Floridians score big on Capitol Hill

Media release

December 9, 2006

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Early Saturday morning, Congress gave final approval to two significant measures championed by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson that will provide Florida with long-term protection from oil drilling and allow Floridians to deduct $1.7 billion in state sales tax from their federal income tax returns.

The provisions were included in broader legislation passed by the House Friday afternoon and the Senate Saturday. It now heads to the president for his signature.

“This is a huge day for Floridians,” Nelson said after the bill’s passage. “Not only were we able to get needed protections from drilling, we also got a major tax break for the state’s residents.”

Passage of the legislation gave Nelson and Florida’s other U.S. Senator Mel Martinez a major victory over the oil industry and its allies in Congress by restricting drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to areas far off the state’s coast. The legislation included a proposal negotiated by Nelson and Martinez that creates a no-drilling zone extending 125-miles off the Panhandle and 235-miles off Tampa Bay and much of the rest of the state’s West coast, through the year 2022. The measure also preserves vital military test and training ranges located in the Gulf of Mexico.

With congressional and presidential drilling moratoriums set to expire in 2012, the measure was seen by many as crucial in preventing current and future administrations from opening large tracts of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling.

“Floridians can now take comfort in the fact that they’ll be no drilling off the state’s shores,” said Nelson. “This is major protection of our state’s 50 billion-dollar tourism-driven economy and its unique environment.”

Florida taxpayers received another huge piece of good news when Congress approved a provision sought by Nelson allowing the state’s residents to deduct state sales taxes from their federal income tax returns for another two years. “Now we’ve got to convince the Congress to make the sales tax deduction permanent,” said Nelson.

In 2004, at the urging of Nelson and other lawmakers in sales-tax states, Congress decided to allow for the deduction of state sales taxes, but only for two years. It expired at the end of last year. In August, Nelson issued a public demand that leaders in Congress act quickly to restore the tax break retroactively.

The tax break will allow Floridians to deduct state sales taxes on their 2006 and 2007 federal tax returns. Residents in states with income taxes can deduct it on their federal tax returns, but Florida is one of eight states with a sales tax and no income tax. The deduction is expected to save Florida taxpayers an estimated $1.7 billion over two years.

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