Morons. Imagine turning down funding to improve your state to score political points. I feel for the people who live there that don’t support DeSantis - they didn’t ask for this, and yet they have to suffer from the poor decision making of their fellow citizens.
The dumbest thing is that some of the best greenfield urbanism in the country is in Florida (places like Seaside, which may be failing on their promise but are at least trying to do the right thing). They’re building first-class high-speed rail (no, Brightline isn’t really private – they function only because of vast support from the FL government). They have huge solar buildouts that are certain to continue scaling up simply by market forces. All things that, on paper, could look like they were totally climate-motivated even though they really are business-oriented.
And yeah, they also have things running opposite to all of this. Florida IS objectively the worst urban/transportation design in the country. They’re committing to use more fossil fuels for literally no reason other than Desantis’s war on woke. They’re forcing/subsidizing insurance companies in order to keep vulnerable people living in places that won’t even exist in the coming years/decades.
Even still, they have tons of things that could be part of a “climate action plan” which are just activities they are already doing. They could be real schmucks here and take the money without changing any behavior. They’re refusing to do so for entirely partisan reasons.
And the truth is, Desantis is (politically) right to do so. Once that transition money started coming in, it will built constituencies for renewable projects and emissions-reducing operations. It will motivate people and money to do the right thing, and in so doing create more inertia for doing the right thing. As the actual people of Florida experienced tiny, visible improvements to their lives motivated by this money, they’d become more open to the idea of doing more of it – weakening the power of the anti-science authoritarian right that currently run roughshod on the state. To a dictator, any loss of power is an injustice that must be avoided at all costs.
Imagine turning down funding to improve your state to score political points.
I’m in a state that refused to expand Medicare for the poor. Feels bad.
Continue to be amused at how the right believes government should be run like a business but are ok with their elected officials ignoring fiduciary responsibility.
No business would ever refuse free federal money at the risk of being sued by investors.
It’s funny that Florida will see the most consequences from global warming sea level rise !leopardsatemyface
Not while he’s governor and his voters are still alive. They’ll only see the earliest effect.
At least he turned it down this time. Normally, they take all the federal money they can get, misuse it, and then blame Democrats when the original problem continues to exist
