Climate Change, The Everglades, US Sugar and Charlie Crist... by gimleteye

It is taking a while to sink in, the enormity of the deal announced by Governor Charlie Crist earlier this week. In an earlier post, I wondered aloud whether the state's acquisition of the massive US Sugar holdings in the EAA would offset the bad news about Crist's support for offshore oil drilling in Florida. As if answering the question, David Guest-- a lead attorney for Earthjustice, one of the lead groups in litigation for the environment in the Everglades--had the last word in a New York Times story: "Offshore drilling is a mouse. The Everglades is an elephant."

I'm not so sure about that. But...

The news reports have it right: the planned acquisition of US Sugar's 187,000 acres provides the one feature that has been utterly missing from the $10 billion or however expensive Everglades restoration will be: common sense.

In acknowledging and moving on the political opportunity for common sense in the Everglades, Crist has done what no other Florida governor thought politically possible: move sugar out of the historic Everglades. (Nor, US Senator. Florida's Democratic Senators, former governor Bob Graham and current Senator Bill Nelson would never, ever have even uttered a public word about buying out Big Sugar, despite entreaties to do so by environmental groups.)

It is going to take a long time to work out the details, but environmentalists are right to be giddy about the possibility that now hundreds of government scientists and engineers and policy drafters on the Everglades will not be required by political bosses to labor under false pretenses (ie. that the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan can work).

Of former Governor Jeb Bush's political appointees to the governing board of the water management district, only Michael Collins remains; a lonely hold-out to the predetermined outcomes that had plagued the restoration's prospects for nearly a decade. Collins was Jeb's loyal bantam rooster; from the first, he enjoyed making sport by deriding environmental organizations and representatives who frequently appeared to testify and to comment before the board or its committees.

A micromanager always, Jeb took pleasure at Collins' reports on what he said, to whom, from the dais. Jeb disdained organizations that tried to insert themselves through litigation in the processes controlled by politicians.

But if one thing is clear: it is that litigation by environmental groups was the catalyst for the US Sugar deal. News reports note that the successful litigation by environmental groups in federal court, to stop the practice of "backpumping" polluted water into Lake Okeechobee in effect forced US Sugar's hand. Of course, the current economic crisis-- in which housing markets and speculative land values are crashing-- helped considerably push corporate owners to take the chance, now, to cash out.

That, and understanding environmental groups have been moving toward campaigns to advocate the use of eminent domain to "take" the Everglades Agricultural Area.

Clearly, Charlie Crist understood the politics and opportunity arising out of successful litigation by environmental organizations like Friends of the Everglades, Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club and others.

In Miami this week for the "annual" Climate Change Summit, Governor Crist has been deluged with questions and attention paid to his Everglades initiative. Almost on cue, Florida Power and Light Chairman Lewis Hay III announced that the company would build three new solar plants in Florida.

In a Reuters report, Hay responded to the question why the company had not moved quickly to do what others have been able to do in California, where an ambitious plan by the state's governor Arnold Schwarznegger is aiming to help consumers install one million solar systems. Hay says, "we haven't been able to crack that code yet."

That's disingenuous: as disingenuous as Big Sugar saying, for decades, it is doing everything it can to stop its pollution of the Everglades.

Governor Crist, presumably, read the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times and the interview with the Chairman of Duke Power, Jim Rogers, in which Rogers detailed the common sense plan to compensate utilities based on units of energy saved. Solar plays a big role, in that.

I hope that Governor Crist has a chance to read the state's own rule for "net metering". Net metering is the requirement by regulators allowing consumers to sell back to utilities excess power generated from home systems. But the state's rule is incredibly cumbersome and clearly puts utilities and consumers who want solar at opposite sides of the table. As a result, don't expect much from Florida, Florida Power and Light, or any of the other Florida utilities where it comes to encouraging the economics of consumer-installed solar systems.

In the case of the Everglades, litigation and the general economy forced the changed climate in which a massive deal to buyout US Sugar emerged. But the changed climate related to global warming is far more difficult and allows politicians room to hide. Governor Crist, in supporting offshore oil drilling, has shown himself to be vulnerable to those temptations. He's supported nuclear energy in South Florida, where there is no evidence it is a rational decision in an age of rising sea levels and chronic water shortages and widespread environmental degradation because of excessive nutrients.

A simple, common sense approach would be to straighten out Florida's net metering rule and make it easy for consumers to install those million solar systems that California is aiming for. It is a litmus test.

Given his bold step forward for the Everglades, I believe Crist can pass the test. Remembering, always, that the devils are in the details and that claiming victory for the environment is like a sweater so worn with holes it provides very little warmth at all.