Demanding a Refund for Florida Oil Study

"Oil spills from offshore exploration, development, production and the transportation associated with these activities are unlikely to present a major risk to Florida."

-- Florida Gulf Coast Oil and Gas Risk Assessment, April 9, 2010
-- Phil Ellis, CEO, Structured Risk Solutions, London, England
Ordered by Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon (R-Winter Park, FL)Paid for by Florida taxpayers

Just a week and a half before the BP oil disaster, the Republican majority in the Florida Legislature paid $200,000 in taxpayer money to commission a 'drill-baby-drill' report. The report found "minimal risks in drilling off Florida's coasts."

Would you be surprised to learn the money went to a British firm called The Willis Group? You can read the full text of the laughably incompetent report here. You also can print it out as a fisher-wrapper to hold the tarballs and dead, oil-befouled fish you'll be picking up off Pensacola Beach for years to come.

Governor Crist, whom the crazed Florida Republican Party has abandoned because he wasn't stupid enough for them, should demand a refund. Especially since just two months beforehand the Collins Center for Public Policy, a home-grown Florida think tank, had given the Legislature for free a much more complete and balanced report. ["Potential Impacts of Oil and Gas Explorations in the Gulf"] Warned the Collins Center:

Oil spills can cause impacts from only a few days to multiple years or even decades. Florida’s coastline is especially sensitive to spills because of its mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coral reefs.

Complex processes of oil transformation in the marine environment start developing from the first seconds of’oil’s contact with seawater. The progression, duration, and result of these transformations depend on the properties and composition of the oil, the size of the oil spill and a range of environmental conditions such as temperature, wind and currents.

Oil released into marine waters more than 100 miles off the West Florida shore would probably become entrained in the Loop Current, which feeds back into the Gulf Stream. Depending upon the ability of emergency responders to contain the spill and/or the rate of oil degradation, such spills could pose some risk to coastal communities in the Florida Keys and on the east coast of Florida. Accidental releases on the West Florida shelf closer to land would be subject to prevailing winds and water currents. These can vary considerably.

Holding all other factors constant, the closer an accidental spill occurs to the coastline the greater the risk it poses to coastal communities.

We repeat: That was free.

But the Florida Legislature paid $200,000 US to a British firm that said, "Oil spills from offshore exploration, development, production and the transportation associated with these activities are unlikely to present a major risk to Florida."

If The Willis Group doesn't refund our money, then the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Dean Cannon, should pay it back out of his own pocket.