Florida Legislature Trashes Environment and Citizens' Rights

The just-concluded 2011 Florida Legislature eliminated or gravely weakened the environmental and growth management programs first enacted in 1985. These have been responsible for much of the state's protection of natural areas and such admittedly insufficient limits on sprawl and pollution that have been implemented over the last quarter century. One former now-elderly legislator commented that this was the most anti-environment legislature in his adult lifetime and similar comments were made by environmental leaders.


Perhaps the most damaging acts were gutting state growth management oversight of cities and counties, deregulating developers and shifting the legal burden of proof that their project will not harm the environment from petitioners to environmental activists, concerned neighbors, and citizens' groups.

Cities and counties can still attempt to control growth, but without state oversight and standards, many local commissioners will undoubtedly vote whatever way their developer campaign contributors want and counties or cities with good planning will be impacted by sprawl from others. And any multi-county wildlife corridors will now depend on the whims of various local commissions.

But there is much more. Budgets of the state's two environmental and growth management agencies (Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Community Affairs) and for the Florida Forever land purchase program were deeply slashed. Everglades restoration will barely have enough (mostly holdover) funds to continue. The Water Management Districts' taxing authority (they are a major purchaser of environmentally sensitive land for groundwater preservation in cooperation with counties like Sarasota) was cut by almost a third.

The former requirement that developers pay for roads, schools and other infrastructure their development needs has now been shifted in major categories to county or city taxpayers. In Sarasota County during the last few years several measures restricting sprawl and environmental degradation were enacted by citizen-initiated amendments to the County Charter, but the legislature made future such amendments much more difficult by decreasing the time for gathering petitions and imposing other restrictions on that route.



So what can we do? Litigation may overturn a few measures, but not many. We can remember who voted against the environment (Sarasota and Manatee Counties had no environmental champions in the Legislature that I have identified, and Sen. Mike Bennett was instrumental in gutting growth management), but the next general election is at least a year and a half away. We can keep informed on environmental issues, write letters to the editor, and telephone elected officials. County and City Commissioners, now with almost no state oversight, are even more important for the environment than heretofore, and we can lobby them more effectively. We can get involved in local politics, through political parties, local interest groups, as a candidate or a contributor.
And finally, don't give up. The natural environment and the birds and other animals that inhabit it are worth working and fighting for. If enough of us do that, Florida can rise to become, once again, an environmental leader.

Wade Matthews, Conservation Chair