PolitiFact.com
Statements about Oil Spill
Bill Nelson

Bill Nelson

Half-True

A mess of a case

Says Connie Mack "is protecting Chevron oil from a multi-billion dollar lawsuit over pollution of rivers and rainforests."

Crossroads GPS

Crossroads GPS

Half-True

Down for a single year after oil disaster

Says oil "production's down where Obama's in charge."

Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio

Half-True

Gulf Coast still gets fine money, other places get interest

The RESTORE Act started as an "effort to dedicate as much BP fine money as possible towards Gulf Coast restoration" but now "could steer money to places like the Great Lakes and West Coast."

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum

Mostly False

You might remember that housing bubble

Florida's economy "became a bad economy ... because of a huge spike in oil prices in the summer of 2008."

Bill Nelson

Bill Nelson

Mostly True

Scientists challenged BP earlier, but video was key

Says it wasn't until he and a Senate colleague were able to "wrangle the actual streaming video" from BP that scientists were able to calculate the oil spill flow.

Rick Scott

Rick Scott

Mostly True

Tens of millions of BP dollars=more visitors

Says the Panhandle has had its highest-ever bed tax collections in 2011.

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum

False

At most, a "reduce your speed" sign

Says President Barack Obama "has put (up) a stop sign … against oil drilling, against any kind of exploration offshore or in Alaska."

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

Pants on Fire!

Math doesn't add up

"We're going to be looking at $8 billion a day that we're going to be pouring into foreign countries in order to import that make-up fuel that we're going to need to take the place of what we could have gotten out of the gulf."

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

Mostly False

Natural decline more of a factor than moratorium

We are looking at "150,000 barrels (of oil) per day less next year, and 200,000 barrels per day less being able to be developed from the gulf the year after" because of the moratorium on new drilling enacted by the Obama administration.

Adam Putnam

Adam Putnam

True

Ag commish has a fishing story for you

Says he couldn't keep a 42-inch redfish he caught because of fishing rules.

Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann

Pants on Fire!

One wrong statement

"One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office."

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Half-True

True, but he ignores a decline that's already begun

"Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time high" in 2010.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Half-True

Do you factor in oil exports or not?

"For the first time in more than a decade, imports accounted for less than half of (the oil) we consumed."

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

True

Baby hold off on that drill

"A 5 percent increase in domestic production would increase the world supply by less than 1 percent and do almost nothing to our dependence on foreign oil. This would also have virtually no effect on the price of gas at the pump."  

Alex Sink

Alex Sink

True

Claims process has been slow going

"150,000 (oil spill) claims have been filed by Floridians, but only 40 percent of them have been paid."

Rick Scott

Rick Scott

No Flip

Rare consistency on sticky issue

On offshore oil drilling.

National Taxpayers Union

National Taxpayers Union

Half-True

It depends on what your definition of "handout" is

Proposed tax changes are a "handout" to BP.

Carol Browner

Carol Browner

Half-True

Not quite "gone" and it's an estimate, not a firm number

"More than three-quarters of the oil is gone."

Dave Aronberg

Dave Aronberg

Half-True

Congressman Jeff Miller beat Dave Aronberg by two days

Dave Aronberg "was the first to demand that BP create a billion-dollar fund to pay for the devastation."

Alex Sink

Alex Sink

True

Bill text was filed five working days before it was passed

House Republicans who complained they didn't have enough time to consider a constitutional ban against oil drilling "shoved through a proposal in just a few days to open state waters to oil drilling."

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