Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio floated the creation of a "Gulf Empowerment Zone" Monday while dismissing Gov. Charlie Crist's cleanup efforts as a "photo op."
"The economic impact of this spill is as big as the environmental impact," Rubio said during a teleconference in which he hammered both the Obama administration and Crist, his chief rival in this fall's U.S. Senate race.
"It's essential that we actually do something, not just turn this into a photo op for a political campaign," the former Florida House speaker said. "We haven't gotten what Louisiana has -- calling out the federal government on its incompetence," Rubio said.
Announcing that he was working with state Sen. Dan Gaetz, R-Niceville, and U.S. Reps. Jeff Miller and Adam Putnam, the former Florida House speaker pledged to pursue tax relief for Gulf residents and businesses affected by the BP spill.
Rubio did not immediately detail the components of the empowerment zone initiative, saying they would be divulged later in writing.
Meantime, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink weighed in with her own plans, including property tax relief to impacted residents and businesses and a waiver of the bed tax in affected regions.
Rubio said Crist's call for a July 20-23 special session to ban offshore oil drilling "added insult to injury."
"(He) is leveraging his office for political gain. There's no sense to having a special session to ban something that's already illegal. No one is drilling and no one's trying to.
"Everything Crist has done is to advance a political agenda at the expense of the state. We already have enough people like that in Washington, D.C.," Rubio said.
The governor's office declined to comment. His campaign office did not respond immediately to an inquiry by Sunshine State News.
Rubio suggested that Washington and Tallahassee should have "relied more on local government" in the early stages of the disaster that began nearly three months ago.
"Some of this state's best emergency responders are in the Panhandle. But local agencies were kept out of the loop and ignored," Rubio said.
The latest polls show Rubio and Republican-turned-"independent" Crist running neck-and-neck in this fall's U.S. Senate race, with Democrats Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene trailing far behind.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
