sawyer. "The Warthog development is one of the first steps toward opening the entire Arctic Ocean to offshore oil exploration and development. It will put the fragile Arctic Wildlife Refuge at risk from another Exxon Valdez," said Sawyer. "Greenpeace is determined to stop them in their tracks." ARCO's planned drilling site is just offshore from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Camden Bay. The area is essential habitat for polar bears, seals, endangered bowhead whales and beluga whales. Oil drilling, subsea pipelines and industrial activity could pose serious risks to the polar bear population and other wildlife species.