Read Laura Cassel’s article about this here is the Florida Phoenix. But then read the article sent by VoteWater just after Cassel’s article for a little more info on what happened here, and why DeSantis is suddenly actually helping the environment, totally out of character.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday he has vetoed Senate Bill 2508, an Everglades-related pet project of outgoing Senate President Wilton Simpson that was hotly opposed by environmental groups and South Florida fishermen.
Introduced late in the Florida Legislature’s regular session last winter, SB 2508 had only one hearing before reaching a final vote in the Senate. Officially sponsored by Sen. Ben Albritton, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Simpson publicly acknowledged he wanted the bill to pass.
Simpson is a candidate for the elected post of commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, a position now held by Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is running for governor.
Critics described the bill as unfairly favorable to Florida’s wealthy sugar industry, by dedicating more water to farming irrigation and less to clean-water projects. DeSantis voiced his objections to the bill shortly after it popped up late in the session, and despite some modifications made to it, he followed through with a veto applauded Wednesday by the bill’s critics.
“The governor made the right decision today, and hopefully, this will be a signal to lawmakers to stop using legislative tricks to sneak harmful environmental policy past the Florida public,” said Jonathan Webber, legislative and political director of Florida Conservation Voters, in a statement emailed to press.
“FCV and many other environmental organizations sounded the alarm during the legislative session about the problems with SB 2508. Since then, thousands of Floridians have sent emails and letters urging a veto of this bad bill,” Webber wrote. “You can’t mess around with Everglades restoration or any of our major conservation programs and expect no one to notice.”
How ‘The People’ helped Kill SB 2508
Ding dong, the bill is dead.
On June 8 Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he’d vetoed notorious Senate Bill 2508, the worst environmental bill out of Tallahassee this year. SB 2508 was a toxic mixture of dirty politics and terrible policy, stuffed with giveaways to Big Sugar, Florida’s utility industry and the next state Agriculture Commissioner — possibly Sen. Wilton Simpson, a big supporter of the bill.
In April, we warned DeSantis risked undermining his environmental legacy if he signed it.
“What’s it going to be?” we asked.
DeSantis answered Wednesday, saying the bill contained “unnecessary and redundant regulatory hurdles” that could compromise progress on Everglades restoration projects.
This was massive.
SB 2508 was Florida politics at its worst — sneaky and dishonest. Filed as a “budget conforming bill” by Sen. Ben Albritton late on a Friday, it had but one hearing just days later. Simpson, then Senate President, lauded provisions that would have taken water management decisions out of the hands of “Joe Biden’s federal government” and handed them over to state officials, who presumably would be more compliant with the demands of water users like Big Sugar.
But those who tried to ram this bad bill through didn’t count on what happened next.
Everyday Floridians, perhaps alerted to the bill by environmental groups like VoteWater or our sister organization Friends of the Everglades, ignited a firestorm of criticism.
Dozens of charter fishing guides dropped everything to attend that sole hearing in Tallahassee. Tens of thousands signed online petitions, including 3,500 who implored DeSantis to veto the bill via a Friends of the Everglades petition, atop another 5,000 who sent messages after the bill first emerged in February.
Others called, wrote letters, emailed and posted on social media, creating a continuous drumbeat of opposition as VoteWater and other groups amplified the grassroots anger.
And it worked. The noise you created caught the ear of the governor — and now SB 2508 has been tossed on the trash heap, where it belongs.
It proves that if the people of Florida stand together in defense of our natural resources, we can win.
And we don’t have to settle for half-measures, either. After the worst provisions in the original bill were removed, it might have been tempting to settle for the amended SB 2508 — slightly better, though still bad. Once upon a time, that might have been the best we could hope for.
Times are changing.
So celebrate the win. And if we keep the pressure on our elected officials — there’ll be even more wins to celebrate.
