Lawmaker Looks for Drilling Loophole
By Jerome R. Stockfisch, Tampa Tribune, Fla.
Oct. 12–TALLAHASSEE — A Florida lawmaker wants something cleared up before the debate intensifies over drilling for oil near protected Florida waters.
Just exactly what are protected Florida waters?
State Rep. Donna Clarke, R-Sarasota, has introduced a bill that would ban drilling or exploration for oil or natural gas within Florida’s submerged lands. She is hoping the single sentence added to statutes on sovereign submerged lands will spark an investigation into what writers of the state Constitution meant when they defined the state boundaries in 1838.
Currently, that definition is a single, 410-word sentence guiding the observer from the mouth of the Perdido River on the Alabama border across the northern border to the Atlantic Ocean. It continues south along the east coast, then gets maddening from the Keys back to the Panhandle.
Example: The state line goes “… to and through the Straits of Florida and westerly, including the Florida reefs, to a point due south of and three leagues from the southernmost point of the Marquesas Keys …”
It appears to describe what is traditionally understood to be Florida’s sovereign submerged waters — three leagues from the peninsular coast, or nine to 10 miles. Clarke said she has not found a precedent interpreting what the language means.
If it is determined that a larger swath of the eastern Gulf is technically state waters, all the better, she said.
Gov. Jeb Bush has recently advocated a 125-mile buffer around the state free from oil and gas exploration. Critics have charged that represents a softening of the governor’s previous efforts to keep drilling at least 285 miles from the Pinellas coastline.
Clarke said her bill is not a reaction to Bush’s stance. “This legislation is in response to my constituents and my own personal passion about the state of Florida,” she said.
The bill would also require dike fields surrounding fuel storage facilities in high-hazard coastal areas. That would include the tank farms in the Port of Tampa. Port officials said Tuesday they had not seen the bill.
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