Guest column: Northwest Florida beware


  • December 7, 2015
  • /   Grover Robinson
  • /   economy

BP oil spill skimmers. Photo credit University of West Florida

As the federal government’s and five Gulf States’ settlements with British Petroleum become imminent, the fight to control those dollars and where they are used will intensify.

Unfortunately, the final settlements were achieved between the federal government, the individual states impacted and BP. While local governments made considerable efforts to participate, they were not allowed in the settlement negotiations.

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The exclusion of the local governments is understandable, as settlements become more complicated with more parties involved. In addition, local governments in Florida had participated in the RESTORE Act process to ensure that those communities impacted by the spill would receive the most benefit, much in the same way as the federal government thought the states that were actually impacted by the spill should receive 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines.

When the settlements were announced, I was very complimentary of the governor, the attorney general and other parties who negotiated on Florida’s behalf. As I said then, I believe they did an excellent job of securing a superior position for Florida, as can be seen in the $680 million in natural resource damages funding and $2 billion in economic damages funds.

In addition, existing Florida law ensured that 75 percent of those economic damages monies would come to Northwest Florida, which truly suffered the impact in Florida.

While I have spent considerable time structuring and advocating for RESTORE, I was fine with the fact that the State circumvented federal legislation in the RESTORE Act, to produce a larger net funding source for the State of Florida.

The settlements seemed well coordinated and were anticipated to provide great benefits for Northwest Florida.

Unfortunately, as soon as the dollar signs became real, consistent rumors surfaced that the existing State legislation directing distribution of the economic damages funds would be changed before the BP Deepwater Horizon settlement was finalized.

On the surface, the $2 billion in economic damages for the State of Florida looks great for Northwest Florida, which would receive 75 percent of this under Florida’s 2013 Gulf Coast Economic Corridor Act. However, as you scratch the surface of this State legislation, you realize that the Legislature could change those figures before a dime is ever realized.

Despite the fact that Northwest Florida took the brunt of the environmental and economic hit from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, simple changes to Florida law could make it so that Northwest Florida receives no money from the economic damages settlement.

During the disaster, both federal and state governments recognized that a great proportion of Deepwater Horizon-related damage funds should go to the areas that sustained damages.

However, now that the settlement dollar amounts have been specified, there is discussion to alter the state law established through Senator (Don) Gaetz’s efforts.

Northwest Florida has already seen what can happen when monies are placed to a vote.

At the most recent Florida Gulf Consortium meeting, the eight coastal counties of Northwest Florida were simply outvoted by Florida’s 15 other Gulf Coastal Counties, and the proposed allocation of RESTORE Act Spill Impact Component (Pot 3) monies were changed from an earlier vote that allocated half the funds to Northwest Florida to one that reallocated more monies to communities in Central and South Florida.

Northwest Florida has never believed that all of Florida’s Gulf restoration funds should be spent in this region. However, it was Northwest Florida that advocated for much of the settlement and fought to ensure that those monies returned to the Gulf Coast for the benefit of all of Florida’s Gulf coastal communities.

I am saying to all Northwest Floridians that we must be vigilant to ensure that the reparations we both suffered for and sacrificed to obtain are not taken from us simply because of our minority status.

While that can happen, it would be extremely unjust and not in the spirit by which Northwest Florida works to be a part of Florida as a whole.

Again, I write this to make every Northwest Floridian aware of the potential loss of Deepwater Horizon settlement funds.

We need to continue to strongly advocate to everyone within our state that these funds are in response to our region’s suffering, and that we worked collectively within the State to ensure a fair balance.

If advocacy for these funds is left up to a few local leaders and elected State officials, we will again end up on the short end of the funding stick.

We all have a responsibility to advocate and to make sure the rest of the state understands we are equal Floridians and not some junior status Floridians. The next couple of Legislative sessions will be critical to our future.

Grover Robinson IV is the District 4 Escambia County Commissioner.

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