SARASOTA – Katy Swanson has her response down pat when people ask about oil drilling off the Florida coast.  “It’s a very hard pill to swallow but ultimately it’s a means to an end,” said Swanson, a Sarasota clean energy activist employed by RePower America.  It’s a conversation Swanson has been having more often than she’d like since President Barack Obama put his Florida supporters in an awkward position earlier this month by endorsing oil drilling along the Gulf Coast as part of a comprehensive energy reform plan.  Swanson held hands with other activists recently in an anti-drilling rally at beaches across the state. Now she tells people drilling can be a bridge to a clean-energy future.  Whether Floridians are willing to accept that turnabout and rally their elected leaders in support of energy reform could play a key role in the bill’s outcome.  After health care and financial reform, the energy bill is Obama’s next big test and he faces another bruising fight in the U.S. Senate. A bipartisan group of senators will unveil their proposed bill Monday, but passage is far from assured.  Opponents say the president’s effort to expand clean-energy sources like wind and solar power and cap carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels will drive up electricity prices and hamstring an already fragile economy.

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