http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/567156.html"WASHINGTON -- With gas topping $4 a gallon, some Republicans are pointing to Cuba once again to bolster their case that the U.S. should be drilling along Florida\'s coastline.
The claim: China has Cuban leases to drill for oil -- miles from the Florida shore.
Even Vice President Dick Cheney got into the mix Wednesday, telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that ``oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. We\'re not doing it. The Chinese are in cooperation with the Cuban government.
\'\'Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply,\'\' he added. ``Yet Congress has said . . . no to drilling off Florida.\'\'
But industry experts and other observers say there is zero evidence that China is drilling in Cuban waters, and doesn\'t even hold a lease to drill offshore.
\'\'China is not drilling in Cuba\'s Gulf of Mexico waters, period,\'\' said Jorge Piñon, an energy expert at the University of Miami\'s Center for Hemispheric Policy.
Rising gas prices are prompting renewed efforts to open Florida waters to drilling, and the specter of oil-thirsty China slurping up nearby reserves is helping to fuel the push: In recent days, House Republican leaders have penned newspaper opinion pieces making the claim.
`DEBUNKING THE MYTH\'
The renewed efforts prompted Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, who opposes drilling off Florida\'s coast, to take to the Senate floor Wednesday to -- as his office put it -- \'\'debunk the myth\'\' of China drilling in Cuban waters.
\'\'Reports to the contrary are simply false,\'\' Martinez said, his remarks delivered just before Cheney spoke. ``They are akin to urban legends. China drilling off the coast of Cuba only 60 miles from the Keys, that is not taking place. . . Any talk of using some fabricated Cuba-China connection as an argument to change U.S. policy has no merit.\'\'
House Minority Leader John Boehner\'s office defended the GOP drilling claims, pointing to a 2006 New York Times story that noted Cuba had ``negotiated lease agreements with China and other energy-hungry countries to extract resources.\'\'
\'\'The fact is China can drill off the coast of the United States and Americans can\'t,\'\' said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. ``At a time when the nationwide average price for a gallon of gas is over $4, that policy just doesn\'t make sense.\'\'
The latest effort to bring drilling closer to Florida\'s shores by lifting a decades-old ban on gas and oil exploration along the outer continental shelf was rapidly defeated Wednesday in a House subcommittee meeting along partisan lines. Democrats on the panel said the measure was \'\'unnecessary\'\' because most of the known reserves along the coast are already open for drilling. Committee Chairman Rep. Norm Dicks, a Washington state Democrat, noted that the Bush administration, too, opposes lifting the ban.
PUSHING THE MEASURE
But Rep. John Peterson, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he plans to keep pushing the measure, which would allow drilling 50 miles beyond the shoreline.
Florida\'s congressional delegation remains staunchly opposed to offshore drilling, and Martinez noted the delegation had reached a compromise in December 2006 to give up eight million acres in the Gulf of Mexico in exchange for the state getting at least a 125-mile buffer zone from drilling.
Piñon, who supports oil and gas exploration, said he met with several congressional offices Wednesday about the China-Cuba connection. He said he told them: \' `If you guys want to use this as a scare tactic to lift the moratorium on drilling off the west coast of Florida, at least be factual, be correct.\' They didn\'t do their homework.\'\'
China\'s Sinopec oil company does have an agreement with the Cuban government to develop onshore resources west of Havana, Piñon said. The Chinese have done some seismic testing, he said, but no drilling. Western diplomats in Havana told McClatchy that to the best of their knowledge there is no Chinese drilling offshore.
Cuba\'s state oil company, Cupet, has issued exploration contracts to companies from India, Canada, Spain, Malaysia and Norway. But many oil companies from those countries have expressed reservations about how to turn potential crude oil into product. Cuba doesn\'t have the refinery capacity, and the biggest potential market -- the U.S. -- is off limits because of the trade embargo."
