Bill Nelson: “When it comes to the defense interests of the United States, I think it would be folly to allow a State legislature to…”

“When it comes to the defense interests of the United States, I think it would be folly to allow a State legislature to impose their will with regard to the defense interests. This Senator has already given the example of the largest testing and training area in the world for the U.S. military, which is the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida, which we have prohibited in law from being drilled. Let's take, for example, the Atlantic coast of Florida. Thirty years ago, this Senator had to oppose the Secretary of the Interior James Watt from drilling off the east coast. The only way this Senator was able to beat him then was because it finally dawned on the administration that we were launching from the Cape Canaveral Air Force station from west to east and launching from the Kennedy Space Center from west to east, therefore dropping the solid rocket boosters into the Atlantic Ocean along with the first stages of the expendable booster rocket out of the Air Force station, and that, in fact, we cannot have oil rigs down there.”