Simply days earlier than he took workplace in 2019, Florida’s newly elected governor printed an op-ed in South Florida’s Solar Sentinel: “I’ll fulfill guarantees from the marketing campaign path,” it learn. “Meaning prioritizing environmental points, like water high quality,” addressing poisonous algal blooms, and placing Everglades restoration “into excessive gear.” The candidate, a self-described “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist,” had set his sights on cleansing up the Sunshine State’s water.
That candidate, in fact, was Ron DeSantis.
On the time, clear water was prime of thoughts for voters. “Crimson tide,” a poisonous algal bloom within the Gulf of Mexico, had killed greater than 2,000 tons of fish and different marine life, releasing a foul scent throughout coastal areas. As a candidate in 2018, DeSantis made guarantees to deal with the catastrophe, restore Florida’s iconic wetlands, and stand as much as Massive Sugar, an trade liable for draining the nutrient-rich marshland south of Lake Okeechobee, a large, 730-square-mile lake in South Florida.
Shortly after DeSantis took workplace, I wrote an article highlighting these commitments, and crediting him for not being the environmental catastrophe many Floridians, myself included, anticipated. Coming from a Republican candidate with an “abysmal” environmental document in Congress, DeSantis’ obvious change of coronary heart appeared like a pleasing shock.
Now, virtually 4 years later, I understand I used to be fallacious. I gave credit score earlier than it was due. Whereas DeSantis, who’s up for reelection on Tuesday towards Democrat Charlie Crist, made just a few notable first steps towards defending Florida’s waterways, he’s removed from a “conservationist.” In actuality, advocates say, he’s failed on quite a few marketing campaign guarantees, ignored the recommendation of his personal consultants, and at instances signed laws in direct opposition to his commitments.
“He’s principally deserted all the environmental guarantees that he made earlier in his profession,” Jonathan Webber, the political and legislative director for Florida Conservation Voters, an environmental advocacy group, tells me. “We noticed Governor DeSantis take a very exhausting proper flip into tradition warfare politics, simply combating each one in all Donald Trump’s tradition warfare battles, and inventing new ones. That has actually been the dominating story out of Tallahassee the previous couple of years.” (I ought to disclose right here that my mother is a part of a authorized staff that sued the DeSantis administration over entry to public data associated to the governor’s controversial resolution to fly migrants to Martha’s Winery.) In hindsight, I see that praising DeSantis for his environmental commitments was a bit like praising a toddler who manages to eat one chunk of greens at dinner.
In the beginning of DeSantis’ time period, there was good purpose to be optimistic. As I wrote in 2019, throughout DeSantis’ first week in workplace he signed an government order calling for quite a few environmental actions, together with directing $2.5 billion for Everglades restoration over 4 years—the very best degree of funding for the hassle within the state’s historical past, in keeping with the governor’s workplace—and convening a activity power to scale back “the antagonistic impacts of blue-green algae blooms now and over the subsequent 5 years.”
By the fourth month of his time period, he appointed a chief science officer, Thomas Frazer, who was then the director of the College of Florida’s Faculty of Pure Sources and Atmosphere, to steer the state’s the newly created Workplace of Environmental Accountability and Transparency. Frazer had studied water ecosystems and did, notably, settle for the science of local weather change, a subject DeSantis had averted addressing as a candidate. (Frazer quietly stepped down in 2021 and has been changed by Mark Rains, a professor within the college of geosciences on the College of South Florida.)
He additionally took steps to face as much as Massive Sugar. Early in his tenure, DeSantis changed all 9 board members of the influential South Florida Water Administration District, one in all 5 regional water administration boards within the state. The board had voted, towards DeSantis’ urging, in favor of sugar growers to increase a lease on land that in any other case would have been used for a wetland reservoir, prompting DeSantis to name for his or her resignations. “Previous to DeSantis’ tenure, that board was dominated by pursuits that aligned with the sugar trade,” Gil Sensible, government director of VoteWater, a bunch that advocates for clear water insurance policies and candidates, instructed me. “That was an enormous distinction.” In 2021, the governor vetoed a invoice that was, partially, “a giveaway to the sugar trade,” in keeping with Sensible, a transfer celebrated by environmental teams.
And by the summer season of this 12 months, DeSantis had permitted $3.3 billion for Everglades restoration and water administration—surpassing his preliminary dedication of $2.5 billion in 2019. Due to what he’s accomplished for the Everglades, mentioned Sensible, “DeSantis has some associates within the conservation motion down right here.” One environmental group, the Everglades Belief, for example, endorsed DeSantis in 2018, and has endorsed him for reelection. (The Everglades Belief didn’t reply to my interview request.)
In comparison with his predecessor, Gov. Rick Scott, who scientists allege banned his Division of Environmental Safety from utilizing the phrases “local weather change” or “world warming” in official communications, DeSantis appeared to supply a breath of contemporary air. “It’s not that tough to lift the bar when your predecessor has left it on the bottom,” Florida Rep. Evan Jenne, a Democrat, instructed me in 2019. “All he needed to do was simply raise it a little bit bit and he was going to be a greater environmental governor.” In March of 2019, DeSantis boasted a 59-percent approval score, the very best of any Florida governor within the earlier 10 years, in keeping with the Quinnipiac College Ballot, partially due to his stance on the atmosphere, pollsters speculated.
Effectively, it seems, that breath of contemporary air was truly scorching air—and DeSantis was stuffed with it, advocates argue. Earlier than the tip of his first 12 months in workplace, DeSantis’ personal Blue-Inexperienced Algae Process Pressure delivered a set of 31 suggestions to revive Florida’s waterways, together with issues like water high quality monitoring and necessary public well being notifications. However by 2022, simply 4 of these suggestions had been applied, in keeping with a coalition of environmental teams within the state. After three years, that’s “not adequate,” Webber mentioned, “when it’s his thought to start with.”
DeSantis has additionally taken a number of anti-environment legislative actions, in keeping with the Sierra Membership Florida chapter, which has given DeSantis a D- score for his time in workplace. He signed payments that blocked coral reef safety in Key West, prevented native electrification initiatives, outlined pure fuel as “renewable power,” lowered regulatory hurdles for builders, and made it tougher for residents to take authorized motion towards health-threatening exercise by Massive Sugar, like sugar cane burning. In 2019, he signed SB 7068, a invoice that licensed the development of greater than 300 miles of latest highways throughout undeveloped land. The choice proved so unpopular that in 2021 he signed one other invoice reversing the plan.
And, advocates argue, DeSantis’ efforts on Everglades restoration don’t go far sufficient. For Sensible, it’s merely a matter of land; to guard Florida’s waterways from poisonous algal blooms in the long run would require funding in wetlands and reservoirs to filter water popping out of Lake Okeechobee, he mentioned. “We nonetheless want considerably extra acreage and Charlie Crist is the one one speaking about that.” (VoteWater, the Sierra Membership Florida chapter, and Florida Conservation Voters have endorsed Crist, who they are saying is best ready to tackle Florida’s water points.)
In 2020, DeSantis signed a large water invoice that he dubbed the “Clear Waterways Act.” However most of the measures inside it, though constructive steps, Webber mentioned, require future legislatures to implement. “It didn’t truly transfer the needle so far as anybody was anticipating or hoping it might for water high quality.” And when the state noticed an alarming die-off of manatees in 2021 because of poor water high quality, DeSantis determined to “throw some cash” at manatee feeding packages, Webber mentioned, however didn’t make sufficient of an effort to deal with the reason for the die-off: water air pollution. “To not make a coverage change is, I believe, negligent.”
“Each single time he’s taken motion, he’s come up quick,” mentioned Luigi Guadarrama, the political director on the Sierra Membership’s Florida chapter. “If it’s funding for the Everglades, it’s not sufficient. If it’s creating the Blue-Inexperienced Algae Process Pressure, he then turns round and ignores all of their suggestions. It’s quite a lot of—frankly, he produces quite a lot of filler.” (DeSantis’ marketing campaign and administration didn’t reply to requests for remark from Mom Jones.)
And on the subject of tackling local weather change, DeSantis has taken an oblique strategy. He’s opted to speak about “resiliency,” reasonably than fight the drivers of world warming, which he’s known as “left-wing stuff.” In 2021, DeSantis signed the bipartisan Resilient Florida Program, a invoice that may direct lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to guard waterways and coastlines and assist “put together communities for the impacts of local weather change.” “Folks, once they begin speaking about issues like ‘world warming,’ they sometimes use that as a pretext to do a bunch of left-wing issues that they might need to do in any case,” DeSantis mentioned final 12 months. “We’re not doing any left-wing stuff. What we’re doing although, is simply reacting to the truth that okay, we’re a flood-prone state.”
Getting ready the state to adapt to a altering local weather, with out attempting to cease it from taking place within the first place, is a type of “greenwashing,” environmentalists argue. “It’s deceptive to voters,” Webber mentioned.
It’s unclear how a lot DeSantis’ environmental legacy (or lack thereof) has influenced voters. Whereas polling suggests a majority of Floridians would really like DeSantis to do extra to deal with sea degree rise and defend the Everglades, surveys additionally present DeSantis with a big lead over Crist, pointing to a possible DeSantis victory. Points like abortion, inflation, and the tradition wars have taken middle stage this election, whereas the atmosphere has been plopped on the again burner. Throughout the state’s one and solely gubernatorial debate, for example, questions concerning the atmosphere have been disappointingly absent, Sensible famous. However with three out of 4 Floridians residing on the coast, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than water resurfaces in Florida’s politics. “These are points which can be going to come back again to chunk us,” Sensible mentioned. “If there’s one fixed in Florida, it’s that the subsequent water disaster is true across the nook.”
And when that occurs, DeSantis might be anticipated to reply for it. As he wrote in his 2019 op-ed, “Campaigns fade from view, however the true points we should sort out are in entrance of us…In spite of everything, that is our time and our youngsters are watching.”