Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's the Big Take. I'm
Speaker 1: West Cosova today. Ronda Santis tiptoes around climate change. Florida
Speaker 1: is one of the US state's hardest hit by climate change.
Speaker 1: He hurricanes, coastal flooding are all getting worse there, and
Speaker 1: the state's governor and probable Republican presidential candidate, Ronda Santis
Speaker 1: has taken steps to fight the damage humans have done
Speaker 1: to the state's environment up to a point. He's pledged
Speaker 1: billions to clean up and restore Florida's everglades, which, among
Speaker 1: other benefits, will help lower the state's carbon footprint and
Speaker 1: potentially combat some of the effects of global warming. But
Speaker 1: you'll never were here, Rhonda Santis, boasting about that part
Speaker 1: of it. People when they start talking about things like
Speaker 1: global warming, they typically use that as a pretext to
Speaker 1: do a bunch of left wing things that they would
Speaker 1: want to do. Anyways, we're not doing any left wing stuff.
Speaker 1: What we're doing, though, is just reacting to the fact
Speaker 1: that we're a flood prone state. As a Republican looking
Speaker 1: to lure away Donald Trump's voters with promises to attack
Speaker 1: woke policies, he opposes restrictions on fossil fuels and often
Speaker 1: plays down the environmental benefits of his own policies. You know,
Speaker 1: Rhonda Santis uses certain ways of communicating what he's doing
Speaker 1: that don't run a foul of what Republicans really don't
Speaker 1: like to talk about, which is climate change. That's National
Speaker 1: reporter Michael Smith in Miami. He's written a new story
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg Green about the delicate line to Santis is
Speaker 1: walking between protecting Florida's natural resources and alienating Republican primary
Speaker 1: voters he hopes will carry him to the White House.
Speaker 1: The Santus has been quite vocal, and he's also delivered
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money from the federal government and
Speaker 1: from the state government to preserve the Everglades. There's a
Speaker 1: massive federal project to basically refilled the swamp, ironically enough,
Speaker 1: because it's a critical thing that needs to be done
Speaker 1: to combat all these problems that South Florida has with
Speaker 1: water and also all these problems that are related to
Speaker 1: climate change. And this started when he first became governor
Speaker 1: five years ago, and now he's into a second term
Speaker 1: and he's sort of doubled down on that. And this
Speaker 1: is really important because it basically fixes a lot of
Speaker 1: things that were broken in the creation of what is
Speaker 1: the Florida we know today over a century ago. In
Speaker 1: order to build Miami, Palm Beach, all these cities in
Speaker 1: southern Florida, you had to deal with the Everglades because
Speaker 1: the Everglades went from the middle of Florida all the
Speaker 1: way down to the ocean, and of course that means
Speaker 1: all the land where we are now living and working
Speaker 1: in South Florida was a swamp. And so to make
Speaker 1: way for all this development of what is now a
Speaker 1: megaplex about nine million people, they had to basically drain
Speaker 1: the swamp and build all these waterworks so that the
Speaker 1: water that was going south went west and east through
Speaker 1: all these canals and stuff. And that created all the
Speaker 1: land that we now call Miami. And so that has
Speaker 1: been tremendously harmful to the environment, and we're paying the
Speaker 1: price for that now with a climate change added. So
Speaker 1: the only way to fix that, to reverse the damage
Speaker 1: caused by humans inhabiting Florida, is to restore the traditional
Speaker 1: and natural flow of water across the Everglades again. And
Speaker 1: to do that you have to eliminate roads that are
Speaker 1: blocking the water flow. Across this giant river of grass,
Speaker 1: and also building this mega reservoir the size of Manhattan,
Speaker 1: which will basically hold water that has been polluted for
Speaker 1: decades by sugar farming and other farming activities in the
Speaker 1: Everglades and release that water slowly across marshes the cover
Speaker 1: even more territory that are filled with plants that actually
Speaker 1: clean the water and get all the contaminants out of
Speaker 1: it so that it can be released and just flow
Speaker 1: naturally and flow into the aquifers and restore our drinking
Speaker 1: water in southern Florida and restore the natural beauty of
Speaker 1: the Everglades. So these are all things that he has
Speaker 1: advocated for and has gotten more money and more funding
Speaker 1: and more support than basically any governor in the past
Speaker 1: in Florida, Republican or Democrat, and that's really made a
Speaker 1: lot of environmental is happy. Mike. But as you write,
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things is the way to sandis
Speaker 1: talks about why he's doing this, and the way he
Speaker 1: avoids talking about why he's doing this. Yeah. So another
Speaker 1: interesting aspect of this contrarian view of the environment for
Speaker 1: Republican is that Rhnda Santis uses certain ways of communicating
Speaker 1: what he's doing that don't run a foul of what
Speaker 1: Republicans really don't like to talk about, which is climate change,
Speaker 1: human beings being responsible for all this too much carbon,
Speaker 1: too much fossil fuels. He really tries to avoid that
Speaker 1: kind of language, but he says it in different ways.
Speaker 1: For example, he talks about the need to restore the
Speaker 1: Everglades as an issue of saving and protecting water quality
Speaker 1: in Florida, and he talks about it in an economic sense.
Speaker 1: For example, if you talk to the Biden administration about
Speaker 1: the Everglades, they're going to say, we have to fix
Speaker 1: it because it's an amazing natural sequester of carbon. It
Speaker 1: will reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which
Speaker 1: is true, and it will also offset a lot of
Speaker 1: other impacts of rising sea levels and climate chaftc DESANDUS
Speaker 1: is never going to say it that way. What he
Speaker 1: says is Florida's economy is utterly dependent on tourism and
Speaker 1: real estate, and nobody wants to pay a lot of
Speaker 1: money for real estate if your beach is covered with
Speaker 1: algae and red tide and horrible things like that, or flooded,
Speaker 1: and no tourists want to come to Florida if you
Speaker 1: don't have a nice beach and nice water and nice
Speaker 1: marshes if you want to go fishing, etc. So he
Speaker 1: frames the whole debate in that sense. It's a water
Speaker 1: quality issue and it's an issue for protecting the natural
Speaker 1: beaut of Florida that is the anchor, the lynchpin of
Speaker 1: our economy. But he doesn't say climate change, and why
Speaker 1: specifically would Descantis want to avoid saying, Hey, I'm also
Speaker 1: helping the environment. This support of the environment, in his
Speaker 1: way contradicts with a couple of foundational aspects of a
Speaker 1: lot of his other policies, because the critical driver of
Speaker 1: what Ronda Santis has done in Florida and what he's
Speaker 1: proposing for the rest of America. He calls it a
Speaker 1: blueprint for America, which almost everyone interprets as his intention
Speaker 1: to run for president, try to get the Republican nomination
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. His whole platform is really based
Speaker 1: on cultural issues, and that includes what we call esg
Speaker 1: environmental social government investing policies, which he views as another
Speaker 1: symptom of the imposition of woke ideas on America. Subject
Speaker 1: of today is tackling this issue of esg. I don't
Speaker 1: know where this stuff comes from, but these elites grab
Speaker 1: it and they really want to impose it on the
Speaker 1: rest of us. I think what it's devolved into is
Speaker 1: a mechanism to inject political ideology. He's really gone on
Speaker 1: the attack mode against any form of telling companies how
Speaker 1: they can invest their money and trying to restrict investments
Speaker 1: that contribute to climate change, or trying to oppose any
Speaker 1: limits on fossil fuels because of climate change. So he
Speaker 1: is a strident opponent of doing business with banks that
Speaker 1: are not lending to fossil fuels, of allowing municipalities to
Speaker 1: pass their own laws trying to limit fossil fuels, anything
Speaker 1: like that. He says he doesn't believe in the reduction
Speaker 1: of carbon and the environment as something that's really necessary
Speaker 1: or something that should be mandated. So he loves the Everglades,
Speaker 1: he loves water quality, he loves resilience, which means doing
Speaker 1: things to combat climate change the effects of climate change
Speaker 1: in a state like Florida. But he draws the line
Speaker 1: at any limits on the use of fossil fuels, and
Speaker 1: in fact, he tries to thread this needle by comparing
Speaker 1: himself to Teddy Roosevelt, another kind of tough guy president
Speaker 1: who is also a conservationist. Yeah, that's really the image
Speaker 1: that he's trying to evoke, and his handlers are really
Speaker 1: pushing that. Ronda Santis is a Teddy Roosevelt preservationist. You know,
Speaker 1: this is the way Republicans do it. And he is
Speaker 1: bringing all those values that Teddy Roosevelt imbued to the
Speaker 1: modern era and he really frames everything that way, which means,
Speaker 1: you can save the environment, you can help the environment,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to be woke in the process,
Speaker 1: or you don't have to be a radical Democrat in
Speaker 1: the process. Here's a way the Republicans can do it
Speaker 1: without hurting business and without going to what they think
Speaker 1: are just extremes that have no basis in fact climate change. Now,
Speaker 1: does he actually deny that climate change is real or
Speaker 1: what's his position, because I think he says his quote
Speaker 1: is I'm not a quote global warming person. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's semantics, but he does not directly deny it. I've
Speaker 1: never heard him deny it, but he does pretty much
Speaker 1: say he doesn't agree with a lot of the things
Speaker 1: that are sort of fundamental assumptions behind climate change. At
Speaker 1: the same time, he says, yeah, you know, Florida is
Speaker 1: a state that has always been a victim of extreme weather.
Speaker 1: He doesn't give any theories as to why that's happening,
Speaker 1: but he recognizes that it's a fact. The sea rise
Speaker 1: may be because of human activity and the changing climate.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not. I don't know. But what I do
Speaker 1: know is I see the sea rising, I see the
Speaker 1: increased floding in South Florida. I think you'd be a
Speaker 1: fool not to consider that an issue that we need
Speaker 1: to address. His focus is got to do stuff to
Speaker 1: protect our communities from that. You know, we have to
Speaker 1: build hurricane resistance structures, we have to sometimes raise roads, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: But he's not going to say, or at least I've
Speaker 1: never heard him say, this is all because human beings
Speaker 1: are spewing too much carbon in the atmosphere and that's
Speaker 1: causing all this, and that's what we have to really attack.
Speaker 1: One industry he has gone after, though, uncharacteristically for a Republican,
Speaker 1: is the state's sugar industry. That's correct, and this is
Speaker 1: a pretty incredible shift for a Florida governor or any
Speaker 1: Florida politician, because the sugar industry traditionally has been one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful lobbying force in Florida, and that
Speaker 1: is because they basically, over the last sixty seventy years
Speaker 1: have colonized huge swaths of the Everglades and turned the
Speaker 1: swamp into sugarcane plantations because they get massive federal subsidies
Speaker 1: I support billions of dollars a year. Traditionally, they still
Speaker 1: have about four hundred thousand acres of crop in Florida's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest crops in Florida, and they've always
Speaker 1: gotten support from governors from Congress to keep getting these subsidies.
Speaker 1: But Ron de Santis has been an exception to that.
Speaker 1: Ironically in a lot of ways. When he was in Congress,
Speaker 1: he voted against those subsidies twice, which normally is political
Speaker 1: suicide for a Florida leader. Very few have done and
Speaker 1: survived and lived to tell the tale. Initially that decision
Speaker 1: was because he was against the whole idea of corporate
Speaker 1: welfare sort of ideologically, but as governor he sort of
Speaker 1: doubled down because when he ran for governor, the sugar
Speaker 1: companies gave massive funding to his opponent in the primary
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen to try to beat him, and he
Speaker 1: ended up winning, and since then he's not been a
Speaker 1: friend of Sugar More. With Mike Smith after the break
Speaker 1: my gime, your story, you write that water actually isn't
Speaker 1: the only thing that Ron de Santis is doing that
Speaker 1: could fall under environmentalism, even though he doesn't talk about
Speaker 1: it and he doesn't want to call it that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. A lot of it is like what he
Speaker 1: calls water quality improvements. In his first term, he says
Speaker 1: he came up with one point six billion dollars worth
Speaker 1: of funding for water quality improvements, and that's everything from
Speaker 1: actually cleaning up polluted waterways and coastal waterways, finding ways
Speaker 1: to combat red tide and algae blooms, and also replacing
Speaker 1: leaky septic tanks because in Florida, one of the major
Speaker 1: causes of contamination of water supplies because so many people
Speaker 1: have septic tanks. For example, in Miami, I think there's
Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand homes that have septic tanks in
Speaker 1: the city of Miami where I live. My house has
Speaker 1: a septic tank. There's no sewer lines. It's crazy, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of those are leaking and they need
Speaker 1: to be replaced. So he's been getting a lot of
Speaker 1: money for that is critically important. He's also done quite
Speaker 1: a bit for wildlife corridors, which are basically ways to
Speaker 1: restore wilderness so that animals like Florida panthers, the few
Speaker 1: that are left, can get across highways and not be
Speaker 1: hit by cars. So these are examples of the kind
Speaker 1: of things that he's been doing, in addition to record
Speaker 1: amounts of money for Everglades restorations. For example, in his
Speaker 1: first term he actually secured one point seven billion dollars
Speaker 1: for this project, and he's committed to I think another
Speaker 1: two point five or three point five billion dollars in
Speaker 1: his second term for Everglades and water quality improvements. Be
Speaker 1: on water though, Descantist hasn't really leaned into conservation or
Speaker 1: fossil fuel reduction, has he. I mean, take solar. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of sun in Florida, but he doesn't really
Speaker 1: talk about that, does he. He hasn't been a fierce
Speaker 1: promoter of solar energy in Florida, and he hasn't come
Speaker 1: up with massive incentive programs, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: say he hasn't even taken advantage of basically the free
Speaker 1: money that's out there under Biden's infrastructure plan that Florida
Speaker 1: could benefit from a lot. For example, there was a
Speaker 1: refer twenty eighteen here in Florida where voters massively supported
Speaker 1: and passed a referendum that would allow you put solar
Speaker 1: panels on your house and require the power company to
Speaker 1: buy the power you don't use, because that's not the
Speaker 1: way the law is now. That passed, and then the
Speaker 1: power utilities sort of quietly cut a deal and got
Speaker 1: some legislation passed in the legislature that would not require
Speaker 1: them to buy back your electricity, and that was hugely controversial.
Speaker 1: Desanis was pretty quiet on it until he saw helps
Speaker 1: that people were getting voters that he vetoed that bill,
Speaker 1: so you know, when push comes to shove. He's been
Speaker 1: a supporter solar, but he's not an an avid advocate,
Speaker 1: and he's also done things and this is why, for example,
Speaker 1: the Cira Club gives him a D minus on their
Speaker 1: scorecard of raiding governors and other politicians on the environment.
Speaker 1: They say that one of the biggest problems is that
Speaker 1: he has blocked local governments from doing stuff on their
Speaker 1: own that address climate change. For example, municipalities that want
Speaker 1: to restrict the use of fossil fuels and heating and
Speaker 1: cooling buildings, you know, to require solar panels and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. He's blocked localities from doing that. Key
Speaker 1: West and wanted to ban cruise ships from docking because
Speaker 1: it's destroying the coral reefs. It's disrupting the marine ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and he blocked them from being able to do that.
Speaker 1: So these are the kind of things that he supports
Speaker 1: some things, but others he doesn't, and that's what gets
Speaker 1: him in trouble with some of the environmental groups. Producer
Speaker 1: Moe Barrow spoke with Don Sheriffs. She's Florida director of
Speaker 1: the Environmental Defense Funding. Here's what she had to say
Speaker 1: about DeSantis's environmental policies. So, I think it's it's a
Speaker 1: mixed bag. I think a lot of folks were relieved
Speaker 1: after the last governor really wouldn't even knowledge the existence
Speaker 1: of climate change. To see the opportunity that we could
Speaker 1: have with Governor de Santis. There's been significant investment in
Speaker 1: Everglades restoration. It is not easy politically to stand up
Speaker 1: against big sugar or big utilities. We need to recognize
Speaker 1: that those are complicated measures. And I think that's been
Speaker 1: done fairly, fearlessly. It's extremely unfortunate that the terminology around
Speaker 1: climate change has become so politically polarized. Everybody loses when
Speaker 1: we participate in that. We'll be right back. Mike has
Speaker 1: de Santis himself taken any heat from other Republicans for
Speaker 1: being at least a little bit you woke on the environment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, he at least not that I've heard of.
Speaker 1: I really haven't seen any other Republicans complaining about what
Speaker 1: he's doing. I think because he he's been very effective
Speaker 1: at maintaining that delicate balance. I'm an environmentalist like Teddy Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: but I'm not a climate change lackey. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to fall for that woke a view of
Speaker 1: we humans are the cause of it because we liked
Speaker 1: driving cars that run on gasoline. But you're writing your story.
Speaker 1: He's been very effective and actually raising a lot of
Speaker 1: money from people you wouldn't expect to give money to
Speaker 1: run to Sanvis. That's correct. You know, we looked at
Speaker 1: his campaign contribution records since he became governor, and we
Speaker 1: were able to identify three million dollars in contributions just
Speaker 1: from people who were members of a couple of environmental
Speaker 1: groups in Florida, mainly the Everglades Foundation. These are people
Speaker 1: who care deeply about the environment. It's like their main issue.
Speaker 1: It is their number one issue for evaluating a politician
Speaker 1: and deciding when to give money. And I spoke with
Speaker 1: a couple, for example, hedge fund investor Paul Tudor Jones,
Speaker 1: and he told me this is my issue, Everglades, and
Speaker 1: that's why supporting Ron to Santis, And it's quite interesting
Speaker 1: because the governor's fundraisers tell me that this is actually
Speaker 1: a way they've been able to capture monetary and political
Speaker 1: support from moderate Republicans who do care deeply about the
Speaker 1: environment and are searching for a Republican who they can
Speaker 1: feel comfortable about supporting for the environmental policy. So to Santis,
Speaker 1: so far, it's been quite effective. And if he does
Speaker 1: run for president, this will be another way that he
Speaker 1: can raise money and garner support, maybe from voters that
Speaker 1: might not otherwise support. This could be the issue that
Speaker 1: brings him over to his side. This money that he's
Speaker 1: raised on his environmental record is really planning the seed,
Speaker 1: if you will, for a funding push, he would need
Speaker 1: to do to run for president. It was very successful
Speaker 1: during his reelection campaign for governor. Like it was a
Speaker 1: national flow of money that was anchored by environmental policy
Speaker 1: in a way that was a pretty important litmas test
Speaker 1: as to whether that kind of rategy would work on
Speaker 1: a national level. The effectiveness of the limited amount of
Speaker 1: environmental fundraising, if you will, that he did in his
Speaker 1: reelection for governor tells the fundraisers that there's a lot
Speaker 1: more potential if you broaden it out to a national campaign. Mike,
Speaker 1: you've been watching de Santis and his rise in national
Speaker 1: Republican politics. Do you think this is a winning formula
Speaker 1: for him, especially among Trump primary voters. Governor de Santis
Speaker 1: is walking a risky and fine line in a way
Speaker 1: when it comes to the environment. He has to be
Speaker 1: extremely careful that he doesn't come off as sort of
Speaker 1: a Democrat climate change advocate and believer and enemy of
Speaker 1: big oil people who don't agree with ESG investment strategies.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, he has to make people
Speaker 1: in Florida happy and do whatever he can to keep
Speaker 1: the state from becoming hideously polluted by algae or red tide,
Speaker 1: all these things, or to see the quality of water
Speaker 1: go down drastically and really have a crisis to deal with,
Speaker 1: which are all things that are being exacerbated by climate change.
Speaker 1: But it's hard for him to say that while not
Speaker 1: upsetting the rest of his space. Mike Smith, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the show, My Pleasure, Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to us here at The Big Take. It's a
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Speaker 1: are Moe Barrow and Michael Folero. Raphael I'm Seely is
Speaker 1: our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin
Speaker 1: I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take,
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