From Phil Compton's article at the Daily Loaf:

The oil lobby's message: “Trust us. The oil companies would never do anything to harm your beaches. Honest, we can drill and you’ll never see a spill, nary a drop nor a tar ball. Never mind that Texas beaches, naturally as nice as Florida’s, have almost zero tourism revenue because of the muck and tar balls that ruin a nice walk on the beach there. If we had anything to do with that, we’re sorry, but that would never happen here. We’re much more careful now. Trust us.”

Two problems with this argument:

1. Tourism is how we make money in Florida. Four dollars out of five are made on our beaches. Not to mention is the 6 million with jobs in tourism and their $226 billion in wages. Oil can’t replace that, but that’s the deal they’re asking us to swallow. What could possibly go wrong? In the early ’90s you’ll remember a relatively tiny oil spill from a tanker accident. Result: In two years Pinellas County tourism dropped 45 percent, losing about $5 billion dollars in 2008 dollars.

2. Nobody needs it. There’s a huge glut now. All over the world, tankers are docked, rigs are shut down. The number of oil and gas rigs operating has dropped in half from last summer: 2400 to less than 1200. 82% of America’s reserves are in places already open to drilling. And 30 million more acres were just leased in the Gulf four months ago.

So we’re being asked to accept a risk that our beaches will stay as beautiful as they are now, with a pittance of replacement of their current value, and to make this sacrifice - why? So America can become energy independent? Oil drilled here would enter the global market, with no more chance of getting into your gas tank than does oil from Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. Whatever Florida might produce would be just a drop in the bucket of global supply. It’s impossible to have much of an effect on supply and demand when you have 4% of the supply and create 25% of the demand. Face it, America cannot drill its way out of its problems.

But there are other solutions available. Read Phil Compton's article in full.