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

To: Tom Frederick who wrote (569)	10/2/1998 2:42:00 PM
From: Jordan Electron	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4686

The taxpayers of Florida need natural gas though, and CCO could find it. Florida Power and Light just announced a conversion of it's Fort Myers power plant from oil to natural gas. Oil is notorious for smoking up the vicinity when used to generate electricity, compared to clean-burning natural gas. The switch also reduces the need for imported crudes and orimulsion, now rising to near 60%, as domestic crude supplies dwindle.

To: Tom Frederick who wrote (569)	10/2/1998 4:05:00 PM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4686

Tom,...Florida is probably going to pay their lawyers over $2 Billion as their legal fees in the tobacco settlement. Florida is going to get over $11 Billion from the tobacco companies (I think I recently read that the tobacco companies are going to sweeten the deal by some $2 Billion, perhaps to cover the legal fees). In this context, a billion dollars to prevent or defer drilling along the entire Gulf Coast does not seem to be a prohibitive amount of money. They are paying a handful of lawyers over $2 Billion. As Everett Dirksen (former Senator from Illinois) once said, "...A Billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money." Actually, you are right that the money is a big political problem. That is why the people of Florida need to see that they are settling a lawsuit that could run into tens of billions of dollars. Of course there is always the alternative that the State could honor their original agreement and let CCO drill. A careful drilling program will have very little impact on most Floridians and could result in a royalty and tax windfall to the State if drilling is successful.