Bill Nelson: “I want to point out very respectfully to the Senator that the statistics that he just indicated from the National…”

“I want to point out very respectfully to the Senator that the statistics that he just indicated from the National Academy of Sciences do not take into consideration the natural disasters that occur, such as hurricanes. As a result of the 2005 hurricanes all along the gulf coast, oil rigs upended, and there were oil slicks on the beaches and the shores of Louisiana. We have innumerable photographs of pelicans and other birds completely covered. So there is the fact on the Atlantic coast and the gulf coast of hurricanes. The other thing I wanted to point out to the distinguished chairman because someone will argue that the Senator from Virginia is only proposing gas drilling, as the Senator from California knows, it was a gas well off of Santa Barbara three decades ago that suddenly spilled all of that oil, from which came this moratorium that was placed on the Continental Shelf of the United States.”