“Rick Scott has a seven-year record as governor of putting special interests first, and Florida’s environment last. Now that it’s an election year, Floridians know he’ll say or do anything to win their vote — even lie about his record on the toxic algae polluting Florida’s waterways. But they know Rick Scott is to blame,” said American Bridge spokesperson Joshua Karp.
News 13: As Florida’s Toxic Algae Bloom Crisis Grows, Some Point Finger At Gov. Scott
By Troy Kinsey | July 9, 2018
- “As toxic algae blooms ravage Florida’s coastline for the third consecutive summer, progressive environmentalists are accusing Gov. Rick Scott of contributing to the crisis through his administration’s deregulatory agenda.”
- “Throughout his two terms, Scott has sought to foster economic growth by eliminating or curtailing many of the state’s growth management and environmental protection functions.”
- “His critics point specifically to the abolition of the Department of Community Affairs and the downsizing of the Department of Environmental Protection’s enforcement division as touchstone events that have allowed developers and agricultural interests to send polluted water to Lake Okeechobee, which in turn has helped trigger the algae blooms.”
- “‘He instituted an immediate policy to make sure that any positions that had not been filled by the time he got there remained unfilled,’ Aliki Moncrief, the executive director of Florida Conservation Voters, said of the Scott administration’s stewardship of DEP. ‘So, he essentially hobbled the agency’s — and the enforcement section specifically — ability to continue the regulatory work.'”
- “‘He has exacerbated, over the last eight years, a situation that could have been… we could have been better off today if he had done things differently,’ Moncrief said. ‘There’s a lot of factors in this very complicated problem, and he is one very big one.'”
Read the full story here.
Published: Jul 10, 2018