BP to spend $25 million on Florida advertising campaign
by Michael C. Bender | May 17th, 2010That’s the news from BP CEO Tony Hayward, who just emerged from a closed-door meeting with Gov. Charlie Crist. It’s the second $25 million grant the company has given the state since their Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and started spewing 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico.
State officials have been calling for an advertising campaign as Panhandle beach resorts and restaurants head into their 90-day tourist season. Despite the oil plume still 70 miles from Florida’s closest beaches in Pensacola, business owners there say they’ve already lost millions as tourists cancel reservations or wait to schedule their trip.
BP is also giving $15 million to Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
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May 17th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
NO, Charley Crist and BP are not talking for us Floridians.
We will speak for ourselves.
TRY a few BILLION.
Even that is to little to late, Tourism is dead for the year and you will have destroyed peoples busines’s, homes and futures.
NO, your not talking for us.
Run your little crap add to get the Heat off of you.
Be assured Crist and BP, once this hits Florida shores.
Your gonna get slapped with the largest financial Lawsuit in the History of the PLANET.
We are going to sue you out of our country and out of our Oceans.
Then we are going to file CRIMINAL Charges against you and all the Executives so they start snitching on each other to keep from going to Prison.
FLORIDIANS have you by the B—-
CRIST, your finished in this state forever.
May 17th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
I’ve created a Facebook group with over 6000 members that opposes oil drilling off Florida’s coast. The group was started in September 2009 to lobby and oppose legislation being proposed in the Florida legislator to allow drilling 3-10 miles off the coast. As this scenario (50 miles out) shows, the impact would be devastating. Go to my homepage and click “Find us on Facebook” You may also take our oil drilling poll: http://www.marcoenfuego.com/?page_id=18
May 17th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
American Patriot…That’s it, file lawsuits and make a lot of scumbag lawyers very wealthy (think John Edwards) with nothing else accomplished. When will some people learn that suing solves very little other than making lawyers rich(er). Sue BP and they’ll probably stop all operations to clean up their mess and just let the lawyers deal with it. I’m not supporting BP but at least they’ve taken responsibility for this disaster which is much more than many other large corporations would’ve done. With Americas vampire like thirst for oil we need to drill off our own coasts, but I agree, not 3-10 miles off the coast. Percentage wise oil drilling is a very safe endeavour, it’s just very unfortunate that a rare occurance like an explosion on a rig happened off our shores so I understand emotions are running high right now, but common sense needs to prevail and the USA needs to drill for it’s own oil and stop being dependent on countries who want to wipe us off the face of the earth.
May 17th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
I’m sure everyone that feels so stongly about BP and drilling, has parked their cars and is walking or biking everywhere! LOL
May 17th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
AMERICAN PATRIOT: you seemed pissed at Crist. Why? He didn’t explode the rig out in the gulf. I agree that BP should pay, but you sound like an ass. He speaks for us because he is a political figure. If you can do a better job then run for governer, and I will vote for you. You want to ruin BP, THEN STOP BUYING BP GASOLINE, and AMERICAN PATRIOT, relax your pissed at the wrong guy…
May 28th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@Independent thinker
I agree that we should not completely stop offshore drilling. I also agree that it is completely asinine to give billions of dollars to countries that are using that money to fund terrorist organizations. However I do not think the answer is lining up oil rigs along our coast so we can produce enough oil for ourselves. See the most disturbing thing is while an estimated 30 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf that is only a very small fraction of the amount of oil we use on a daily basis. Americans consume more than 800 million gallons of gasoline a day. I f anything this should be seen as a referendum on cleaner energy sources. And while it is rare for an oil rig to explode, I am forced to ask even if this only occurs once every 35 years is it worth it? Is it worth ruining the coastlines as well as ruining the lives of millions of Americans? Not to mention the fact that it could take decades for the environment to recover from this. I mean The Valdez Oil Spill happened over 20 years ago and they are still feeling the effects from that and it was only about a third of the oil that has leaked into the Gulf.
As for BP, what kind of sorry corporation are you running? I have yet to meet a business owner that has not thought about and planned for worst case possible scenarios. Here’s some advice, I you don’t have a proven plan in place to fix oil leaks that occur a mile under the surface of the ocean DON’T F@#%ING DRILL A MILE UNDER THE SURFACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I MEAN ISN’T THAT BUSINESS ETHICS 101!!!!!! Personally I can’t believe you idiots are billionaires.