Beach Protection Act of 2007

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR. Madam Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Beach Protection Act, and I salute Chairman Oberstar, Chairman Johnson, and Congressman Pallone for their leadership.

The intent of the Beach Protection Act is to protect America's beautiful coastlines from water pollution. Yet big oil drilling interests have once again filed an amendment that puts our beaches and America's coastlines at risk.

New offshore oil and gas drilling represents a real hazard to the marine environment of the State of Florida, but all across the country, beaches, our coastal environment, our marine resources, the billion dollar tourism industry in Florida should not be sacrificed for a small amount of oil.

It would only take 24 hours after a petroleum spill in the eastern gulf for the oil to sully Florida's panhandle beaches. If the spill was swept up in the gulf's powerful loop current, the spill would pollute the Florida Keys, contaminate estuaries and beaches from the Everglades to Cape Canaveral.

We only have to look back to 2005 when we had three Category 5 hurricanes, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, that caused massive oil spills and pollutants in the Gulf of Mexico. It destroyed 150 petroleum production platforms in the gulf and damaged 457 pipelines.

Drilling off of our beautiful beaches is the energy policy of the past. If President Bush and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle truly wanted to address high oil prices, you should have voted with the Democratic majority to take the huge tax breaks away from the big oil companies at a time that they are making record profits.

We are fighting for a new direction on energy policy, renewable sources of energy. We value our natural environment, and we value the public health of our communities.

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