While Pres. Trump and his administration reject the urgency of the threat, leading Republicans in Florida and other states find themselves under political pressure to address the immediate impacts of climate change.
The Associated PressSince taking office in January, Florida’s Republican governor has appointed a science officer, established a climate change czar and pledged to spend billions of dollars to restore the Everglades and combat the pollutants that spawn blue-green algae and red tides.
Nowhere is the break from Trump’s path clearer than in Florida, his adopted home state, where Gov. Ron DeSantis is a close ally and where Republicans are sounding the alarm about the harm that rising oceans pose to coastal communities. Still, there is political motivation. The new messaging comes as Democrats saw success in 2018 running on a promise to combat climate change and hammering Republicans as the party of deniers.Forty-six percent of Florida midterm voters said they were very concerned about climate change, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 3,700 midterm voters in Florida. Among Florida independents, 51% expressed great concern, slightly higher than independents nationally.
More recently, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., joined the Senate Climate Solutions Caucus, a fledgling bipartisan group launched in October. Two days after taking office, the new governor pledged to invest $2.5 billion during his four-year term — a billion dollar increase from his predecessor’s final four years in office — to protect water resources and help restore the Everglades, the largest ecosystem restoration project in the United States. He issued an executive order mobilizing action against algae blooms and the pollutants that taint the state’s lakes, waterways and coastlines.
The conversation in Florida may be shifting, but action isn’t moving fast enough and policy discussions are not broad enough for critics.
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