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Rodriguez712 In: Climate change slow in Capitol -- | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River
Sen. Rodriquez and his boots.  Photos by Jim Tatum.

Florida is one of 13 states to not have specific goals or standards for how much energy comes from renewable sources like solar power, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A law last year, introduced by Rodríguez and Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, would have targeted 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, but it did not draw a vote.

Florida lost one of it few good lawmakers during the last election.

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Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
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Climate change slow in Capitol

Despite Floridians’ concerns, lawmakers don’t see the issue as a major priority.

BY ZACHARY T. SAMPSON

Times Staff Writer

The day after Floridians took to voting booths, the same day the United States officially left a global agreement to reduce planet-warming emissions, Miami state Sen. José Javier Rodríguez was gearing up for a recount he would lose.

Rodríguez had become known in Tallahassee for wearing galoshes around the Capitol. It was an attempt, he said, to make his colleagues pay attention to sea level rise after years of inaction. His narrow defeat, in a race clouded by a no-party candidate with the same last name (who may have lived in a different district), was not a clear referendum on Rodríguez’s politics. But it left the Legislature of a state perhaps more vulnerable than most to climate change without a clear champion on the issue. The question now is whether Florida needs that kind of figure, or whether it has reached a point where the topic no longer requires a man slipping on rain boots to prompt discussion in the halls of power.

“It is a worrying message in terms of what it says about climate policy,” said Rodríguez, a Democrat talking also about the state’s backing of President Donald Trump, who has doubted the

science of climate change. The loss belied his experience on the campaign trail, where he said voters asked about the subject more than ever. Floridians, too, backed some local green measures; residents of Key Biscayne approved a $100 million bond to address sea level rise.

“My hope is that maybe there’s a disconnect on policy and politics,” Rodríguez said, “that people weren’t intending to vote against the climate agenda.”

Surveys show most Floridians accept the realities of climate change and worry about the impacts. A shift in the electorate, advocates say, has led to a gradual thaw on conversations about the problem in Tallahassee. The changing tone follows a decade of avoidance by Republican leadership, they say, though lawmakers still shy away from talking seriously about emissions that contribute to climate change.

Incoming House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, and Senate President Wilt on Simpson, R-Trilby, wrote earlier this year about the need to improve flood defenses. After multiple failed attempts, Rodríguez last year joined with Rep. Vance Aloupis, a Miami Republican, to pass a law that requires sea level rise studies before certain statefunded construction.

“The state has a responsibility to address these issues,” Aloupis said. Parts of his district flood even in regular storms. “It’s never good to be reliant upon one person. It needs to be something that’s an ongoing conversation.”

Florida voters and climate

Some progressives thought Florida might swing on the climate vote in 2020.

It did not.

The Sierra Club Florida tallied 21 House wins — and 36 losses — for candidates friendly to its cause across the primary and general election, said Deborah Foote, the group’s government affairs and political director. In the Senate, she said, they managed an even record.

“The brighter light is shining on those local races where we are seeing a significant number of our endorsed candidates winning,” Foote said shortly after the election. “I think that’s where we’re going to see continued change and innovation, on the local level….”

Some still view the environment as more of a backyard, local concern, Foote said. Residents on both coasts agreed to pay additional taxes to boost conservation. In Orange County, they decided to recognize natural bodies like rivers and streams in court cases, part of an environmental movement called Rights of Nature that advocates say could make it easier to bring lawsuits to block pollution and development. Lawmakers recently passed a bill that would make such a rule illegal in Florida, arguing that the idea could produce frivolous legal challenges.

Altogether, Foote and Moncrief said, the mixed results may foretell more of the same, with municipalities running ahead of Tallahassee on climate issues.

Though lawmakers have begun to openly discuss the damage rising seas could cause, Moncrief said, they have stalled on attempts to address the human sources of warming.

“I do not think we’re going to see that coming out of the Legislature,” she said. Others see a real opportunity in new leadership, particularly with Sprowls atop the House of Representatives. In a speech last year, he said: “We need to stop being afraid of words like ‘climate change’ and ‘sea level rise.’” The op-ed he wrote with Simpson, published in the Tampa Bay Times, referred to “sea level rise” but did not use the term “climate change.”

Neither Sprowls nor Simpson, the Senate president, responded to a call or text message seeking comment for this story.

“We have crossed a threshold when it comes to sea level rise and flooding and the need for resilience,” said Susan Glickman, Florida leader of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “But if all we do is adapt to sea level rise … there’s an old adage: When you find yourself in a hole, what do you do? You stop digging.”

Is Tallahassee changing?

Depending on who’s talking, the last Florida legislative session was either a reason for optimism or for continued skepticism.

Rodríguez and Aloupis earned unanimous support for the sea level rise study law, but other climate-related bills flopped. Rodríguez had hoped to push the state Department of Health to develop an annual report about concerns like water quality, heat-related sickness and the spread of diseases under a changing climate. He couldn’t find a partner to pick it up in the House.

“There’s a danger in dealing with climate only as it impacts property and economics,” Rodríguez said.

Florida is one of 13 states to not have specific goals or standards for how much energy comes from renewable sources like solar power, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A law last year, introduced by Rodríguez and Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, would have targeted 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, but it did not draw a vote.

“I think the hill just got steeper,” Rodríguez said. Many lawmakers, he said, are swayed by utility companies that rely on natural gas to make power.

Rep. Ben Diamond, a St. Petersburg Democrat talked about as a person who could help carry the mantle on climate change, introduced a bill last winter that would have made the state formulate a resiliency plan to present to the governor. It was not brought up for a vote. Another early advocate for addressing climate change, Rep. Kristin Jacobs, D-Coconut Creek, died this year of cancer.

“I can’t really predict how far we get in one session, but just the fact that we’re now having these conversations and we’re having them in a bipartisan and constructive way I think is positive,” Diamond said. “Now we need to take some action to go along with it.”

Aloupis said he will continue to suggest flood mitigation policies, but he believes lawmakers have to consider the sources of climate change, too. Local governments, he said, need state help to make fixes in stormwater systems and to convert areas, including in his own district, from septic systems to newer sewer lines. Most of all, they need money.

“This is going to have to be not just looked at from a policy perspective but from an appropriations perspective,” Aloupis said.

When lawmakers return next March, they will confront a host of budget problems as the pandemic has throttled state revenues. Glickman noted hopefully, though, that a House subcommittee on environment and agriculture has added “flooding” to its title.

“You can only ignore some problems for so long,” she said.

With little earlier progress, Rodríguez said, “the biggest challenge is the bar is so low.”

“There’s going to be relatively small policies that then get sold as if they’re really championing the kind of planning and forward- looking policies that we need here,” he said. “How much of an incentive is there to really tackle climate, or is this about scoring political points with the general electorate?”

This story was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multinewsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times. Contact Zachary T. Sampson at zsampson@tampabay.com or 727-893-8804. Follow @zacksampson.

 

Hillsborough Edition&mtime=51873B08&paperImage=saintpetersburgtimes In: Climate change slow in Capitol -- | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River

Former state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami

Hillsborough Edition&mtime=51873B08&paperImage=saintpetersburgtimes In: Climate change slow in Capitol -- | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River

Rep. Vance Aloupis, R-Miami

zoom in In: Climate change slow in Capitol -- | Our Santa Fe River, Inc. (OSFR) | Protecting the Santa Fe River
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Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, front, and Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, back, listen to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ State of the State address in Tallahassee on Jan. 14. SCOTT KEELER | Times

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