Florida Chamber's Directors - asleep at the switch?

Mark Wilson, Pres. and CEO of the Florida Chamber wrote a 742-word Op-ed piece for the Tampa Bay Times today.  In it, he states unequivocally that the Chamber is an “environmental advocate.” 

That’s absurd.  Here’s about 1400 words why.

For the last four years of Scotts reign, the Florida Chamber has supported and promoted an endless stream of laws and policies designed purely to weaken the state’s ability to protect Florida’s wilting, withering and wasting natural environment. To be effective, the Chamber has one of the most powerful lobbying contingents operating in Tallahassee, a virtual army of high paid influence peddlers fighting for its agenda which emphatically does not include protection of anything environmental. In 2009, the Chamber boasted having 29 lobbyists on its legislative “team.” 

Why is Wilson trying to make this case when everyone in Tallahassee knows it isn’t a fact?  Maybe the Chamber’s Board members got a little more than miffed when it was revealed that the Chamber had a role in the demise of the so-called Springs Protection Bill (SB 1576) even though the Board was told, and apparently continues to be told, the Chamber supported it.

The Chamber board, you’ll recall, consists of such companies as Florida Power and Light (Eric Silagy), Beall’s, Inc. ( Steve M. Knopik), Tampa Port Authority (Paul Anderson), Broward College (J. David Armstrong, Jr.), GAC Contractors (Allan G. Bense), Gulf Power Company (Stan W. Connally, Jr.), Walt Disney Parks and Resorts (Anthony J. Connelly), Waste Management of Florida (Charles Dees), Regions Bank (Don DeFosset), A Duda and Sons (Tracy Duda Chapman), Auto Nation (Jonathan P. Ferrando, Esq.), Duke Energy (Alex Glenn), Bank of America (Mike M. Fields), Shands Hospital (Timothy M. Goldfarb), Charter Schools USA (Jon Hage), Seaworld Parks and Entertainment (Dave Hammer), Ron Jon Surf Shop of Florida (Debra Harvey), TECO Energy (Charles O. Hinson III), Publix Super Markets, Inc. (John T. Hrabusa), CSX Transportation (Quintin C. Kendall), Florida Southern College (Anne B. Kerr Ph.D.), Suntrust Bank (Dan W. Mahurin), Darden Restaurants (Robert S. McAdam), State Farm Insurance (Allen McGlynn), General Electric (Trey H. Paris), Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce (Bob Rohrlack), and Allstate Insurance (Mike Sheely).

http://skyshadowphotography.blogspot.com/

 

For the complete list of the members of the Florida Chamber Board of Directors, tap HERE.

(See Special Interests win again and Florida’s Springs lose … again)

These are all companies whose best interests demand them to be seen by the public as at least supportive of environmental values if not being actual advocates, such as Disney or Publix might wish to claim.  It is certainly not in any of their best business interests to be on the side of stark anti-environmentalism.  Green is in. Today’s public is smart and, generally speaking, have grown more fully appreciative of the true importance of healthy natural systems to their everyday lives and that of their children.  Who wants to breathe choking, polluted air, drink unhealthy contaminated water, visit filthy beaches, or swim in scum-filled springs which have become discharge sites for agricultural and urban wastes? 

Shands Hospital certainly wouldn’t want you to be doing this, one would think.  So how is it that this nationally respected teaching hospital is a dues-paying member of an organization that doesn’t seem to get it and continues to act with strategic disdain for natural systems, all under the flag of regulatory freedom for businesses?  The Chamber continues this despite warnings from virtually everyone that if it succeeds, the state’s economy will be sucked right down the economic toilet, and many of the chambers’ visitor-oriented businesses will be sucked right down with it?  Seems the Chamber’s board members are asleep at the switch, and while being so they are becoming complicit with the Chamber’s actions by association.  They need to wake up.

From behind-the-scenes manipulation of Scott’s transition teams, to relentlessly pushing and pulling legislators every session to do its bidding, the Florida Chamber has proven over and again that it does not care for Florida’s natural environment because protecting it constrains businesses from destroying it.

The Florida Chamber does not concern itself with sustaining Florida’s natural environment because its profit-minded members look only at the bottom line, which they endlessly declare government does not (which, of course, is true because government doesn’t have one).  The Chamber’s position is that regulations are an anathema to private enterprise.  It is the right of the private business sector in a country founded on the principles of free enterprise to be free of any governmental constraint on an opportunity to make a profit – protection for public interests be damned.

Wilson claims the Chamber understands the importance of a healthy and sustainable natural environment to Florida’s future but its actions historically decry this truism.  Its claims are a fraud upon the public and the public needs to let its board members know they are being duped by this same fraud.

The Chamber touts a “Six Pillars” strategic plan for taking Florida into the future.  These pillars are:

• Talent Supply & Education
• Innovation & Economic Development
• Infrastructure & Growth Leadership
• Business Climate & Competitiveness
• Civic & Governance Systems
• Quality of Life & Quality Places

Nowhere is there a reference to protecting Florida’s fragile environment from the expected monstrous growth the Chamber believes is coming.  (According to data from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and the Florida Office of Economic and Data Research, Florida’s population of 19.5 million is expected to increase to approximately 24-26 million residents by 2030). 

The last pillar, Quality of life & Quality Places, only refers to

• Vibrant & Sustainable Communities
• Health & Wellness
• Equality & Diversity

Admirable goals but totally devoid of concerns for natural systems even though they are indispensible to the state’s future quality of life.

If it doesn’t concern you that the Florida Chamber is planning Florida’s future for you with a 20-year plan instead of the state’s elected officials, it should.  Again, ask yourself whose interests the Chamber serves.  It isn’t the general public’s and it’s not your grand kids. 

There was a time when the governor’s office was involved in Florida’s long term planning as it should be.  No longer.  The legislature dismantled the state’s planning arm and relegated what’s left of it to meaningless obscurity somewhere in the Department of Transportation.  The state has no effective long term plan and no working strategic plan to get it there.  It has abandoned the task, leaving it to the disparate decisional chaos of 67 county commissions and innumerable city councils.

This is the work of those who will profit from not having to conform their private business plans to the public’s plans for the future.  And, who leads the pack in Tallahassee?  The Florida Chamber.

There was a time when water management districts could identify the problems within their jurisdictions and raise enough money to pay for fixing them.  There was a time when the districts had the regulatory authority to manage water and natural systems based upon local familiarity with what was needed and objective science provided by a competent technical staff.  No more. Now district governing boards meet to carry out the political whims and will of Tallahassee operatives, unable to make a decision without authorization from Herschel Vinyard or some other Rick Scott minion like Jeff Littlejohn. Now they meet to muse ineffectively over how they’re going to pay for critical water programs and how to further weaken the districts’ regulatory authority over private sector projects that affect the state’s fragile natural resources.

This is the work of those who will profit from less regulation without regard for the impact on the future of Florida.  The likes of the Florida Chamber.

Mark Wilson writes a carefully worded defense of the Chamber’s views toward the role of Florida’s natural systems in the state’s future.  But carefully read, it’s clear the Chamber’s only concern is that which serves the interests of its members, not the environment or the public's concern for the environment.  After all, that is not its purpose, is it?  So, why should it be concerned?  Because it is destructively myopic not to be.

Only the Chambers board members who risk suffering the wrath of a public that rues the loss of their state’s unique natural character can bring about the cultural shift needed within the Florida Chamber.  The Chamber must rethink its view of the environment and truly embrace its fundamental importance to the state’s economic future, the very values the Chamber holds so dear. 

We all want sustained economic viability for our State and understand that a degree of sustained growth will be necessary to achieve it.  But we must never think that included in that formula is an inevitable and unavoidable necessity to exploit Florida’s natural resources to the point of total ruination or loss.  Should we be foolish enough to do so, we will destroy the very foundation for any successful economic condition we and our progeny might be fortunate enough to enjoy.  Wilson’s letter seems to support this but the Chamber’s continued covert disdain for natural Florida simply does not.