Bill Nelson: “I understand my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, has submitted additional correspondence from the…”

“I understand my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, has submitted additional correspondence from the Department of Defense and I would like the opportunity to comment on this letter. The Department of Defense routinely provides generic comments, as requested by the Minerals Management Service, on the various steps leading to a Draft Proposed Five-Year OCS Leasing Program, and my friend, Senator Warner, has apparently quoted, in part, from such a generic comment letter from Donald R. Schregardus, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Environment, of the Department of the Navy. With all due respect to my colleague Senator Warner, this letter only provides vague reassurances about the hopeful intent of the Department of the Navy to be able to work out, sometime in the future, remaining military space-use conflicts with proposed MMS OCS leasing activities in various areas. In Florida, working out such space-use conflicts with military exercise and training areas took several years, and in the end required congressional action, which we completed only last December in this Chamber. Further, the same letter from the Department of the Navy recently quoted by my colleague Senator Warner goes on to say, and I quote directly from the letter: However, the special interest sale proposed for the Mid-Atlantic Region in late 2011 is not acceptable to the Department because of its incompatibility with the military training and testing conducted in this area.”