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You know that guy who says, “I hate to say, ‘I told you so,’” then proceeds to tell you so anyway?

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart is not that guy.

Not that he won’t tell you so. He just doesn’t hate saying it.

Late last year, Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, was on the side of a divided Florida congressional contingent that favored an offshore drilling deal that would have kept rigs at least 125 miles off the state’s West Coast.

Opposition to the idea from other Florida lawmakers scuttled the deal. Now, the 2005 plan looks like the one that got away.

Earlier this year, the House passed an energy bill that would allow drilling 100 miles off parts of Florida and give the state Legislature a voice in where to draw the line.

On Wednesday, Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., forged a compromise in the upper chamber that would keep oil and gas exploration at least 125 miles from the coast, but that offers no role to the state.

“Parts (of the Martinez plan) are better than the House version and parts are worse. But it’s all worse than what we got last year,” Diaz-Balart said.

Diaz-Balart sees Florida steadily losing leverage in the fight to keep oil and gas exploration away from its coasts. The rising costs of energy and the the Middle East crisiserode support for a continued ban.

That’s why it’s important to get a deal done now, says Diaz-Balart. “Yeah, sure. Maybe oil will drop to $60 a barrel. If you don’t believe that, we’ve got to get a moratorium in statute,” he said.

Indeed, what a difference a year makes.

In November, when opponents in the House managed to sink the deal on the table, Martinez was among the first to praise its demise. “This is great news for Florida, for our tourism economy, our military and our ecosystem,” Martinez said at a November press conference. “We have successfully kept any encroachments from Florida’s shores. We’ve won a very significant battle.”

Asked to describe how the compromise Martinez struck Wednesday is different or better than the one pushed a year ago, Martinez spokesman Ken Lundberg offered no specifics.

“It’s a little difficult to say how the Martinez agreement is ‘different/better’ because the November deal, to my knowledge, was never set to paper. Without the details, it’s impossible to do a side-by-side comparison,” Lundberg said.

He stressed that the Martinez compromise is better than no deal at all. But no deal at all was what the senator praised so highly just eight months ago. “The world has really shifted,” Lundberg acknowledged.

Normally, when the House and Senate pass different versions of a bill, a committee comprising members of both chambers meets to iron out differences.

Lundberg said that may not happen in the case of Florida offshore drilling. The House bill is much more expansive, dealing with offshore drilling around the nation and revenue-sharing with the states. The measure backed by Martinez focuses only on limits for Florida. It’s probably not realistic to expect a committee to strike a balance between the two before the November elections, he said.

Lundberg said the senator’s hope is that the House quickly will pass a measure identical to the one the Senate leadership has agreed to.

If the House doesn’t go along with that, no deal may be the deal again this year.

And next year, Diaz-Balart may be in position to say, “I told you so,” again.

“Next year, we’ll be lucky if we can get 50 miles,” Diaz-Balart said.

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E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com.