Rick Scott's oil drilling talk has come up dry

Oil drilling was a hot topic in Florida in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that year.

As Rick Scott campaigned for governor, he stated on his campaign website:

"Rick will fight to ensure than any future offshore drilling does not negatively impact Florida's beaches. As we explore the expansion of domestic drilling in the U.S., we must ensure that we have sound policies in place that ensure the companies drilling are doing so in an environmentally sound way and adhering to the strictest of safety standards."

To be clear, this promise is both about expanding oil drilling and doing it safely.

So where do things stand?

We first rated this promise In the Works after Scott took some small steps, including holding a January 2011 meeting with former senator and former Gov. Bob Graham, who was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as co-chairman of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. They met for 35 minutes to discuss the commission's report.

But after Scott's first year in office we changed the rating to Promise Stalled because Scott had done little to meet his goal. (We are tracking other energy-related promises including to lower electricity costs for businesses, expand the use of nuclear and alternative fuels and reform the Public Service Commission for more energy production.)

During Scott's first year as governor, energy policy adviser Mary Bane was supposed to create a state energy policy to address offshore drilling and other topics. But Bane retired in January 2013, and we can't find any evidence that such a policy was created.

We contacted Scott's office and the office of Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who oversees an energy office.

"We have not had any requests to explore this policy further," Putnam spokeswoman Erin Gillespie told PolitiFact Florida. "We are also unaware of any bills related that have been filed in recent sessions."

We checked in with a couple of environmental activists -- Eric Draper, the director of Audubon Florida and Susan Glickman, a clean energy lobbyist -- who couldn't cite any new steps Scott had taken toward his oil drilling promise.

"Scott has done nothing on energy or oil drilling whatsoever," Glickman said. "Certainly nothing to make oil drilling safer."

A spokesman for Scott said he had no updates to provide PolitiFact Florida. We have seen no significant steps by Scott to explore drilling in a safe, environmentally sound way.

We rate this Promise Broken.