Detert's Day
Oil drilling debate and Bill Gates: This must be Thursday for state Sen. Nancy Detert.
By Kim Cartlidge
Despite what you may have read or heard, Florida Sen. Nancy Detert says she is undecided about oil drilling off Florida’s Gulf coast. In fact, she’s asking people to call her office and let her know if they are for or against offshore oil drilling—and to leave their names, so they’ll only vote once.
Over the summer, the voters who called her office favored drilling by 80 percent to 20 percent, percentages that she and her staff questioned, so she’s been spreading the word to more groups about her constituent polling. Right now, the tally is 50 percent for and 50 percent against drilling, and she’s receiving more than 100 calls per day.
Last legislative session, the Florida House fast-tracked and passed a bill that would have opened up near shore drilling (three to 10 miles offshore) in Florida, but the bill died in the Senate. Emotions ran high, and they still do, which exasperates Detert. She’s seen it all already—from the knee-jerk reactions to the pickets planned in front of her office to the conspiracy theorists.
“I’m not seeing that people want to learn about this—and you couldn’t pry their minds open with a crowbar,” Detert says. “When it comes to this issue, I’m taking nothing at face value. I’m questioning everything because once we put the environment at risk and let people drill, that marries us to a group of business people for a long time. Before we sign on with somebody, I want them completely vetted. I want to know who they represent.”
The Florida Senate has asked scientists from FSU and the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida—not the lobbyists—to present both sides during this year’s session. Here at home, the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club is hosting a panel on drilling this Thursday, and it’s expected to be a lively one.
Detert will be at the Tiger Bay meeting, but she’ll have to step outside at one point for a conference call with Bill Gates. Yes, that Bill Gates.
Detert attended a National Conference of State Legislators meeting in July where Gates was the keynote speaker. She was handed an invitation to a small group meeting with Mr. Gates himself. “I had no idea why I was invited,” Detert says. “I went in and it turned out to be just a bare, small room with a conference table.” About 15 other senate presidents and speakers of the house sat at the table as Gates and two staff people from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation asked questions about education in the U.S. When the meeting was finished, Gates said the foundation has set aside $360 million for education reform and targeted 10 states, Detert says. The legislators invited the table were from those 10 states.
Since then, Detert has become a part of the Gates Foundation’s focus group on education reform. Hillsborough County has applied for a Gates Foundation grant focused on teacher effectiveness, and they stand a very good chance of getting it, Detert says. Education reform may be bright spot of this year’s legislative session, she adds. If her Thursday schedule is any indication, she’ll be right at the hub of two of Florida’s most critical issues in 2010.
Call Senator Nancy Detert's office at (941)480-3547 to register your opinion about offshore oil drilling in Florida.
Syndicate this site