Sen. Marco Rubio, at the South Florida Water Management District today, is meeting with scientists, then briefing District personnel and the media -- no doubt sharing news that the Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP), though not funded, is included in S.2848, the 2016 Water Resources Development Act.
Rubio's office has said if the bill passes the committee later today, as expected, it will be the most significant action taken to authorize this important Everglades restoration project.
Rubio has had a major role to play in this success. Like most of Florida’s congressional delegation, he has long advocated for CEPP. But according to the Miami Herald, in March Rubio convinced Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. -- perhaps the best known climate change skeptic in the U.S. Senate -- to back the $1.9 billion suite of Everglades restoration projects. Inhofe told the Herald his change of heart came when Rubio explained that CEPP contains specific fixes as opposed to the sweeping changes engineered in the broader Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Inhofe is the powerful chairman of the Environmental and Public Works Committee who notably cast the only vote against a master plan to fix the Everglades in 2000.
“Ten years ago was a different situation. We were getting into a long-term bill that addressed every acre of the Everglades. There’s a lot of stuff that should have been done by the stakeholders there, by the state, and they were not doing it,” Inhofe told the Herald. “They were totally dependent on the federal government and that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing.”
CEPP is closer to actually happening than it’s been since it first was proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
See a timeline of Senator Rubio’s push for CEPP and other water management projects here.
Read more here about Rubio's effort to provide disaster relief for Florida businesses affected by Lake Okeechobee discharges.
