Bill Nelson: “I want to show the Senate Pensacola Beach yesterday. It has hit us full force. That white is the natural sugary sand of…”

“I want to show the Senate Pensacola Beach yesterday. It has hit us full force. That white is the natural sugary sand of the northwest Florida beaches. You can see as far as the eye can see down to the beach. It is covered with this black tar-like sludge. This was yesterday. More rolled in last night. There have been attempts to get out and scoop this up. This, as you can see, is not the tar balls, the little quarter-sized or dime-sized tar balls that have hit the beaches before. No. What this is showing is when you have 60,000 barrels a day gushing into the Gulf of Mexico now for more than 2 months, and that very likely will continue to gush for the rest of the summer--that is another 2rac{1}{2} months. It shows you what is the potential that is being portended. Another picture here from yesterday, Pensacola Beach. This is where the pier is. Here is the gulf. Here are the waves crashing in. This is far over this sugary white sand that you can see how much oil has collected. In the middle of the day when the Sun is beating down, it stays almost fluid like this. As the Sun goes down and it cools, this will start to become a more viscous consistency. As much as we want the people to come and enjoy our beaches--and this is the height of the season on the world's most beautiful beaches--is this going to be an incentive for them to come? You can imagine the lost income from the hotels, the restaurants, and all of the ancillary businesses.…”