Governor visiting Pensacola Beach today Pensacola News Journal Rick Scott's two-day tour of the Panhandle, coinciding with the April 20 anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, includes a stop today on Pensacola Beach. Scott spent Tuesday in the Panama City area, touting the Panhandle's beaches and seafood. … Pensacola Beach hopeful for reboundWALA-TV FOX10 A Year After Gulf Oil Spill, Florida Sees A ComebackNPR Gulf oil spill: Panhandle hopes for reboundSarasota Herald-Tribune Dothan Eagle –Telegraph.co.uk all 56 news articles »
By JAKE SHERMAN | 6/30/10 www.politico.com Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) wanted to fly 10 lawmakers down to the Gulf of Mexico to see the damage caused by BP’s gigantic oil spill first hand. House Democrats said no. Scalise’s trip was rejected for a variety of bureaucratic and logistical reasons, but it has also opened a new vein of partisan squabbling over who should be allowed to arrange a trip to view the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Republicans want to be able to take trips using their office spending allowance. But Democrats have heard from the Department of Homeland Security, which has asked that Congress organize trips through committees of jurisdiction, to avoid having to cater to a ton of individual lawmakers in a disaster zone, Democratic aides say. GOP leaders say they’ve heard nothing of this. The squabbling over who gets to travel to the Gulf on whose dime is the latest sign that congressional oversight of the oil spill oversight from Capitol Hill has been bogged down by partisanship. Congress has held upwards of 20 hearings on the disaster, often duplicative ones each week, as lawmakers struggle to grasp and fully realize the scope of BP’s giant oil spill. Scalise, who has already been to the Gulf on another codel, wants to organize a trip so lawmakers can fully grasp the impact before they vote on oil drilling regulations. And he doesn’t want to do it through a committee, because the members don’t fit neatly into specific panels — they stretch …
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