Well done, Florida Legislature. You can gavel with the best. You sure showed ex-RINO Gov. Charlie Crist that he can’t successfully grandstand on behalf of an oil-drilling ban at your GOP-majority expense.
Only one problem. Grandstanding notwithstanding, we still needed this on the ballot. Drilling in the Gulf endangers Florida. Nothing could be more manifestly obvious. This was an opportunity to begin a process that would send an unmistakable signal to all parties — now and future — about the stewardship of this state’s most vital asset.
A drilling-ban amendment belongs on the Nov. ballot because the people deserve to weigh in directly on this one. As the recent adjournment vote proved — as if we needed further evidence — the Legislature, which can’t even get off the dime to revise Florida’s obsolete, revenue-raising formula, surely can’t be trusted with something this important, this transcendent. They give arrogance and dereliction of duty a bad name.
And, no, it doesn’t matter that drilling in state waters (3-10 miles off shore) is already prohibited. Any bets that (House Speaker) Dean Cannon, (incoming Senate President) Mike Haridopolos and others won’t soon return with a legislative plot to reverse the prohibition? Anybody think the pro-oil lobby in Tallahassee will turn rigs into ploughshares?
We’re already seeing what an oil-drilling disaster in the Gulf looks like. It would be a crime against nature to not take every conceivable action to ensure that it never happens again.
Thanks for nothing, Florida Legislature — including our own gavel-heads in the House, Tampa Republicans Rachel Burgin and Faye Culp, as well as Ronda Storms, the Senate GOPster from Valrico.