JUNO BEACH, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Thursday morning at a marine life center in Juno Beach, making an early pitch to the incoming administration of president-elect Donald Trump for state control of Everglades restoration efforts.
Speaking at Loggerhead Marinelife Center, the governor said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies have historically been “bogged down by bureaucracy” for projects such as the state’s Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and suggested federal money would be put to better use if given directly to Florida.
“If you look at the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, the CERP framework, it’s supposed to be a 50/50 partnership between the state and the federal government, yet under my tenure Florida has done the lion’s share of the work in terms of these goals. I really believe with the incoming administration, working with president-elect Donald Trump, we will be able to put better feet forward and so we are going to be asking that the federal government delegate to the states the ability to take the federal funding, and we will manage these projects, and we will execute these projects on behalf of the federal government, because Lord knows we’ll do it a hell of a lot quicker than they will do it,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis said he would soon be releasing his budget for the next fiscal year. He teased the next budget would include a record $805 million for Everglades restoration and recommendations to fund water quality projects including the cleaning of water along the Kissimmee River before it reaches Lake Okeechobee. The funding will include more than $670 million for CERP and $130 million for other projects, according to the governor’s office.
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The governor appeared to invoke the deadly Southern California wildfires to support his claims against federal agencies’ efficiency in land management.
“If you look at what’s going on in California, yes, obviously you have an absentee mayor, governor, all these problems, but like, you know, the Army Corps is responsible for part of the federal lands that are there, I don’t think that they’ve done what needs to be done in that respect, either,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis was joined at the news conference by Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Alexis Lambert, South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Drew Bartlett and Anna Upton, CEO of The Everglades Trust.
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