Florida is sitting on top of potentially billions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic feet of natural gas. It is sitting there and we are doing nothing to go and get it. This not only makes no sense it is harming our environment, our economy, our residents and our future.

As we pointed out in a previous article China and Cuba are going after Florida's Gulf oil and natural gas. Why aren't we?

According to Breitbart.com Senator John McCain today said the federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling should be lifted, and individual states given the right to pursue energy exploration in waters near their own coasts. The current ban on offshore drilling covers an estimated 80 percent of U.S. coastal waters.

Florida needs to drill for its own oil and natural gas. We need to do it now, for our children and grandchildren.

According to a 2006 article by Humberto Fontova of Human Events, "It's high time these hotheads in Florida got with the national program. They need to shed their petty obsessions with the past and start assessing the national interest soberly and in light of current developments, not stale policies enacted in the heat of hysteria almost half a century ago. Most outrageous of all, their policies hurt the very people they claim to help.

I refer, of course, to offshore oil drilling, currently banned off Florida because of rich pressure groups. That shock and awe at the gas pump might wake up a few people. There's something called the law of supply and demand. Rant and rave all you want, bellow and whine all you want, throw as many tantrums as you want, hold as many rain dances as you want, hold as many séances with ghosts as you want, sacrifice as many virgins as you want, burn as many witches as you want -- but no amount of legislation or wishful thinking will abolish it."

When Humberto wrote his article a gallon of gasoline was just over $2.00 a gallon. Now it is over $4.00 a gallon. Oh, if only we had listened to Humberto in 2006!

Gulf drilling is good for the environment.

Actually drilling in the Gulf will reduce the possibility of an oil spill because all the oil spills in the United States to date were from tankers, not off shore drilling platforms. As Humberto points out, "In fact, Florida's gorgeous and tourist-packed beaches have suffered from an ugly oil spill. It happened summer of 1976 off Panama City and Destin, by far the most beautiful beaches in America. That sugar white sand and those emerald waters were fouled from a tanker spill. The current drilling ban will make another such spill more likely. The ban not only puts us at the mercy of shaky sheikdoms and Hugo Chavez for oil, it also means we'll need to keep transporting that oil stateside -- typically to refineries in Louisiana and Texas. This path takes those tankers smack in front of Florida's beaches."

There are 3,739 offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico today and 3,203 lie off the Louisiana coast. There have been no oil spills from an offshore oil platform in the Gulf, none. Even during hurricane Katrina, when over 1,000 platforms were displaced, not one drop of oil was spilled.

Drilling is good for Gulf fish!

Facing high food prices and a growing demand for protein to keep us healthy we learn that drilling is good for Gulf fish. Oil companies have left in place in the Gulf of Mexico platforms from played out wells at the request of fishermen. Humberto points out that , "Marine life had EXPLODED around these huge artificial reefs. Louisiana produces on third of America's seafood In fact a study by Louisiana State University shows that 85% of Louisiana offshore fishing trips involve fishing around these structures and that there's 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms. Louisiana produces one-third of America's commercial fisheries -- because of, not in spite of, these platforms."

According to America's Power Florida gets 29.2% of our power from coal. We get 16.9% from petroleum, 38% from natural gas and 0.1% from hydroelectric. If we had our own supply of natural gas from the Gulf we could eliminate totally our use of coal and oil. Florida power is the 13th highest in the U.S. We could become one of the lowest with our own resources lying a few miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

We believe that nothing should be off the table when it comes to energy production or fossil fuels. Every resource must be explored and developed. Wind, solar, natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear and biofuels are all needed to ween us off of foreign oil, bring jobs to America and provide us with cheap and reliable power. Cheap and reliable power drives our economy!

This is a national security issue. Energy independence is our goal. Energy exploration and exploitation are the clear path to that goal.