Rumsfeld opposes more offshore drilling

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called offshore drilling “incompatible” with military training and weapons testing in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida’s shores in a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner.

The letter was touted Dec. 1 as a major development in the offshore drilling debate by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. Nelson had asked Warner, R-Va., to seek the Pentagon’s view.

“It is a clear signal to drilling proponents to stop,” Nelson said in a teleconference with reporters. “This is what we needed in our constant battle with the oil industry.”

Rumsfeld refers in the letter, dated Nov. 30, to a line extending south from a point in the Florida Panhandle near Fort Walton Beach, or 234 miles west of Tampa Bay.

“In those areas east of the Military Mission Line, drilling structures and associated development would be incompatible with military activities, such as missile flights, low-flying drone aircraft, weapons testing and training,” Rumsfeld wrote.

Closer drilling proposed

Some in Congress have proposed that natural gas drilling be allowed as close as 20 miles from the shores of Florida and other coastal states. Other proposals have set distances of 125 miles or 150 miles for oil and gas exploration and production.

Such legislation would lift existing congressional and presidential moratoriums on offshore drilling that extend to well beyond 200 miles from Florida’s beaches.

Rumsfeld wrote that military activities east of the military line “are especially critical” to the Defense Department.

Rumsfeld wrote that the Defense Department would evaluate its requirements and work with the Interior Department to “strike a proper balance between our nation’s energy and national security goals.”

Pressure to expand offshore drilling has grown in Congress since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita temporarily curtailed fuel supplies and raised prices.

—The Associated Press