"Florida can better regulate its water than bureaucrats in D.C.," said GOP Congressman Steve Southerland at a news conference last month in Tallahassee, with Putnam at his side. Baloney. The two were urging Congress to pass a change to water rules that further hampers the EPA to protect people, the economy and environment.
It is a trend that Democrats have failed to resist. The assertion of states rights -- in particular against federal regulation of the environment -- animates corporate polluters and their mouthpieces in Florida like no other issue.
For instance, last year the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries both lobbied very heavily against EPA involvement in regulation for pollution of Florida waters by excess fertilizer runoff. Instead of hard, fast numerical standards for pollution, Florida has new standards that are unlikely to ever be effectively enforced because they are written so loosely.
While coastal residents on the St. Lucie River and Caloosahatchee are spitting mad about the consequences, even they -- mostly Republican voters -- don't put two and two together. For example, how this marketing of states rights matches the aims of the biggest polluters in Florida, Big Sugar, with the biggest private industrial conglomerate in America, Koch Industries and its affiliates. Both support the erosion of environmental accountability straight through Florida law down into the local counties where rules and regulations are also set up so that polluters can evade accountability, shifting the costs of pollution to taxpayers.
It's too bad that more Floridians won't cast their vote against Republicans who violate the basic tenet of conservatism: full cost accounting for toxics in our air and water.
The problem is not "bureaucrats in D.C.", the convenient bugaboo and scapegoat.
The problem isn't the EPA.
The problem is government-designed-to-fail. And the proponents of government-designed-to-fail are those same congressmen and secretaries of agriculture like Adam Putnam who slammed a door in a Tampa Bay Times reporter's face when confronted with questions about being wined and dined on a hunting trip by U.S. Sugar, to the King Ranch in Texas.
Dirty water politics organizes in the clubs and back rooms and hunting lodges where ordinary voters are excluded. In November, it is time to throw the cronies out -- back into the private sector where they can do whatever they want, free from the intrusion of government.
Congressman Southerland's assault on behalf of corporate polluters in Florida has national ramifications and shows what is at stake in the November elections. If control of the US Senate shifts to the GOP, there will be very little to hold the polluters back from getting what they want.
You can't claim to be conservative and at the same time stand for shifting the costs of pollution to taxpayers.
IN OUR OPINION
Editorial: Dirty water politics
Ocala Star Banner
Published: Thursday, September 4, 2014 at 6:30 a.m.
A proposed rule that would clarify what bodies of water fall under federal regulation has created a political firestorm here in Florida, pitting dozens of environmental groups against a powerful coalition of big business, big agriculture and conservative politicians.
The idea originally was to bring clarity to what waters and wetlands fall under Environmental Protection Agency purview, as ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. But so far, the only thing that is clear is that the opposition, led by Congressman Steve Southerland, R-Panama City, and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, are more concerned about protecting big business and agriculture interests than protecting our state's steadily deteriorating rivers, lakes and springs. Southerland has introduced a bill in Congress, disingenuously named …
It is a trend that Democrats have failed to resist. The assertion of states rights -- in particular against federal regulation of the environment -- animates corporate polluters and their mouthpieces in Florida like no other issue.
For instance, last year the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries both lobbied very heavily against EPA involvement in regulation for pollution of Florida waters by excess fertilizer runoff. Instead of hard, fast numerical standards for pollution, Florida has new standards that are unlikely to ever be effectively enforced because they are written so loosely.
While coastal residents on the St. Lucie River and Caloosahatchee are spitting mad about the consequences, even they -- mostly Republican voters -- don't put two and two together. For example, how this marketing of states rights matches the aims of the biggest polluters in Florida, Big Sugar, with the biggest private industrial conglomerate in America, Koch Industries and its affiliates. Both support the erosion of environmental accountability straight through Florida law down into the local counties where rules and regulations are also set up so that polluters can evade accountability, shifting the costs of pollution to taxpayers.
It's too bad that more Floridians won't cast their vote against Republicans who violate the basic tenet of conservatism: full cost accounting for toxics in our air and water.
The problem is not "bureaucrats in D.C.", the convenient bugaboo and scapegoat.
The problem isn't the EPA.
The problem is government-designed-to-fail. And the proponents of government-designed-to-fail are those same congressmen and secretaries of agriculture like Adam Putnam who slammed a door in a Tampa Bay Times reporter's face when confronted with questions about being wined and dined on a hunting trip by U.S. Sugar, to the King Ranch in Texas.
Dirty water politics organizes in the clubs and back rooms and hunting lodges where ordinary voters are excluded. In November, it is time to throw the cronies out -- back into the private sector where they can do whatever they want, free from the intrusion of government.
Congressman Southerland's assault on behalf of corporate polluters in Florida has national ramifications and shows what is at stake in the November elections. If control of the US Senate shifts to the GOP, there will be very little to hold the polluters back from getting what they want.
You can't claim to be conservative and at the same time stand for shifting the costs of pollution to taxpayers.
IN OUR OPINION
Editorial: Dirty water politics
Ocala Star Banner
Published: Thursday, September 4, 2014 at 6:30 a.m.
A proposed rule that would clarify what bodies of water fall under federal regulation has created a political firestorm here in Florida, pitting dozens of environmental groups against a powerful coalition of big business, big agriculture and conservative politicians.
The idea originally was to bring clarity to what waters and wetlands fall under Environmental Protection Agency purview, as ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress. But so far, the only thing that is clear is that the opposition, led by Congressman Steve Southerland, R-Panama City, and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, are more concerned about protecting big business and agriculture interests than protecting our state's steadily deteriorating rivers, lakes and springs. Southerland has introduced a bill in Congress, disingenuously named …
