Which Americans do you think would be most sensitive to possible harm from offshore oil spills? Wouldn’t it be those who live in coastal states where oil rigs are not far offshore? After all, they have the most to lose, in terms of jobs and tourism, when a disastrous spill occurs.
Consider the recently capped BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Millions of gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf, and some washed ashore. Tourism and fishing were disrupted, though the results fortunately were not as terrible as they might have been.
Of the states that touch the Gulf – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – Florida has by far the longest Gulf coast, at more than 700 miles. So Floridians had potentially the most to lose when the big BP spill occurred.
Yet even in the wake of the spill, residents of Florida apparently recognize the importance of oil in keeping their state and our nation moving. Just a few weeks after the spill was capped, a survey conducted for several newspapers in Florida showed little support for a drilling ban in the waters off Florida’s coast.
Only 41 percent of Floridians support such a ban, compared with 49 percent who do not. In the Florida Panhandle, where most of the impact of the BP spill was felt, only 36 percent support a drilling ban.
“We need to take all the precautions we can, but I don’t like being dependent on foreign oil,” an 80-year-old woman from Pompano Beach, Fla., told the St. Petersburg Times.
Floridians also no doubt realize that many of their state’s jobs and thus their economy rely in part on oil drilling. They obviously want to balance economics with sensible – but not crippling – measures to protect the environment.
There is nothing wrong with private enterprise pursuing the development of alternative types of energy, such as wind and solar. But they are expensive and cannot fully meet our energy needs in the foreseeable future. In the meantime, we still need oil, coal, nuclear and other more traditional energy sources, and government should not erect undue barriers to the development of those sources.