Veto of 'raid' on land funds is urged

Opponents say the budget will take $204-million from land conservation funds while giving $262-million in corporate tax breaks.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 16, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- Republican state Rep. Paula Dockery of Lakeland called on Gov. Jeb Bush Wednesday to veto portions of the budget that siphon conservation dollars for other uses.

"If he vetoes at least that much in the budget, it will be as though the raid never happened," Dockery said. "It's the fiscally responsible thing to do."

Environmentalists say the Legislature made the biggest raid on the state's conservation funding in a dozen years, cutting some $204-million that could have been used to manage public lands and protect land from development.

Lawmakers diverted $100-million from reserves of the state's land-buying programs, Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever. And they took $104-million from environmental trust funds that pay for programs that deal with air pollution, recycling, coastal protection and managing public lands.

"Way more was taken out than was put into new programs," said Eric Draper, lobbyist for the Florida Audubon Society. "As long as I've been watching the budget, they have never cut so deeply into the environmental programs."

The cuts come as lawmakers gave corporations a tax break worth some $262-million.

"It's no coincidence that the amount of the tax cut is just about the same as the amount of money cut from environmental programs," Draper said. "It looks to us that this is how they financed the tax breaks."

This is the second year the Legislature used environmental funds to plug budget holes. Last year, lawmakers raided $75-million that would have been used to buy land around the state and earmarked it for public works projects in the Everglades.

"One of the statistics that gets lost in discussions about land acquisition in Florida is how much land we are losing," said Kathy Baughman, lobbyist for the Trust for Public Land.

Baughman said Florida has protected 1-million acres in the past 10 years, but has lost 3.5-million acres during the same period to agriculture and development.

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