If ever there was a tainted and misleading candidate endorsement, it's Wednesday's Bull Sugar (Bullsugar.org) endorsement of Democratic Senate candidate Patrick Murphy. Maybe you saw it.
Bull Sugar, founded in 2014, claims to be "dedicated to stopping the damaging discharges into the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries and restoring the flow of clean freshwater to Florida Bay." But these gung-ho folks aren't your run-of-the-mill environmentalists. More about them later.
No matter who or what Bull Sugar is, if they want results, how can they favor Murphy over incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio?
Rubio pulled off in one day more good for Lake Okeechobee and the algae-oppressed people of the Treasure Coast and Lee County -- and disintegrating Florida Bay, come to that -- than Murphy has in all of his four lacklustre years in Washington.
As reported in The Miami Herald in March, Rubio convinced Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the powerful chairman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, to back a suite of Everglades restoration projects expected to cost about $1.9 billion and aimed at stopping the kind of crisis that gripped South Florida over the winter when El Niño dropped record rain.
Inhofe, by the way, was the only vote against the master plan to fix the Everglades in 2000.
“Marco showed me this (Comprehensive Everglades Planning Process) was different," Inhofe told the Herald. "And I wouldn’t have gotten into it if Marco hadn’t talked to me. When Marco said one out of three Floridians are affected, I thought that wasn’t right.”
Inhofe supported it, CEPP funding passed in committee and from there in September, it moved on in the Senate.
So, please, let's not talk about Rubio's attendance record. Or who contributes to his campaign. Or how many meetings in Stuart he attends. This is a senator other senators listen to. Which is something Florida is going to need desperately when the November dust settles. Look at the whole picture: Persuading Inhofe isn't all Rubio has done to move water south, restore the Everglades and work for a clean water supply. See a timeline of his water management projects here.
Florida's other senator, Democrat Bill Nelson, periodically shows up on the Treasure Coast to survey the green water and coo his concern. And doesn't the local press shower him with kisses. Trouble is, Nelson then disappears back to Washington and does ... what ?
Meanwhile, Murphy's water-accomplishment record, or lack thereof, speaks for itself. I wonder if Bullsugar.org even looked at it before anointing him.
Certainly, I have to give the congressman who represents the Treasure Coast credit for showing up. The man turns up for everything. On the other hand, nothing attracts an ambitious politician faster than the sure knowledge he'll be on the business side of a camera lens. Murphy also talks a good game. For instance, in 2013, to loud applause, he told Florida Sen. Joe Negron's Senate Select Committee on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee Basin that he would take a bottle of polluted river water to Washington to deliver straight to the president. But, did he? Did President Obama ever get a look at that bottle? If he did, we never heard. Nor did we get a squeak of an indication of support from the Oval Office.
Murphy since has shipped many more bottles of dirty water to Washington, and he even hand-delivered one to Gov. Rick Scott's office.
In April, Murphy wrote a letter to the president, enlisting the support of the White House, requesting additional emergency federal assistance to residents impacted by Lake Okeechobee discharges and fast-tracking critical Everglades restoration projects. You may remember how that worked out. Apparently the president was otherwise engaged.
What about water bills Murphy sponsored in the House? In four years there have been three. Total.
On July 14, in this 114th Congress -- apparently doing the Everglades Foundation's bidding -- Murphy and Republican Rep. Curt Clawson introduced H.R. 5870: Federal Partnership for Clean Water Land Acquisition Act of 2016. The bill would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish a grant program for land acquisitions made to improve water quality, and "for other purposes." It authorizes $750 million each fiscal year for buying private land -- yes, it's part of the Foundation's buy-the-land-move-the-water-south agenda. You only have to look at the text here.
H.R. 5870 might sound good to some of the beleaguered people of the Treasure Coast, but this bill is as phony as a $3 bill. Filed for show. Filed to say, "Hey, Florida, look what I'm doing for your environment."
Why am I so cynical? Because PredictGov, the site that keeps its finger on the pulse of bills in Washington, gives H.R. 5870 a 1 percent chance of passage. ONE percent. That's a snowball's chance.
Murphy's only other water-related bills during his years in Washington went nowhere fast:
- H.R. 5631 (113th Congress): To authorize the Central Everglades Planning Project, Florida, and for other purposes. Introduced Sept. 18, 2014. DIED.
- H.R. 5289 (113th Congress): Indian River Lagoon Nutrient Removal Assistance Act of 2014. Introduced July 30, 2014. DIED.
If you want to see Murphy's full congressional record in the 113th and 114th Congresses, click here.
Bottom line: Patrick Murphy has been ineffective for the environment. Nothing of what he's done has moved legislation or even the conversation -- at least, not where it counts, in the U.S. Capitol.
Yet, somehow, he wins the support of South Florida environmentalists, and now Bullsugar.org -- a militant group the anti-Bullsugar.org website Southern Exposure calls "a wacko environmental group."
In fact, Southern Exposure calls Bullsugar.org "one of the phony astroturf protest groups secretly founded by New York billionaire hedge fund hustler Paul Tudor Jones to put farmers out of business."
Jones, the force behind the Everglades Foundation, has long been rumored to be Bullsugar.org's financier. But I have never seen any concrete proof of that. I do know the organization's board members are all connected to each other through the Indian Riverkeepers, River Warriors, Captains for Clean Water and Tarpon and Bonefish Trust.
As of the 2014 tax return filed by the Everglades Foundation, I see no direct funding to Bull Sugar or Bullsugar.org. But I do see funding going to its supporters.
Bullsugar.org recently changed its tax status from a 501(C)3 to a (c)4, making it legal for the group to perform advocacy work. And it is indeed active, particularly on social media.
It's also clear Bull Sugar's messaging is identical to the Everglades Foundation's, and that someone is masterminding the various entities that all push for the "Now or Neverglades" resolutions and buy-the-land-send-the-water-south rhetoric. Have a look at a rundown and description of Bull Sugar board members and draw your own conclusions.
It just seems obvious to me, no matter who's behind Bull Sugar or what its ultimate motives, Murphy didn't earn its crown as water champion. He lives in the right neighborhood for photo ops, that's about it. But deserving promotion based on his successes for the environment? There haven't been any.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
