Gov. Voldemort Now Gets To Deal With Rising Seas; Tea Party Upset At Signs Of Moderation
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Environmental issues are washing onto his desk: Voters required lawmakers to devote about $1 billion annually to conservation; Florida must curb carbon emissions almost 40 percent under new federal rules; and rising seas are soaking Miami Beach even as Scott’s party blasts President Barack Obama’s deal last week with China setting emissions goals.
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Scott’s predicament shows how Republican leaders from Alabama to Arizona are facing unwanted climate-change battles even as they question the effects of human activity on global temperatures. The governor must spend the money while placating members of his party and Mother Nature alike. “Climate change isn’t going away,” said Alan Farago, president of Friends of the Everglades, a Miami environmental nonprofit. “It’s going to be incumbent on the Republicans to be responsible on an issue that affects everyone, and that they can’t run away from.”
Scott, a former health-care executive who spent $12.8 million of his own to combat Steyer’s spending, beat Democrat Charlie Crist by about 1 percentage point. While most environmental groups endorsed Crist, they have pointed to voters’ 75 percent approval of the conservation referendum as the election’s only true mandate.
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During this century, sea-level rise will intensify storm surge along the coastline, according to the Miami-Dade Sea Level Rise Task Force. Flooding and insurance costs will force residents to abandon neighborhoods, the group said in a July report. “You’ve got a growing general awareness down here that sea-level rise is a now problem, not a future problem,” said Leonard Berry, former director of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. “That creates a different atmosphere right across the political spectrum.”
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http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-11-17/scott-navigates-climate-politics-as-rising-seas-menace-florida