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Senator Nelson talks off shore drilling in Fort Myers

Posted at 7:07 PM, Apr 11, 2017
and last updated 2017-04-12 07:14:00-04

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- U.S. Senator Bill Nelson was in Fort Myers on Tuesday to meet with local leaders to discuss the fight against offshore drilling.

Nelson recently led a bipartisan letter, urging the Trump administration to keep a moratorium that bans drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico until at least 2022. 

If lawmakers repeal that moratorium, the senator fears a disaster similar to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, could affect Florida's environment and several industries that are tied to it. Florida saw a dramatic effect on tourism because of the BP spill. "They didn't come for  an entire season because they thought oil was on our beaches," said Senator Nelson.

However, one of the biggest concerns Senator Nelson has, is that the area is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the world. Nelson tells Fox 4 he has letters from two republican secretaries of defense, saying they can't have oil activities in the highly sensitive area, where they test some of the country's most sophisticated weapon systems.