Hubbard blasts Florida over oil

Al Hubbard, the Indianapolis businessman who stepped down last year as director of President Bushâ??s National Economic Council,
is quoted in a recent Barronâ??s column as hammering Floridians and others living along U.S. coasts for squeezing the tourniquet
on additional oil and natural gas drilling.

â??If the other 49 states realized what Florida is doing to them, theyâ??d be up in arms,â?? Hubbard told columnist Jim McTague.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama all were â??convenientlyâ?? absent in June last year when
a vote came up on a Senate bill that would have allowed oil drilling off the Virginia coast.

Fear of spills makes the prospect of drilling anathema to residents of Virginia, Florida, California and other coastal states
â?? most of them politically powerful.

Yet, McTague argued, the vast majority of spills are caused by shipwrecks, and there is no hue and cry about banning ships
from coastlines. The last big spill from an oil rig happened in 1969 off Santa Barbara, Calif.

Hubbard says oil money should be kept in the United States and not sent to the Middle East.

What do you think?