Jeb Bush tore down Florida Everglades protections. He must be held accountable.

[seafan]

'Gimleteye' over at the vigilant EyeOnMiami Blog acknowledges journalist S. V. Dáte's most excellent piece on who Jeb Bush really is, and also encourages everyone to remember how Jeb Bush ruthlessly dismantled long-standing Florida Everglades protections while governor, at the direction of Big Sugar/Big Agriculture.

(EyeOnMiami).....

Journalists can dig into the disaster for the Everglades that Jeb unleashed in 2002, ripping up a water quality agreement by the state and the federal government signed into law in 1994, the Everglades Forever Act, that formed the foundation of Everglades restoration created only a few years earlier by Congress and President Clinton. Journalists have written extensively about the Rose Garden meeting when Jeb signed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan as the state counterpart to the president because it was the very same day that the US Supreme Court was hearing the Bush v. Gore case. Symmetry works in readers' imaginations.

There has been no attention, so far, to the calamitous result of the Jeb Bush assault of that law scarcely two years later on behalf of Big Sugar allies who had decided they needed more wriggle room because cleaning up their pollution of the Everglades could not meet the 2005 deadline agreed to in 1994. Or, for that matter, how Jeb Bush started the process (finished by Gov. Rick Scott) of destroying growth management rules in Florida, meant to protect the environment from overdevelopment. Nor has attention been paid how Jeb's predetermined "market based environmentalism" was an abject failure.

In 2003, Jeb (with Marco Rubio's help greasing the wheels in the state legislature) cooked up a state law that environmentalists derided as "The Everglades Whenever Act". As an example of divide-and-conquer, he found a state-wide group that wouldn't criticize him in public -- Audubon of Florida -- to back the measure.

Audubon said, at the time: look, 'there is nothing else we can do' and like lambs went to sleep with the lion to come up with a new law that was eventually challenged by (other) environmental groups in federal court, groups amenable to stand in the way of Big Sugar's slash and burn strategy for the Everglades. (Friends of the Everglades, of which I am board president, was the only environmental group suing under the Clean Water Act to challenge this new Bush doctrine. Ten years later, Friends and the Miccosukee Tribe won that battle, resulting in a $980 million dollar settlement that Gov. Rick Scott now takes credit for.)

.....

To really understand Jeb, you have to trace the dictum that applies to all things political in the United States today: follow the money. The money was then and is now in the hands of Big Sugar and Big Agriculture in Florida. What Jeb did to the Everglades is largely getting a free pass by journalists. He is even, in a few cases, getting credit for being an Everglades governor. Journalists need to be more rigorous in their examination of how this policy area reflected the real Jeb Bush: a brittle manager who brooked no dissent. Notably, Jeb is conducting his current primary run for GOP candidate to be president as a new-made man; softer, conservative yet inclusive, careful and thoughtful. That is not who Jeb Bush is.

(my emphasis)




We Floridians also documented with dismay what Jeb Bush did to derail these crucial environmental protections, and it is with horror that we now witness the pollution that spoils our state's wetlands and vital waterways today.

Massive records request made for UF documents, April 2015 Re: Everglades-related land purchase by the state that voters approved, but the Republican Legislature refuses to address

In fact, the Republican-controlled Florida House has just abruptly ended the Spring legislative session three days early, without notice. Talk about shutting down government! April 28, 2015



Millions for Everglades restoration in jeopardy (Thanks, Jeb!), May 22, 2006

Gov. Jeb Bush urges end to U.S. oversight of Everglades cleanup, Feb 3, 2006

Miami federal judge to Rick Scott: EPA to enforce Everglades pollution rules, April 22, 2011

U.S. Official: Everglades Restoration Project on the Back Burner, November 22, 2007 (Includes a timeline of Jeb Bush's and Big Sugar's sabotage of the Project)

Jeb also hounded out the federal judge on the case for Everglades protection. October 17, 2006


Jeb left office in early 2007, but his henchmen in the Florida Legislature push on.

On US Sugar land purchase, Florida state legislators are running for cover while toxic algae blooms again: don't let Senator Joe Negron run out the clock ... , April 28, 2015


EyeOnMiami reiterates that when it comes to Jeb Bush as a presidential candidate, we must look beyond his calculated damage to the public school systems, forced high-stakes student testing, disrespect of teachers and damage to race relations, and examine fully the money trail that leads back to Jeb Bush and the incalculable damage to our environment that he facilitated.

Following the money is key.

THAT is the kind of president he would be.


And to the as-yet negligent national press, here is a good place to start on Jeb Bush:

Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss

Vanishing Wetlands series at the St. Petersburg Times, 2007



'If you want to learn about the real Jeb Bush, start there. That's where the money is.'

A huge hat tip to EyeOnMiami's 'gimleteye' and S. V. Dáte for ripping off Jeb's mask once again.



National media? Have at Jeb Bush. The people have a right to know who wants to control the highest office in the land.

[Turbineguy]

1. In the republican world

accountable means they'll make him President.