With Congress set to take up a host of new energy bills that could move drilling rigs closer to Florida's West Coast beaches, Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is threatening to go to the mat.

"I want everybody to know -- including the senator [Saxby Chambliss] that’s just walking onto the floor -- that this senator is not going to allow Florida to be a sacrificial lamb for whatever is struck as an energy compromise," Nelson said in a floor speech this afternoon.

The House is expected to take up a comprehensive bill this week that would open more of the Outer Continental Shelf, including waters off Florida, to oil and gas exploration. The details are still being worked out, but one version puts rigs as close as 100 miles. It would let the state Legislature vote to allow drilling as close as 50 miles offshore.

The Senate, meanwhile, will address three measures next week. Two would open the eastern Gulf of Mexico -- by how much is still unclear -- and a third would open most of the U.S. coast, but leave the eastern gulf off-limits through 2022, which is currently the law of the land.

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