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House Launches Attack On Local Safeguards

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 10, 2009

The Florida House of Representatives is cynically using the economic downturn to justify an effort to gut measures that protect neighborhoods, taxpayers and natural resources.

Voters need to pay close attention to the antics of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Committee.

Its chair, Rep. Trudi Williams of Fort Myers, is an engineer who appears intent on implementing the developers' agenda. She has admitted that much of the legislation she favors to pare environmental regulations was suggested by development lobbyists.

And Hillsborough voters should be alarmed that among the panel's many targets are local environmental rules.

At a meeting of the committee last month, two Hillsborough lawmakers - Reps. Rich Glorioso of a Plant City and Faye Culp of Tampa - actually bashed the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission for providing better wetlands protections than the state.

Culp, incredibly, said she would like to "wave a magic wand and delete" the EPC. Glorioso was no better.

It was an embarrassing exhibition that revealed a House leadership firmly under the control of the development industry.

Glorioso and Culp should know Hillsborough citizens made clear less than two years ago they favor strong environmental protections. When the Hillsborough County Commission, at the behest of builders, sought to dismantle local wetland regulations, the public expressed outrage. The commission abandoned the effort, although EPC officials did agree to streamline the permitting process.

Former Commissioner Brian Blair, who led the charge against EPC, was handily defeated in his re-election bid.

So now development interests seek to have state lawmakers rob the public of their local protections.

The House leaders act as if the environmental protections have shut down growth, a preposterous claim, given that the safeguards were in place during the boom years.

Florida has lost more than half of its natural wetlands in modern times. A 2005 St. Petersburg Times investigation found that Florida had lost at least 84,000 acres of wetlands in the last 15 years. Permit applications to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were almost never denied.

In such a lax system, local enforcement is essential. Indeed, with the state's chronic water shortages, an enlightened Legislature would be looking to improve resource protections, not eliminate them.

Hillsborough adopted tougher wetlands protections in the 1980s precisely because state and federal rules were not sufficient. The local regulations protect wetlands smaller than a half-acre, which the other rules do not.

Culp's and Glorioso's claims of duplications are exaggerated. The EPC soon will be able to offer one-stop permitting that will take care of state, local and federal requirements.

Moreover, local regulators are far more responsive to a community's needs. In the last three years, EPC has received about 6,000 complaints. The agency responded to 97 percent of them within seven days.

Developers know, especially with budget cutbacks, that state regulators won't be able to enforce regulations or monitor compliance. Neighborhoods will suffer the consequences and taxpayers will be on the hook when the inevitable pollution and flooding problems arise.

This legislative effort is not about improving efficiency or cutting costs. It is about bypassing the public to eliminate resource protections.

Fortunately, there is no Senate companion bill to the House proposal. And Gov. Charlie Crist, who respects natural Florida and local governments, would probably veto any damaging scheme.

Still, it is dismaying to see a House leadership that believes the solution to the state's financial crisis is to make it even easier to destroy natural Florida.

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