January 16, 2019 — Floridians took a stand against offshore oil drilling Nov. 6 by voting their opposition into the state constitution, where it’s almost certain to stay for at least a generation.
The issue resonates with Alan Johnson, mayor of St. Pete Beach (population “pushing 10,000”), a 6-mile-long, sandy tourist magnet on Florida’s Gulf coast.
“The big problem that people relate to here is that they’ve been to Houston, where they can see the oil rigs offshore, and they complain about big balls of tar on the beaches. Everybody’s deathly afraid of that happening here,” Johnson says. “We’re the designated sunset capital of Florida and the last thing we want to do is ruin that.”
So did passage of Amendment 9, the new ban on drilling in Florida coastal waters, solve the problem?
Johnson is doubtful. “There was a lot of confusion as to what it really accomplished,” he says. “We’re at the mercy of what happens in Washington.”
State waters extend 3 nautical miles off the coast, but the states have no direct control over 200 miles of federal waters. And oil ignores man-made borders.