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Crist Tells Tourists Most Florida Beaches are Oil-Free

June 15, 2010 -- President Obama is visiting Pensacola today, as part of his two-day tour of areas affected by the Gulf oil spill. On Monday, Florida Governor Charlie Crist was focusing on the spill in a different part of the state. He took a stroll on the white sands of Miami Beach. It was his way of telling the world's tourists there's no oil in South Florida.

Governor Crist led an entourage down to the sand from the back door of Loew's Miami Beach Hotel.

“That beautiful water is gorgeous and the beaches are pristine,” he told waiting reporters and camera crews. “The vast majority of the beaches in Florida have zero oil on them, except suntan oil.”

Why was this speech necessary?  Because imaginary oil is developing as a worse threat to South Florida than the real stuff gushing out of the blown out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Twenty minutes before Crist’s walk on the beach, the governor met with local government and tourism officials. Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau Chief Bill Talbert told Crist about some ominous pairings of Internet search terms his on-line analysts are picking up.

“'Miami and oil spill' in the blogosphere appears more times than 'Pensacola and oil spill,’” he said.

According to Talbert, reservation phones are ringing a little less often these days, although local tourism hasn't suffered too much since the oil rig blowout.  Miami Beach State Representative Richard Steinberg and several others around the table worried that would-be tourists are falling into their usual errors of geography.

“People especially outside the U.S. look at Florida as one,” he said, “and [they] don't understand that there's a little bit of oil in the Panhandle. They think it’s all over the place.”

Governor Crist said he will ask President Obama to help him make it clear that oil has appeared only on small stretches of one Florida beach and that the rest of the state is untouched. He also said he'll support an Obama administration plan to have BP place some of its assets into a damage claims fund that will be administered by an independent third party.

“I wanna commend the administration,” Crist said. “I think they're doing the best they can. I think they were a little slow at the start up, but I think they're really putting it in place and doing everything possible now.”

While the Governor was standing on Miami Beach, he also engaged in a little bit of legal saber-rattling.  He put BP on notice that he's assembling a team of government lawyers and a private sector legal militia led by famed Tampa maritime attorney Stephen Yerrid to prepare the damage lawsuits that BP could attract.

 “I hope that BP just gives us the money every time we ask for it,” the governor said, “but it doesn’t always work that way.  I hope it isn't  necessary to get into litigation but, as your governor, if we do, I wanna be prepared for it.”

PROGRAM NOTE:

President Obama will address the nation about the Gulf oil spill from the Oval Office this evening.  90.7 will carry the speech live, starting at 8pm.

 

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