Florida's old fears resurrected by newest oil leases: "Our legislators are goat-ropers."

[seafan]

Old fears resurrected by newest oil leases

By Eric Ernst
Herald-Tribune Columnist

April 29, 2009

How quickly some Florida state legislators have repressed their memories of Coastal Petroleum.
In 1947, the company acquired the rights to drill for oil and gas within 10 miles of the coast from Naples to St. George Island in the Panhandle.
Its lease also included rights to minerals under rivers, bays and Lake Okeechobee.

For 58 years, the company never produced a drop of oil, but it still managed to make money the Florida way, by extorting it from the guileless and the government.
Coastal Petroleum, based in Apalachicola, would put on a good show of preparing to drill into environmentally sensitive areas. Then, as public opposition mounted, it would accept a settlement not to drill.

Or, if government regulations scuttled its plans, the company would file a takings lawsuit. That ended in 2002, when a Tallahassee circuit judge ruled that the state did not have to compensate Coastal for denying permits to drill.
In 2005, the Cabinet paid the company $12.5 million to go away for good. "It's a great day for our state," then-Gov. Jeb Bush declared.

Lesson not learned.

The Florida House of Representatives this week voted to allow leases for oil and gas drilling in state-controlled waters three to 10 miles offshore.

Florida business groups and Texas oil companies claimed the leases would generate billions of dollars for the state.
That's only if the companies produce oil in quantity, which they cannot because there is not any.
The $12.5 million paid to Coastal Petroleum represented compensation for untapped reserves.
The new lease area is four times larger, worth maybe $50 million, of which the state might get one-eighth, barely enough to cover Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp's personal travel costs.

As Monica Reimer, an attorney with Earthjustice, puts it, "The only thing the state got from its last foray into oil exploration was 50 years of litigation."

.....

In what probably kills the bill this year, the state Senate said the oil-drilling measure demands more than the House's hasty consideration.
That's good, because if history is any indication, the state reps are no match for the oil industry.
Fake cowboys -- the ones with the Stetsons and the pickups, but no land -- are known in Texas as "goat-ropers."

"Our legislators are goat-ropers," says Reimer. "The Texans know it. That's what scares me."

Meanwhile, some 60 years later, the people of Florida are still paying ransom for the greed of a few.

[Nihil]

1. K & R (Love the title!)

> For 58 years, the company never produced a drop of oil, but it still managed
> to make money the Florida way, by extorting it from the guileless and the
> government.
> Coastal Petroleum, based in Apalachicola, would put on a good show of
> preparing to drill into environmentally sensitive areas. Then, as public
> opposition mounted, it would accept a settlement not to drill.
>
> Or, if government regulations scuttled its plans, the company would file
> a takings lawsuit.
>
> In 2005, the Cabinet paid the company $12.5 million to go away for good.

This scam went on for 58 years, made millions out of the taxpayers and
never produced a drop of oil?!?!
:wow:

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Have we ever sold a lease?

I once pulled resumes of some of the city staff and came up with some interesting information. One of them claimed to have experience with the CIA, though he couldn't reveal exactly what he did, and he claimed to have negotiated a lease for oil off the coast of Florida. I never knew where someone could go to confirm something like that.