NaplesNews.com

House, Senate spar over Everglades funding

By MICHAEL PELTIER

April 1, 2008

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/apr/01/house-senate-spar-over-everglades-funding/

TALLAHASSEE — A House proposal to cut nearly $400 million from Everglades restoration and environmental land preservation has raised the ire of Florida’s Congressional delegation and local lawmakers who urged observers not to jump to conclusions during tough budget times.

Still, one of the Senate’s most prominent Everglades supporters says tough economic times will take a toll on environmental funding as it will for education, health care and services for the poor.

Facing at least a $3-billion deficit, House budget builders propose cutting $100 million in Everglades restoration spending and $300 million from the Florida Forever environmental land-buying program next year.

The Senate has included that money plus another $100 million for northern Everglades programs aimed at protecting Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie River.

Citing the need for a firm commitment from the federal government on the multibillion-dollar Everglades project, eight South Florida Congressional delegates, including Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, say now is not the time for the state to shirk its part of the bargain.

“We believe that if the state of Florida now chooses to stop funding its share of this historic agreement, it will undermine the ability to secure federal funding now and in the future,” Congressional delegates wrote to state Rep. Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, and other House budget leaders.

Negotiators from both chambers say it’s early in the budget process. The discrepancies between the House and Senate budget versions may be more of a bargaining strategy than reality as the two chambers begin talks.

Both chambers are expected to vote on their proposals as early as next week.

Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples, and chairman of the Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, has filed a measure to expand the Florida Forever program and extend its life.

He said the House’s proposal likely won’t stand, but environmentalists should brace themselves.

They are competing with critical issues of public safety, education and social programs for Florida’s most vulnerable citizens.

“We’re not going to get all we want,” said Saunders, who also chairs the chamber’s social programs committee. “And I’m afraid it’s going to be that way for a while.”

Over the next several weeks, the chambers will put together a compromise spending plan with elements of each. The session ends May 2.

Rep. Stan Mayfield, R-Vero Beach, and chairman of the committee that oversees environmental spending, said the House’s position is that despite the popularity of the environmental proposals, the current budget situation is going to require tough choices.

“The bottom line is with the budget situation as it is, we have to decide between programs we love and funding critical services for our vulnerable citizens and seniors,” Mayfield said.

Lawmakers have been supportive of environmental land buying for nearly 20 years, Mayfield says, and in the past four or five years also have funded other efforts including protections for the Caloosahatchee, which is severely affected by water releases from Lake Okeechobee.

Chamber analysts are looking at whether there is a backlog of work that still needs to be completed.

If so, Mayfield said, the state should curtail funding for a year for the work to catch up with the money.

“If there is a backlog, decreasing funding for a year to fund critical programs won’t slow things down,” Mayfield said.

Over the past several years, Florida lawmakers have set aside hundreds of millions of dollars toward Everglades restoration over and above the $3 billion in land-buying as part of the state’s Florida Forever program, a 10-year land-buying effort that ends in 2010.

For the past few sessions, attention and money have turned to the northern Everglades region and Lake Okeechobee. Backers of the plan to improve water flow into the river of grass include Gov. Charlie Crist.

Along with the Everglades funds, House lawmakers have withheld funding for other environmental projects that also are included in the Senate plan.