5/21/2003
Everglades Whenever signed
No big signing ceremony for this one. Jeb signs Big Sugar's bill weakening the Everglades cleanup behind closed doors and says ``I'm not ashamed of it."
He is however asking for some "tweaking" of the bill by the Legislature.
One response: You can't just sign a bill that is demonstrably flawed and then just hope it will be changed in the future,'' said Dexter Lehtinen, the attorney for the Miccosukee tribe. More than a decade ago, Lehtinen, then U.S. attorney in Miami, brought the original federal lawsuit against the state over the Everglades' decline. He said whatever ''tinkering'' lawmakers do won't replace key sections of the 1994 Everglades Forever Act that the new measure deletes, including a critical one that would make meeting the strict pollution standard a requirement for new water-use permits.
The Financial Times, of all places, has a good feature on the issues involved.
Sally Swartz of Palm Beach Post dismisses the fix-it bill as just an attempt at marketing the Everglades bill.
So Gov. Bush has signed the bad Everglades bill and will ask legislators to fix it -- in ways yet unclear -- with a new bill before the special session ends Tuesday. Trusting the governor to make the Legislature do anything, however, is risky business. Two years ago, The St. Petersburg Times reports, Gov. Bush let an adoption bill become law under similar circumstances. But legislators never followed through with the second bill, and the governor promised "not to do that ever again."
The bill she refers to is the infamous Scarlet Letter adoption law. (from the vaults of Flablog.)
The Herald's Peter Wallsten looks at Bush's damage control.
An enduring public perception that the governor is aligned with Big Sugar, especially given the green nature of Florida voters, could prove damaging next year and beyond -- and erase any memories of oil drilling bans and Everglades photo ops.
Yup, it could rub off a little of the Teflon.
Florida Today says -- Gov. Jeb Bush talked grandly about preserving the Everglades during his re-election campaign last year, when he needed the votes of environmentally-concerned Floridians. But Tuesday, showing his true colors, Bush signed a bill that guts the plan to save the River of Grass and goes against the grain of long-standing bipartisan efforts to restore it.
He is however asking for some "tweaking" of the bill by the Legislature.
One response: You can't just sign a bill that is demonstrably flawed and then just hope it will be changed in the future,'' said Dexter Lehtinen, the attorney for the Miccosukee tribe. More than a decade ago, Lehtinen, then U.S. attorney in Miami, brought the original federal lawsuit against the state over the Everglades' decline. He said whatever ''tinkering'' lawmakers do won't replace key sections of the 1994 Everglades Forever Act that the new measure deletes, including a critical one that would make meeting the strict pollution standard a requirement for new water-use permits.
The Financial Times, of all places, has a good feature on the issues involved.
Sally Swartz of Palm Beach Post dismisses the fix-it bill as just an attempt at marketing the Everglades bill.
So Gov. Bush has signed the bad Everglades bill and will ask legislators to fix it -- in ways yet unclear -- with a new bill before the special session ends Tuesday. Trusting the governor to make the Legislature do anything, however, is risky business. Two years ago, The St. Petersburg Times reports, Gov. Bush let an adoption bill become law under similar circumstances. But legislators never followed through with the second bill, and the governor promised "not to do that ever again."
The bill she refers to is the infamous Scarlet Letter adoption law. (from the vaults of Flablog.)
The Herald's Peter Wallsten looks at Bush's damage control.
An enduring public perception that the governor is aligned with Big Sugar, especially given the green nature of Florida voters, could prove damaging next year and beyond -- and erase any memories of oil drilling bans and Everglades photo ops.
Yup, it could rub off a little of the Teflon.
Florida Today says -- Gov. Jeb Bush talked grandly about preserving the Everglades during his re-election campaign last year, when he needed the votes of environmentally-concerned Floridians. But Tuesday, showing his true colors, Bush signed a bill that guts the plan to save the River of Grass and goes against the grain of long-standing bipartisan efforts to restore it.
