Florida Dems bash Obama offshore drilling plans

Several Florida House Democrats are attacking Obama administration plans to allow oil-and-gas drilling closer to Florida’s shores.

“The threat your plan poses to Florida’s economy is a real worry,” Reps. Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Corrine Brown said in a letter to President Obama Tuesday. “The coasts of Florida play an important role in sustaining the tourism and fishing industries so vital to the state’s economy.”

The lawmakers call drilling “potentially devastating.” Their letter seeks a meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner.

The three Democrats are among several Florida lawmakers who are concerned about the plan.

The Interior Department proposal would shrink the no-drilling buffer off Florida’s Gulf of Mexico shores – if Congress allows it – but prevents development within 125 miles of the coast.

The plan also calls for potential development in regions in the south Atlantic that abut Florida’s northeastern coast. But it’s the eastern Gulf that’s coveted by oil-and-gas producers.

Much of the eastern Gulf remains off-limits under a 2006 law – it created a no-drilling buffer that extends 125 miles south of the Florida panhandle and 235 miles west of Tampa.