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Gov. Charlie Crist

As the drama builds over whether Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will abandon the Republican Party to run for the Senate as an independent, a behind-the-scenes controversy is growing over why he is dragging his feet on offshore drilling.

Last November, WND confirmed with Kathy Mears, the governor's deputy chief of staff for legislation, that an executive order had been prepared for the governor's signature ordering Florida sovereignty 125 miles into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico under the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, with the goal of issuing leases for offshore oil and natural-gas exploration and drilling.

Under President Obama's recent decision to lift the moratorium imposed on offshore drilling along the Atlantic Coast, no new leases are anticipated being granted by the Interior Department until 2012.

By signing the executive order under the Submerged Lands Act, Crist could exert states' rights to authorize offshore drilling immediately.

President Eisenhower signed into law the Submerged Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. Sections 1301-1315 (2002) on May 23, 1953, declaring his intention to recognize the rights of states in submerged lands within their borders. The move followed Executive Order 10426, "Setting Aside Submerged Lands on the Continental Shelf as a Naval Petroleum Reserve," signed by President Truman Jan. 16, 1953.

The Submerged Lands Act of 1953 permits states to exercise sovereignty to all mineral rights recoverable offshore, so long as it does not interfere with another sovereign state or country.

WND received no response to a call to Crist's office Monday asking whether the governor planned to sign the executive order.

Meanwhile, Crist's chief Republican rival in the Senate race, Marco Rubio, supports "the principles at the heart of this policy and executive order," according to spokesman Alex Burgos.

"He believes it's an important assertion of states' rights that enables Florida to implement energy policies that are in the best interests of its people," Burgos told WND.

According to a copy in WND's possession of the executive order prepared for Crist's signature, no offshore drilling would take place within the first 25 miles from the coastline.

Crist's unwillingness to sign the executive order has prompted strong opposition from advocacy groups urging Florida offshore drilling.

"By the states utilizing the Submerged Lands Act to extend the state's boundaries for offshore drilling to 125 miles off our coasts, the United States could find enough recoverable oil to challenge Saudi Arabia," Brian Sexton, head of the 527 political-action committee Florida Oil Group, told WND.

According to statistics put together by the Florida Oil Group, Crist's inaction has cost the state of Florida as much as $100 million in annual tax revenues and as many as 25,000 new jobs.

"Is Crist going to sign the executive order before he leaves office, or not?" Sexton asked, demanding Crist sign without further delay.

Currently, natural gas, coal and oil provide an estimated 83.6 percent of Florida's electricity-generating capacity, with all expansions of electricity-generating capacity in the next 10 years likely to be hydrocarbon-based, according to the U.S. Energy Information Estimate and the Florida Atlantic University Center for Ocean Energy Technology.

"Marco Rubio understands that exploring and developing our natural resources are important for Florida and America in order to meet our economic and energy needs and to create jobs," Burgos said. "He also believes there is an important national-security component to these policies as the U.S. seeks to eliminate our energy dependence on some of the world's most unstable regions."

Crist believes CO2 causes 'warming'

Crist has made a series of executive decisions that have imposed added costs on the use of hydrocarbon fuels to generate electricity in Florida.

On July 13, 2007, Crist signed Executive Order 07-127, placing caps on carbon-dioxide emissions in Florida.

As a result, five planned coal-fired plants that would have produced 4,150 megawatts of power online by this year were cancelled.

Instead, Crist supported a Florida Power and Light plan to build three commercial solar-power plants.

The Martin Power Plant west of Indiantown in Martin County opened last year; when sun is not available, the plant shuts down, switching electricity generation over to a natural-gas plant.

The Martin Power Plant utilizes 90,000 photovoltaic panels on 500 acres of land, producing approximately 75 megawatts of peak solar-thermal power, with a goal of producing 110 megawatts by the end of this year.

Fort Calhoun in Nebraska, the smallest nuclear-power plant currently operating in the U.S., operates on 660 acres near Omaha and has a net capacity of producing 482 megawatts, according to the Energy Information Administration.

One megawatt is typically considered sufficient to power 1,000 homes.

Florida Power and Light's other two solar projects in DeSoto and Brevard counties recently have come online. The DeSoto plant opened last October and the Brevard plant this month. Each have a power output comparable to the Martin Power Plant.

All three projects were built at a construction cost to Florida taxpayers of approximately $700 million.

In February 2008, Crist and Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael W. Sole moved to establish in Florida the vehicle-emission standards used in California to meet the goals the governor set in 2007 for capping automobile-generated greenhouse-gas emissions.

Rubio supports offshore drilling

Appearing on the Matt Bruce radio show Dec. 21, Rubio affirmed he had seen the executive order prepared for Crist's signature under the Submerged Lands Act and that he supported the order both because of the need to drill offshore and as a states' rights issue under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.

On his campaign website, Rubio has posted a statement on energy policy: "I support a comprehensive energy plan that encourages nuclear energy, exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and environmentally safe leasing of oil and natural-gas fields in the outer continental shelf and on federally owned lands with oil shale in the West.

"As senator, I will stand for policies that make us more energy-efficient, less reliant on foreign sources of oil, create jobs and ease the burden on family budgets."

The Matt Bruce "Captain's America" show is a weekend nationally syndicated two-hour radio show heard on AM 1220 and FM 106.9 WSRQ in Sarasota, Fla., and on more than 70 radio stations nationwide.

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April 20, 2010