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
