Interior Secretary Gale Norton has rejected an appeal from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to immediately cancel plans to auction off 6 million acres of offshore oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Even as his older brother, President Bush, talked up the need to open up areas all over the country to drilling, Jeb Bush wrote a letter in January to the Interior Department asking that it drop the sales off the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Now the department will complete an environmental assessment in June before making a final decision in October on whether drilling will proceed. Florida’s tourism industry and environmentalists are in a tizzy about the drilling, and Jeb Bush, who is up for re-election this fall, may vie again to derail the auctions.
