Peter Horton, director of airports for Monroe County where Key West is located, told Reuters the October 5 authorization email he received from U.S. Customs and Border Protection did spell out some restrictions for Cuba flights however.

“It does not open up flights for the average American and it limits arriving passengers to 10 per flight. But it’s the first step and it’s an important one,” Horton said.

The 75-minute flight carried 89 customers filling most of the Boeing 737’s 100 seats. Each paid $445 round trip, plus $2 a pound for luggage. The trip culminated a yearslong effort by airport and political leaders to win federal approval for nonstop flights to Cuba.

“There is no reason for the United States to help enrich state sponsors of terrorism,”

I guess they just don’t get it. Maybe they care less about the Cuban people than their powerful allies. Maybe they are part of the gang who wants to control Cuba’s future on their terms.

Allowing religious organizations and certain educational institutions to travel to the country, increasing the amount that non-relatives can send to Cuba, and opening all U.S. airports to licensed chartered flights from the communist nation.

The White House announced the new measures late Friday night, likely anticipating the mixed reaction among some Democrats and Republicans to any move seen as inching toward rapprochement with the communist regime. They had been in the works for months, but political concerns – such as November’s midterm elections – held up the announcement.

Airports Can Offer Direct Flights

One key policy change is that airports will now be allowed to offer flights to Cuba with some restrictions. According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal:

Airports seeking to offer direct air travel to Cuba will have to have the right infrastructure and will have to have a charter company lined up to provide the flights as part of President Obama’s new Cuban policy.

Specific regulations will be laid out in two to three weeks, the White House official said.

Airports will apply to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security. On the application, airports will have to show they have adequate customs and immigration infrastructure – in other words, they are truly an international airport capable of enforcing rules that apply to Cuba travel, the official said.

There is a good chance the marine industry would flourish with an end of travel restrictions between the US and Cuba. The Republicans are always talking about too much regulation. Now that the Republicans have taken control of Congress and Florida, why not end the travel restrictions against Cuba and get the economy moving.

The other reform allows foreign investors to lease land as long as 99 years. European Investors will be building hotels, resorts and golf courses. Of course construction workers, equipment operators, architects, building supply vendors and the like will prosper. But none of these workers or investors will be from the US or economically hard hit Florida, only 90 miles away, because we’re still in the dark ages of diplomacy.

The 25-20 vote in the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee sets the stage for a potentially blistering debate this year in both the full House and the Senate.
“We have tried isolating Cuba for more than fifty years and it has not worked,” House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson said. “Today’s vote demonstrates that Congress is ready to change our nation’s approach on this issue.”

But Democrat Sen. Robert Menendez said, “I oppose and will filibuster any attempt to pass the bill in the Senate. The big corporate interests behind this bill couldn’t care less about whether the Cuban people are free or not – they only care about padding their profits by opening up a new market,” and “Repression is repression and dictatorships are dictatorships, no matter where they are located or whether you want to use their resorts.”

This is one of the few issues both the left and right agree on, from the US Chamber of Commerce to Jimmy Carter. Sen. Menendez is one of the few to not realize that nearly 50 years of bad policy hasn’t worked.

This famous quote sums up the Republican position on drilling for oil off Florida’s beaches and in the Gulf of Mexico. The lie goes something like this:

We should drill for oil off Florida’s coast because China is drilling for oil off Cuba and only 50 miles from the Florida Keys

And it’s a lie that was debunked two years ago, but it’s still circulating in right-wing circles. I see it on the message boards, I heard it last weekend from my brother in law. Who knows where he heard it, he was just repeating it because conservatives always take the side of big oil.

So let’s set the record straight.

China is not drilling for oil off Cuba

The lie was started by George Will who wrote in a June 2008 column “drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are.”

The lie was then repeated by Dick Cheney during a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a week later. Then John Boehner, George Radanovich, Michael Steele and every other conservative crazy just repeats the lie without ever checking their facts.

Even Republican stalwart Florida Senator Mel Martinez knows it’s a lie, he said “China is not drilling off the coast of Cuba,” “Reports to the contrary are simply false. They’re rumors, akin to urban legend.”

Sources:
FactCheck.org
McClatchy
Mother Jones
Tampa Bay Online

U.S and Cuban officials are holding “working level” talks on how to respond to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is believed to be dumping some 5,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico, two State Department officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The talks add to signs of concern that strong currents could carry the slick far from the site of the spill, possibly threatening the Florida Keys and the pristine white beaches along Cuba’s northern coast.

Cuba is a mere 90 miles from the Florida Keys and if the oil is picked up by the Gulf Stream, the oil affecting Florida beaches and Cuba’s shoreline will become a environmental and tourism nightmare for both countries.

Business Week has three recent articles which point to progress, according to this article:

The U.S. House of Representatives may pass a bill next month that would cut restrictions on agricultural exports to Cuba and lift a ban on travel to the island, the measure’s sponsor said.

Congressman Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said he needs backing from one more lawmaker to assure the panel will pass the legislation. He expects to secure that pledge after Congress’s Easter recess, and for the measure to get approval by the full House.

And in the Senate, the sponsor of the bill, Senator Byron Dorgan said:

he will bring a bill to lift the ban on travel to Cuba to the Senate floor this summer and that more than 60 Senators will vote for it.

All of this good news has Cuba getting ready for US tourist:

Cuba’s hotels could manage a sudden influx of 1 million American tourists if the U.S. Congress lifts its 47-year ban on travel to the Communist island, Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero said.

Additionally, the Caribbean nation is set to expand its capacity of about 50,000 rooms, with groundbreaking scheduled for at least nine hotels in 2010, Marrero said. About 200,000 rooms may be added in the “medium to long-term,” he said. Cuba is also seeking investment partners for 10 golf courses and luxury hotels aimed at Americans, according to a ministry official.