Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole will update lawmakers about the state’s preparation for the massive oil spill leaking in the Gulf of Mexico on a conference call at 2 p.m. this afternoon.
Senate President Jeff Atwater, who is running statewide for chief financial officer and has quietly opposed drilling off of Florida’s coast being pushed by GOP House leaders, invited his members to listen in.
“Since the issue of offshore drilling was first raised last year, I have been committed to ensuring no decision to open state waters to drilling would be made without a thorough study of the implications. The impact that a catastrophe, such as the Deepwater Horizon spill, could have on Florida was at the forefront of my mind. Despite the many individuals who championed the fiscal benefits and decried possible negative impacts, I was resolute in the need for a comprehensive study,” Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said in a memo.
“Florida is home to too many precious and unique ecosystems, world-renowned beaches, and an economy that is significantly based on tourism, to take the implications that surround offshore drilling lightly.
Thus, the Senate is actively monitoring the Deepwater Horizon spill. As this catastrophe plays out in the gulf, I want you to be informed as to the most recent efforts and actions underway to contain the damage and preparations being considered for cleaning up any oil that may reach our shores,” he wrote.
Today, at 2 PM, DEP Secretary Mike Sole will be conducting a teleconference for members of the Legislature. I strongly encourage you to participate by calling 888-808-6959 and entering the following code: 2452140#.
Republican U.S. Senator George LeMieux urged his Congressional colleagues to support the President Barack Obama’s administration, BP and others working on the Deepwater Horizon disaster and worry about whether the oil giant has done enough to mitigate the disaster later.
“Whether or not the government or British Petroleum have done all they can is an issue that will be sorted out through the various investigations that are already underway. Our number one priority needs to be focusing all of our efforts on stopping the oil spill from becoming larger. It threatens the environment; it threatens our economy; and it must be stopped,” said LeMieux.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson is pushing a bill that would vastly expand the amount of money BP and other oil companies would have to pay for oil spills, currently capped by federal law at $75 million. Nelson, a Democrat, wants the cap raised to $10 billion.
Crist writes in a fund-raising plea that since his announcement Thursday his campaign has attracted thousands of new volunteers, 800 new donors and received more Internet traffic to his campaign website and social network pages since he announced his intent to run for U.S. Senate.
“This is no accident,” Crist writes. “Floridians want something different – real solutions, not political posturing. We’ve got momentum and we need to keep it going.”
Crist asks for valuable small-dollar donations in an attempt to collect $100,000 by May 10.
“If we succeed, we’ll sound a powerful message – the people of Florida have a voice and they want to be heard. This race has become so much more than about any one person. The entire country is watching and joining in our fight to change the broken ways of Washington,” Crist writes.
Gov. Charlie Crist urged Florida local officials to move forward to prepare for the oil spill looming off the state’s coastline instead of waiting for permission from the unified command center in Mobile.
“I think it’s important to do what local officials know best,” said Crist before heading to the Mobile Unified Command Center this morning with a contingent of Florida officials including Cabinet members Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum.
The Florida cadre went to Mobile to ease the bottleneck keeping resources from being expedited to the state’s coastal counties, they said.
Crist said he expects to extend the state of emergency now in effect throughout Panhandle coastal counties south to Sarasota County to include Collier and Monroe counties later today.
McCollum reiterated his threat that the state will sue British Petroleum over the disaster that could be the worst oil spill in Florida’s history.
“I think that’s certainly within the realm of possibility,” Crist agreed.
The response from Florida Republicans to Charlie Crist’s newfound independence has been sharp and quick.
Here’s a recap from the past few days:
• The Florida Republican Party sent out another tough press release last night telling supporters that “You can’t spell Charlie without ‘lie.’” The release reminds voters of Crist’s ties to disgraced attorney Scott Rothstein; includes a picture of Crist partying at a Tallahassee night club during his first year as governor; recycles the President Obama hug; and refers to the past year of troubles at the party as the “sad era of Charlie Crist and Jim Greer’s leadership.”
• Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio released a web ad this morning that shows that the “I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I” debate between these two is one thing that hasn’t changed in this race.
• Finally, Florida Federation of Republican Women President Cindy Graves sent an open letter to Crist blaming him for John McCain winning the Republican presidential nomination and warning him of their next meeting on the campaign trail.
The novelty of the massive oil spill in the Gulf coupled with inclement weather is posing a challenge for one of the nation’s most renowned emergency operations units.
Florida’s emergency management division, considered a model for the rest of the nation, has a long history of preparing for and responding to natural disasters, especially hurricanes.
But the mammoth surface spill and incessant pumping of up to 210,000 gallons per day of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico is an unaccustomed catastrophe, more unpredictable than the “skinny lines” meteorologists use to predict where hurricanes might land.
“As you’ve all seen the trajectory, this oil spill continues to go back east, west, north, south. This is going to be the pattern for the rest of the spill duration. I want you all to know that,” Department of Environmental Protection emergency response director Doug White. (more…)
Gov. Charlie Crist will check out the oil leak command post in Mobile tomorrow morning before meeting with the governors of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama and a contingent of President Barack Obama administration officials.
Crist is scheduled to start off his day at the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center before heading to the Mobile Unified Command center, ground zero for federal, state and BP officials managing what could be the nation’s worst oil spill. En route to Alabama, he’ll fly over the oil leak and finish up with a meeting with the his fellow governors.
Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink spoke even more strongly about the “confusion” she encountered at the command headquarters in Mobile.
Attorney General Bill McCollum vowed there will be litigation over the rapidly-growing leak.
All three Florida politicos are running for higher office: newly-independent Crist for U.S. Senate, Sink as the presumptive Democratic candidate for governor and McCollum the frontrunner in the GOP primary for governor.
Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink had some harsh words for the Mobile Unified Command unit charged with coordinating response to the mammoth oil spill spreading through the Gulf of Mexico.
“I’m not personally satisfied with the way the communication is occurring. There seem to be breakdowns between the EOCs and the Mobile Unified Command,” Sink, the presumptive Democratic candidate for governor, told reporters early Monday evening. “There’s still a lot of confusion.”
Sink visited the Mobile, Ala., center and toured the spill about 20 miles off the Louisiana coast this afternoon.
“I must say that what I saw out there was alarming…This certainly is the largest risk to Florida’s economy in our state’s history,” Sink said.
Sink said she wants BP officials to immediately set up a cash fund for local governments, business owners and Floridians affected by the spill to access to help offset their costs.
BP is responsible for picking up the tab for clean-up of the spill but federal law caps the oil giant’s liability at $75 million.
“From my business experience, it sounds like too many steps in the process and too much bureaucracy,” she said.
“This is a multi-state problem. The federal government has to be very aggressive and attentive and right on top of BP to assure that we aren’t just having days and days of delays…Times a’wasitng. This kind of decision-making has got to be expedited and I do plan to talk to the federal administration about ensuring that BP is not dragging their heels,” Sink said.
U.S. Sen Bill Nelson is pushing an effort to up the amount oil companies must pay for economic damages caused by oil spills like the massive Deepwater Horizon blast spreading through the Gulf of Mexico.
Currently, oil companies like BP are responsible for paying the costs of cleanup. But federal law caps liability at $75 million per incident.
Nelson and New Jersey Democratic U.S. Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg want to increase oil companies’ liability to cover lost business revenues and cap it at $10 billion.
BP officials have pledged to pay whatever it takes to clean up the oil leak, expected to reach Florida’s Panhandle beaches Thursday.
“BP says it’ll pay for this mess. Baloney. They’re not going to want to pay any more than what the law says they have to, which is why we can’t let them off the hook,” Nelson, D-Fla., said in a statement.
U.S. Senate campaigns for Democrat Kendrick Meek and Republican Marco Rubio say they’ve had a surge in contributions since Gov. Charlie Crist dumped his Republican affiliation and announced he’d run as an independent.
Rubio’s folks say they had 2,400 online donations since April 23 for their “flip the switch” campaign keyed to Crist’s party change.
Meek’s campaign announced 1,340 online contributions since Thursday. Some believe the three-way race created by Crist’s decision gives Meek an advantage in the November election.
But first, Meek will have to get past billionaire Jeff Greene of Palm Beach, who has vowed to spend whatever he needs to win the party’s nomination. We reported earlier today that Meek will raise money with Magic Johnson in Miami Beach later this week.
The spike in contributions for Meek was also helped by a blast e-mail from former presidential candidate Howard Dean, who asked supporters to give to Meek’s campaign.
“He’s not some ideological extremist and he’s not governed by raw political ambition,” Dean said.
The Florida Republican Party has put a portrait of Gov. Charlie Crist on eBay, hoping to recoup some of the cash it spent on the painting under former Chairman Jim Greer’s tenure.
Crist’s former party uses the auction to hammer the newly-independent U.S. Senate candidate as an unprincipled, poll-driven politician. Here’s their description of the painting:
★Canvas is naturally sensitive to changes of temperature and humidity, just as the Charlie Crist’s political convictions are subject to fluctuations in poll numbers.
★Depending upon variety of conditions, the stretch canvas may periodically lose and regain tautness, much like Charlie Crist periodically loosens or regains positions on a variety of issues.
★Ornate gold frame made of manufactured wood, similar to the fabricated conservative values of the politician depicted within.
Florida’s elected CFO, Alex Sink, today called on officials to open emergency loans for Gulf Coast businesses and for the state to create an oil spill task force.
“We must treat this like a Category 5 hurricane — preparing our coastlines for the worst economic and environmental disaster imaginable and quickly ensuring that our businesses and citizens can get the help they will need,” Sink said.
Sink, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, was briefed this morning on the spill at the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center. She will receive an aerial tour of the spill later today, followed by a briefing at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Unified Command Center in Mobile, Ala. and a press conference at the Florida Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee at 4:15 p.m.
“This is the resurrection of the clean energy argument. Without a doubt in my view.
You’ve got to have solar. We’ve got to move more rapidly to develop wind, nuclear as well. If this does not make the case that we’ve got to have energy resources that are clean that don’t destruct our environment I don’t know what is. I mean, it’s exactly that,” Crist told reporters after a noon briefing at state emergency operations headquarters.
The newly-independent governor and U.S. Senate candidate called the timing of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion “pretty extraordinary” given that some GOP leaders, including future House Speaker Dean Cannon and future Senate President Mike Haridopolos, were pushing for offshore drilling throughout the legislative session that ended Friday.
“I’ve always said that as long as it was far enough, clean enough and safe enough, that it would be something that I would be willing to look at. This is not far enough. This is not safe enough. It sure as heck isn’t clean enough. I mean, it’s just not good enough, period,” Crist said.
“So given that, I think all bets are off. We’ve got to cease and desist as it relates to this and we’ve got to further renew our commitment to solar and wind and nuclear and other forms of clean energy and natural gas too. We’ve got a lot of that. It’s a lot cleaner than this stuff.”
Lawmakers failed to approve a renewable energy package during the session, and Crist said he may call them back into a special session to deal with the issue or add it to a special session on another topic.
State officials are preparing for what could be the nation’s worst oil spill in recent history to reach Florida shores.
But Gov. Charlie Crist said he is worried about whether the corporation responsible for the disaster is doing everything it can Florida.
Under federal law created after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, BP is responsible for the cleanup and mitigation of the rapidly growing oil leak, now more than 600 miles in circumference, looming off Florida’s Panhandle coastline.
“But my concern is we need to be a responsible country…We can send them a bill later,” Crist told reporters at a noon briefing at state emergency operations headquarters. “It creates a significant concern that the party who created the problem is now the party that’s responsible for solving the problem. I get that. That’s why I’m here.” (more…)
As Politico.com notes in this video montage, “from day one” is the new Obama administration buzz phrase to respond to criticism about the White House response to the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent oil spill.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is suggesting that the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig might history have been prevented by tougher regulations.
Here’s the letter today to the U.S. Interior Department’s inspector general:
Basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson headlines a Miami Beach money event on Wednesday for Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek’s Senate campaign.
Meek could need big bucks now that he faces a primary challenge from Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who’s vowing to spend “whatever it takes” to be competitive.
Meek’s campaign is also running a contest offering some lucky texter a chance to meet the NBA Hall of Famer.
Much of Florida’s west coast is under a state of emergency due to the massive oil spill now less than 50 miles from the Panhandle.
Gov. Charlie Crist expanded the state of emergency beyond the Panhandle to include the Big Bend and Tampa Bay areas.
Franklin, Wakulla, Jefferson, Taylor, Dixie, Levy, Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota are now under a state of emergency.
Florida emergency management officials have geared up operations at the state EOC where BP representatives are also on the ground.
BP has hired contractors to lay boom along estuaries and inlets in the Pensacola Bay area but won’t place them along the shoreline, Department of Environmental Protection Phil Wieczynski chief of emergency response said.
“We’re not expecting Exxon-Valdez waves of oil to hit the state of Florida over this spill,” he said.
Instead, Florida’s beaches will likely suffer from light sheen, staining, and tar balls and matts that could be yards long, Wieczynski predicted.
“It might be intermittent, it might be in one county and not the next one,” he said.
Florida officials are ramping up preparation for the massive oil spill looming off the state’s Panhandle coastline.
“The magnitude of this spill is daunting,” state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole said at a press conference early this morning.
Attorney General Bill McCollum warned Floridians not to sign anything releasing BP or other companies associated with the oil leak and to ignore “scammers” who promise to clean up affected areas.
“There is a great concern on our part with people who may go out in advance of any oil coming at all and try to get some hold harmeless agreement, either BP or some other potentially liable party,” McCollum said. “We also don’t’ want anybody to get ripped off by scam artists.”
Instead of deferring initially to British Petroleum, then visiting with Bono in the Oval Office and and yukking it up with Jay Leno at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, this Palm Beach Post editorial says President Obama should have been more focused on the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Obama “acted way too much like George Bush after Katrina,” says the editorial.
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
