When I first arrived at Florida Southern College, I had to deal with a massive learning curve.
Having spent much of my last 15 years in the Midwest, I was far more familiar with the politics of corn and wheat insurance, land-banking, water use and cattle pens than tourism and beaches and gator walks.
I arrived in the middle of a shockingly tight gubernatorial election battle between Republican Rick Scott, another pretty-new arrival in Florida (running just head of some iffy business up in Tennessee, as I recall) and Adelaide “Alex” Sink, the former state CFO. I was also shockingly ignorant of most of the issues, both of the candidates and how anything worked, politically.
So was Scott.
The national position of the Republican party at that time was very much one of energy self-sufficiency – “drill, baby, drill,” if you will. And Scott sort of lefthandedly adopted it without thinking about it too much (as was his way through most of his career, when taking on positions of various sorts).
Even as a total neophyte in the fractured peculiarities of Florida politics, this struck me as strange, given that that past April, the BP Horizon oil spill had just rendered some of the finest beaches in the world (I stand by this, and I have seen more than a few) an unwalkable, unswimmable mess, crushing tourism, ruining spring break and imperiling thousands of seabirds, kelp beds and millions of sea creatures.
Some of the effects were immediate, others lasted through at least 2013, when infant dolphins continued to die and oil and oil dispersant could still be found in the sand as far away as Tampa Bay.
And the tourists stayed home. Or, worse, went to the Bahamas. Or anywhere else where they might avoid having to give up sunning for scraping oil off of seagulls with “Dawn.”
Like me, Scott had arrived relatively recently. Unlike me, he did not see how the “drill” message might sell with Florida voters – any of them, regardless of party. He made a rather abrupt shift in position, righted the boat barely in time, and scraped out a one-point victory. He never mentioned the coastal drilling “alternative for Florida” again, until it surfaced, briefly, during Donald Trump’s first term.
R. Bruce Anderson
When it did, he (to his enduring real credit) pleaded with the president to spare Florida from the drilling onslaught promoted by the White House. Trump finally, but coolly, acquiesced, and no oily machinery sprouted off Florida’s golden shores.
In the dying light of the Biden administration, the president has made a last-gasp attempt to make coastal protection permanent. Biden’s ban on drilling – last weeks’ executive order – extended from Oregon to Alaska, and also, thankfully, included Florida. But the drilling drums are beating again.
Trump has said, loudly and publicly (is there any other way with this guy) that he will “un-ban” all this eco-nonsense the minute he takes office – presumably including Florida’s vulnerable coast. I’m not sure of the issues in Oregon, but I have a sneaking suspicion what the reaction may be down here.
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And the threat may be a real one, this time. In a fine article last week by Ana Goñi-Lessan of the USA TODAY Network-Florida, she reminded all of us that a test well to be drilled by Clearwater Land & Minerals along the Apalachicola River somehow slipped by and was approved by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection last year.
Can it be stopped? The problem is that no matter what your stake in Florida – as a cash cow for development, in tourism, or in the simple pleasure of enjoying our incredible natural wonders – you do have a stake.
Rick Scott is still senator, Gov. DeSantis has an ecological side to him, and both are close to the president. We have to hope against hope that these folks will listen to the rest of the Floridians, and beg Trump to keep the ban on, at least here.
R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay, Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF Radio in Lakeland.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Drill, baby, drill: Trump flirting with another hard lesson | Anderson