By TC Palm Editors
February 2, 2017
TC Palm
You can judge a man by the quality of his enemies, wrote author Oscar Wilde.
On that basis, state Senate President Joe Negron is standing 10 feet tall right about now.
Throughout the fall, as Negron talked about the need to buy land south of Lake Okeechobee to curb the discharges that wreaked such havoc on the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, there always was a chance that his words were mere campaign promises. Perhaps he simply was saying what constituents wanted to hear, and never really planned on expending the political capital necessary to take on the powerful interests sure to oppose any land buy: the sugar industry, farmers south of the lake, even other legislators dubious of spending billions on projects that might not help their own constituencies.
Now we know Negron was serious.
And the real battle has begun.
Late last month Sen. Rob Bradley, chairman of the Senate Environmental and Natural Resources Appropriations Committee, introduced his bill to advance Negron’s proposal, a $2.4 billion plan to buy 60,000 acres for water storage south of the lake.
Those powerful interests are lined up to strangle the proposal in its infancy. South Florida Water Management District officials said there’s no need for more land south of the lake. Sugar farmers have unleashed an army of lobbyists to kneecap the proposal. Senate Bill 10 is “not supported by the science” and is the “most expensive and least effective idea,” U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said.
And even if the bill sailed unmolested through the Senate, there still is the matter of the Florida House, where Speaker Richard Corcoran has said that, despite his support for efforts to clean state waters, Florida has a “spending problem” — and the House is not prepared to bond tax money to buy land.
Then there’s Gov. Rick Scott, who released his proposed 2017-2018 budget Tuesday, which doesn’t include funding for Negron’s land buy.
No one said this was going to be easy.
To continue reading: http://www.tcpalm.com/story/opinion/editorials/2017/02/02/our-view-legislature-must-seize-historic-opportunity-lake-o-land-buy/97283326/