A landmark bill that would fund Everglades restoration has been hijacked by special interests and turned into a weapon against Floridians fighting for clean air and safe water.
If the governor signs it into law, neighborhood and citizen groups will have a tougher time challenging major projects -- everything from landfills to rock mines to housing developments -- that affect the environment.
A grass-roots organization that wants to sue will need to prove that it has 25 members in the county where the disputed permit is being sought and that it was incorporated at least one year prior to the permit application being submitted. In other words, you'll need to be clairvoyant enough to know that an incinerator is being planned for your neighborhood, long before the paperwork is filed.
The bill intends not only to discourage ad hoc citizen groups, but also to lock out national environmental organizations. Any group that joins suit must be incorporated in Florida, which automatically excludes the Sierra Club and others that have played a past role in protecting the state's rivers, coastlines and wetlands.
That such restrictions are now part of the Everglades bill is ironic indeed. The sneaky maneuver was orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Jim King, a Jacksonville Republican who is unabashedly pro-business. Working at the behest of developers and builders, King for three years has unsuccessfully pushed to make it harder for ordinary folks and environmentalists alike to battle high-impact projects.
This legislative session was no different. King's bill was wallowing in committees before he got the idea to tack it to the popular Everglades package as a last-minute amendment. In the House he found an eager co-conspirator, Rep. Gaston Cantens, R-Miami.
It was a slick move, and it worked. The adulterated version of the law passed both houses and now sits on the desk of Gov. Jeb Bush.
The shame is that, before King's meddling, the Legislature was actually on the verge of doing something significant, possibly even historic. Saving the Everglades depends on the state coming up with a recurring (and relatively painless) source of funds for its half-share of the $8.4 billion restoration tab.
Lawmakers settled on a plan that would use bond sales to raise about $100 million a year for the next decade. The money would be earmarked to purchase lands for holding water, a key aspect of the blueprint to replenish the Everglades.
The funding bill had nothing do with the issue of environmental lawsuits, but connecting the two was the only way that that King could turn his scheme into law.
True, things might have been worse. Some of the more-outrageous parts of King's amendment were diluted or deleted, and the final language is ambiguous enough for liberal judicial interpretation.
One environmental lobby, Audubon of Florida, even came out in support of the legislation. The group said that financing the Everglades project took precedence over the bill's flaws.
That gives the governor some political cover, should he decide to sign it. What a mistake that would be. The Everglades package is crucial, but it can be restored to its pure form by the Legislature. If allowed to stand as it is, the law will discourage public involvement by eroding legal standings that have been recognized for three decades.
As Bush is aware, there's a reason that King's past attempts to curtail environmental lawsuits have failed. It's politically perilous to tell citizens that they can't go to court to defend a place they hold dear.
That's why King resorted to 11th-hour shenanigans, piggybacking his plan on a law that he knew would sail through both houses. To let him off the hook is endorsing legislative hostage-taking on a grand scale: You'll get the Everglades money only if my campaign contributors get what they want.
It's the sort of cynical game that goes on constantly in Tallahassee, but in this instance the stakes are too high for the governor -- or for voters -- to shrug and look the other way.
When a sound and necessary piece of legislation is deliberately polluted by special interests, a veto is the only appropriate response. Bush has the clout to get this bill fixed, and one can only hope that he has the will to do it.
This is a case where principle overrides politics. Floridians shouldn't have to surrender any of their rights as a price to see the Everglades revived.
