For years the Republican Party has blathered about small government purportedly to increase personal freedom. The reality, of course is that the real driver behind the obsession is the desire to give tax cuts to the super rich and large corporations. Meanwhile, the nation's infrastructure has crumbled and funding for needed programs and agencies has been slashed. Adding to the failed agenda is the GOP's de rigueur denial of climate change and rising sea levels. With Florida currently getting hammered by Hurricane Irma, we may be about to see the consequences of Florida GOP Governor Rick Scott's refusal to do anything of consequences to address his state's dire problems with flooding and rising sea levels, thereby leaving cities and counties to their own devices in addressing the growing problem (Virginia suffers from a similar phenomenon as the GOP controlled House of Delegates engages in the same head in the sand approach to climate change and rising oceans). A piece in the Washington Post looks at Scott's failures that may cost Floridians their lives or massive property losses. Here are excerpts:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has been ubiquitous in recent days as Hurricane Irma bears down on the Sunshine State, warning of deadly winds and storm surges and imploring residents to heed evacuation orders.
“This is a catastrophic storm our state has never seen,” he cautioned at one of many news conferences.
By all accounts, Scott and other officials have aggressively tried to prepare the state and its residents for the destructive storm’s impact and immediate aftermath.
But for all of Scott’s vigor in readying Florida for Irma’s wrath, his administration has done little over the years to prepare for what scientists say are the inevitable effects of climate change that will wreak havoc in the years to come. With its far-reaching coastline and low elevation, Florida is one of the states at greatest risk from rising sea levels, extreme weather events — including more-powerful hurricanes — and other consequences of a warming planet.
Local officials, academics and even some political allies say Scott has scarcely acknowledged the problem and, along with the Republican-led legislature, has shown little interest in funding projects to help the state adapt and become more resilient in the face of storms such as Irma.
“The science has been brought on a silver platter to Governor Scott, and he’s chosen not to do anything,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, a conservation expert who served on the Florida Energy and Climate Commission, which was effectively dismantled after Scott took office in 2011. “If there is climate action, it’s all coming from local and regional collaboration. There is no state leadership on climate change in Florida, period.”
“It’s important we don’t hide from reality,” said Harold Wanless, chairman of the University of Miami’s geological science department and an expert on sea-level rise. “We should be doing very serious planning, and it doesn’t help when you have a governor and a president who are dismissing” climate change.
But many communities simply don’t have the financial means to combat the effects of climate change, said Albert Slap, president and co-founder of Coastal Risk Consulting, a firm that provides flood-risk analysis.
“Smaller and medium-sized towns along the coast won’t have the money they need to build the necessary resilience,” Slap said. “The clock is ticking.”
Hastings and other scientists say Scott’s administration has done little to mitigate the destruction of storms like Irma, whose winds could drive rising waters inland, making a bad problem many times worse.
Unfortunately, the problem is not limited to Gov. Scott and Florida. A piece in Politico looks at the crisis now facing underfunded and partially dismantled agencies as a result of the GOP's wrong headed agenda. Here are are article excerpts:
More than a decade of budget cutting and a rash of government job vacancies are taxing Washington’s ability to cope with a one-two punch of epic storms.
The fiscal belt-tightening has coincided with an American migration to job-abundant coasts, where people are building bigger houses and taller condos while shunning flood insurance. Storms, fires and other disasters are hitting with more frequency and fury, forcing the federal government to cope with overlapping catastrophes.
“After years of austerity politics, it’s not clear that the government is adequately staffed or prepared to address the catastrophe on the Gulf Coast and whatever happens in Florida,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at McGladrey, a consultancy. “Priorities need to be set.” Even if the federal government opens its wallet, it’s not evident it has the long-term capacity for multiple mobilizations. On Friday, as President Donald Trump signed a bill approving more than $15 billion in storm aid, Hurricane Jose churned off the coast of Puerto Rico. In the West, wildfires blazed in Oregon, Washington, Montana and California.
[W]hile Congress can appropriate emergency aid, the federal government’s catch-as-catch-can approach to disasters and the austerity demanded by fiscal conservatives have given short shrift to preventative measures and emergency-response training.
In the long run, that increases costs to taxpayers and makes disaster recoveries dicier as key agencies such as FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development deal with shrinking resources.
At FEMA, funding woes have left flood maps out of date and a precarious insurance program is running on fumes. Last week, the agency was down to its last few days’ worth of emergency funding. Treasury officials told lawmakers they wouldn’t be able to pay claims to Harvey victims without an immediate increase in the debt ceiling.
With the National Flood Insurance Program nearly $25 billion in debt, FEMA this year took the pricey step of paying the private market to backstop the fund: The agency bought a $150 million reinsurance policy to offset about $1 billion in risk at a time when government borrowing costs are near historic lows.
“There’s simply not enough bandwidth or resourcing that can handle the stress and strain of what we’re facing,” said Anita Chandra, a senior policy researcher at the nonpartisan RAND Corp. “Passing off to later was never smart, but it’s really not smart now.” Between 2012 and 2016, however, weather catastrophes occurred almost twice as often. This year, the Trump administration rolled back Obama-era proposals on climate change and flood resilience.
Here in Virginia we have elections in November. It is critical that the Republican statewide ticket that would bring an even worse head in the sand approach to Richmond. Vote for Ralph Northam for Governor, Mark Herring for Attorney General and Justin Fairfax for Lt. Governor. Say "no!" to the GOP's failed agenda.
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