A Times Editorial

Environmental heroes

Sens. Jack Latvala, Tom Lee and a handful of other Republicans blocked their party's worst initiatives, but the battle could be even uglier next year.

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 13, 2000

In a state Capitol taken hostage this year by development and agribusiness interests, the man who chained himself to a tree is a direct-mail guru, a tough-talking politico and a sport fisherman. Jack Latvala, senator from Palm Harbor, blocked the environmental raid.

All the more remarkable, his principal opponent was his own party, the Republicans.

Latvala, with the backing of Senate President Toni Jennings and the help of Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, turned back some of the worst attacks on established environmental law in the past two decades. In their final session, term-limited legislators and ideologues thumbed their noses at nature at those who would seek to protect it. Said Rep. George Albright, R-Ocala, setting the tone early in the session: "We're running up the cost of development to prop up a cottage industry of environmentalists."

The attacks have been well-chronicled at this point: an attempt to redefine sovereign lands in such a way as to deed over 500,000 acres of state submerged property to private interests; a direct attack on growth management laws and the role the state has served in preventing cities and counties from approving ill-considered development; a property rights law that would have reversed much of the established case law and caused cities and counties to reimburse property owners if development is too severely restricted; another Hail Mary attempt by Sen. George Kirkpatrick to prevent the restoration of the Ocklawaha River, this time through a resolution that would have declared Rodman Dam a state park. What is less clear is whether and how these efforts will resurface next year.

Latvala, as Senate Republican leader, and Jennings, as Senate president, were able to use their parliamentary leverage at the end of the session to prevent the House initiatives from getting a floor vote in the Senate. But Jennings won't be around in 2001. John McKay of Bradenton, a supporter of the land-grab bill, is her designated replacement as president. The incoming House speaker, Tom Feeney, may be even more hostile to environmental law than the current speaker, John Thrasher.

Unlike recent environmental debates, ones in which lawmakers argued about how much money to apportion to cleanup efforts or the proper balance between regulation and incentives, the subtlety was missing this year. What observers witnessed was an undisguised attack on the basic principles of land conservation. They saw a majority of House members, and perhaps a majority of senators, attempt to dismantle protections that once were broadly accepted and adopted with bipartisan support.

In a political sense, then, the 2000 Legislature was a defining moment for the environment, and Latvala and Jennings made sure the Republican Party didn't end up on the wrong side of history. But the fight is far from over. The most worrisome image in this moment of environmental clarity may have been that of the governor himself, former Miami developer Jeb Bush. On issue after issue, Bush aligned himself with the commandos -- supporting the land grab, encouraging the attack on growth management, staying curiously silent as lawmakers voted to end automobile emissions testing or tried to prevent restoration of the Ocklawaha River. In one of the first true tests of his environmental ethic as governor, Bush failed badly.

That doesn't bode well for 2001.

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