No More Petro-Dictators

APRIL 28, 2011


A Congressional Dear Colleague sent by U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) regarding H.R. 372:

Stop the Castro Regime's Drilling

This year, the Castro regime in Havana plans to begin drilling for oil 50 miles off the coast of Florida. I have introduced legislation aimed at blocking Cuba from doing this.

Cuba is working with Repsol on this project. The rig that Repsol will use for this project is being built by the Chinese. Any spills would only take three days to reach the U.S. coast, and Cuba has neither the resources nor the technology to handle a spill. Worse, the United States would bear the brunt of the environmental and economic devastation of such a spill, while receiving no financial benefit from the oil drilling whatsoever.

To prevent the Castro regime from drilling, my bill would give the Department of the Interior the authority to deny drilling permits to companies that do business with countries that the U.S. currently has sanctions or an embargo against. Repsol has previously backed off projects with Iran when faced with similar pressure.

We need to apply similar pressure again in order to get Repsol to back-off this project with the Castro regime.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This legislation, or other similar legislation, would severely impact Repsol's lucrative investments in the U.S. Gulf states and Alaska.