John B. Breaux: “so that people who may be watching on their monitors in their offices can understand a couple things about lease sale…”

“so that people who may be watching on their monitors in their offices can understand a couple things about lease sale 181, this lease sale did not happen overnight. As I indicated before, when President Clinton was serving in office and negotiating with Governor Lawton Chiles --two Democrats--on this lease sale 181, President Clinton said: We are going to set off limits all the areas in the eastern gulf, but we are going to have lease sale 181. In 1996 when they released the plan, the Governor of Florida, Lawton Chiles, expressed his appreciation for Minerals Management designating lease sale 181 to not be within 100 miles of the coast of Florida. It is 70 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It is much closer to Louisiana, but in no case is it within 100 miles of the coast of Florida. It is 285 miles from Tampa, 213 miles from their coast, 138 miles from Panama City. It is only 70 miles, as I indicated, from the coast of Louisiana. In 1996 when we had a Democratic Governor and a Democratic President, they thought this compromise was fine and agreed to the compromise at that time and said this is something that fits into our plans for energy and thank you very much for making sure it does not come within 100 miles of the coast of Florida. That was their agreement. It has proceeded forward under those terms until, because of opposition of the current Governor of Florida, the administration lopped off 75 percent of the sale in addition to that agreement in 1996.”