Gravestone epitaph of Florida's dismantled natural resource management - "Science-based"

 I am giving a little talk  in The Villages Monday.  Here’s what I'm inclined to say about SSB 552. 

a.    The Legislature is poised to make major changes to state water policy

                               i.    They want to move the needle more toward fulfilling residential and commercial water needs and away from sustaining natural systems, which in their hearts is just a waste of good tax money that could be better spent to grow the interests of special interests who will pay for their re-elections and make them President of the Senate.

                              ii.    SB 552

1.    It is a bill that will create the expectation that conservation lands and efforts to protect natural systems should have a cost benefit ratio where the benefits must outweigh the cost.  Environmental protection and preservation always has a positive bottom line, but not always in dollars.  The extreme fiscal conservative will never acknowledge this.

2.    It is being written by those who proffer no monetary value for natural systems and who will use the resultant poor economic value to further extinguish legitimate environmental management in Florida.

3.    It is counter intuitive that giving the Ag Commissioner role as overseer of agricultural pollution and freeing farmers from regulatory accountability does not give them a free ride.  It is no different from giving a coyote keys to the coop and asking him to protect the chickens from other coyotes … and saying, “We trust you and all your friends will do the right thing.”   ......  BMP’s

4.    Requires self-reporting and data by environmental agencies at all levels that is clearly intended to load the political guns of special interests and make extreme fiscal conservatives like Alan Hayes drool.

5.    It is a bill written by those who see the dismantling of Florida’s natural resource protections as clearing the way for an ever upward-spiraling state gross domestic product, and who could not careless that the resultant environmental losses may be for all time.

6.    It is filled with condescension and empty platitudes for a public starving to hear something positive from a dysfunctional state Government.

7.    Liking anything in this bill is like saying you like a pie filled with arsenic because you like the Oreo Cookie crust.  It will do a great deal more harm than good.

8.    It will write the final epitaph on the gravestone of natural resource management in Florida as we once knew it … "Science-based"

-        Sandspur