Log in Subscribe

There's No Greenwashing Scott's Abysmal Environmental Record

Posted
When Rick Scott took over as Governor of Florida in 2011, he inherited a state that was on the forefront of preparing to proactively deal with environmental challenges like rising sea levels, threats to our water quality and drinking water reserves, and the preservation of other important environmental resources. Scott quickly set about thoroughly dismantling such efforts, and the results have been disastrous. No amount of late-game greenwashing should fool Florida voters into thinking that he'd be anything more than just another pawn for polluters were they to send him to Washington.

Scott's Republican predecessors, governors Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist, did not see our natural resources as something to be disregarded anytime they collided with dollar signs. After the horrendous 2005 hurricane season devastated Florida and sea level rise projections were accelerated as polar ice caps melted faster than predicted, a culture of responsible stewardship began to take form. Crist, in alliance with other mindful conservatives like John McCain and Tim Pawlenty, saw climate change as a critical issue facing state and federal government and was particularly concerned with mitigating the risk to a state that for geographical reasons stood more to lose in the immediate future.

Crist's efforts culminated in HB 7135, an ambitious and far-reaching environmental bill he signed into law in June of 2008, authorizing the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to adopt rules to implement a state greenhouse gas cap-and-trade regulatory program. By the time Crist left office to run for the Senate at the end of his first term, Florida, a state where all three branches of government were held by Republicans, was seen as being on the cutting edge of environmental protection.

However, a schism in the GOP that played out in 2010 brought a once-fringe element of the party who'd long resisted any form of environmental protection to its forefront. Rick Scott rode the Tea Party wave right into Tallahassee that November and, aided by legislators who were either co-riders on that wave or had been chastened by the results, would have an indelible impact on our state's environmental policy over the next eight years.

The tone was set for Scott's dismantling of our protections as state agencies began instructing employees almost immediately not to use the terms "climate change" or "global warming" in official correspondence. Emails warned staff and even contractors to steer clear of the verbiage and state-level environmental reports stopped including the terms as well. For his part, Scott refused to give an answer as to whether he even believed in the human influence of climate change, dodging with his infamous, "I'm not a scientist" response.

One of Scott's first moves after taking office in 2011 was to appoint Herschel Vinyard to head the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. In terms of qualifications, Scott noted that Vinyard, a shipping company executive, had special "insights on the challenges businesses face in the permitting process."

In other words, Vinyard wasn't there to protect our environmental resources so much as to help make sure that regulations and enforcement were considered on a business-first basis. This is the same tactic that had been used by the Bush administration to weaken or dismantle crucial protections that had also formerly been popular with conservatives, many dating back to the Nixon administration, and not unlike the ethos that saw a climate-change denier like Scott Pruitt installed to run the EPA in 2017. To emphasize his position, Scott asked the legislature to reduce DEP funding in every budget until this year.

Just six months after taking office, Governor Scott attended a private retreat hosted by GOP mega-donors David and Charles Koch, industrialists who've denied climate change while raising and spending billions on political activities to support compliant politicians who would work to advance their pollute-at-will agenda. The Kochs love Scott, which should tell Floridians all they need to know about his commitment to supporting even modest, common sense measures when it comes to environmental protection.

In his first budget, Scott would recommend a gutting of departments charged with protecting the environment. He made the state's five regional water management districts cut their budgets by $700 million while stacking their boards with developers like Carlos Beruff, who'd been generous to his campaign and would now be able to push through applications with little oversight.

Layoffs throughout state agencies followed and regulators with deep wells of institutional knowledge were forced out if they didn't get on board, setting a tone that made it clear that you either got with the program or would need to look for another job. By dismantling the Department of Community Affairs, the state's growth management agency, Scott removed yet another crucial backstop that stood between communities and anything-goes development. The DEP even gave bonuses to employees who sped up the permitting process and a former deputy secretary got caught ordering the agency's top wetlands expert to approve a permit that she said would violate state law.

The defunding and reduced enforcement had quantifiable results. In 2012, 58 DEP employees were laid off from the agency and enforcement cases dropped from 2,289 in 2010 to 799 that year. Revenue collected from environmental fines fell from $9.3 million in 2011 to $1.4 million in 2013.

In that same first budget, Scott also recommended that the legislature cut funding entirely for Florida Forever, the state's ambitious land conservation program that was established under former Republican Governor Jeb Bush in 2001 with a budget of $300 million funded through real estate taxes and reauthorized in 2008 under Crist. In 2016, Scott finally got his wish and the program was zeroed out completely.

In 2012, the governor squashed a statewide septic tank inspection program and ended a springs restoration initiative launched by Gov. Jeb Bush, remaining silent when a later bipartisan bill to spend hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning up the springs died in session. This year, Scott even supported developer-driven legislation that would have allowed the state to take over the permitting for wetlands from the federal government. As if this wasn't enough to ensure that water quality and availability would suffer, Scott continued to allow phosphate giant Mosaic to over-pump the state's aquifer to the tune of up to 70 million gallons a day so that it could dilute its toxic waste enough to dump it into creeks without violating state regulations.

Throughout his time in office, Scott oversaw a death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts dismantling of HB 7135, one subtle change at a time. He routinely supported Big Sugar, ignoring its role in a historic algal bloom in the St. Lucie estuary, while squashing plans to buy thousands of acres of sugar farmland on which to build reservoirs that could store nutrient-rich water that aids such blooms, while also cutting funding to study red tide.

In 2016, Scott signed legislation to weaken standards for toxic chemicals that flow into Florida’s rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, despite concerns that cancer-causing chemicals would wind up in drinking water and seafood. That same year, he sided with big business over the environment again when he signed legislation prohibiting local governments from imposing bans on Styrofoam and polystyrene products.

While the governor brags about requests he made in his final budget as he campaigns to replace Bill Nelson as U.S. Senator, his record over eight years in office is clear. If Floridians send Rick Scott to Washington, the Koch brothers will get another reliable vote in the Senate that they can count on to help them further weaken the very federal regulations that exist as the only backstop against governors like Scott. If the past few months have taught us anything it is that Florida cannot afford to abide politicians who are willing to turn our state into a toilet just to appease the big polluters who support their campaigns.

Sacred21.jpg
Dennis Maley is a featured columnist and editor for The Bradenton Times. He is also the author of several works of fiction. His latest book, Sacred Hearts, is currently available in the Amazon Kindle store (clickhere). His other books can be foundhere.



Comments

No comments on this item

Only paid subscribers can comment
Please log in to comment by clicking here.