Florida lawmakers are expected to be back at the State Capitol before the month is out to send voters a chance to forever ban oil drilling in Florida waters and to enact an energy policy. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the fifty thousand dollar a day Special Session is likely before end of the month.<\/p>\n

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State law already bans oil drilling in Florida waters, as millions of gallons of oil meander across the gulf, politicians from both parties are calling for a near permanent constitutional ban on oil drilling. Once a drilling supporter, Governor Charlie Crist has concluded it can?t be done safe enough or far enough from Florida?s coast.<\/p>\n

?I think what?s important is that we all stay focuse,” Crist said. “That we put forth a ban on drilling off the coast of Florida. There?s consensus there that people should have the right to vote on it.?<\/p>\n

The Session would also attempt to enact a state energy policy.<\/p>\n

The likely timetable for a special session, the last week of May.<\/p>\n

The Governor is expected to set the dates for the session by the end of the week, with the agenda including much more than a permanent ban on drilling.<\/p>\n

?But I want to talk about wind, nuclear, solar, gas, natural gas,” Crist said.<\/p>\n

CFO Alex Sink first called for the ban last week. Attorney General Bill McCollum says it isn?t needed…but will go along with it.<\/p>\n

?If you have a special session and the legislature decides to put it on the ballot, so be it,” McCollum said. “I?m against off shore drilling.?<\/p>\n

The only opposition is from Associated Industries, which pushed drilling last year.<\/p>\n

?This is not the time to do this,” Barney Bishop, with Associated Industries, said. “This is a knee jerk reaction. This is a waste of money to bring the legislators back up.?<\/p>\n

But even the powerful lobby organization believes sending the ban to voters is all but a done deal.<\/p>\n

If voters do get a say, at least 60 percent would have to approve for it to become effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida lawmakers are expected to be back at the State Capitol before the month is out to send voters a chance to forever ban oil drilling in Florida waters and to enact an energy policy. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the fifty thousand dollar a day Special Session is likely before end of the month. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,32,11,4,16,29,39,1,15,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9546,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543\/revisions\/9546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}