July 21,2010

By : William Lustgarten

Tallahassee — Today the Florida Legislature destroyed the last possibility of Florida embrassing Clean Renewable Energy.It took just two hours Tuesday to reject Gov. Charlie Crist’s proposal to give voters the chance to amend the state Constitution and ban offshore oil drilling. What goes thru the minds of our Republican leadership is very hard to understand. More than $41 million are owed to 11,000 Floridians for the expired State Rebate program to homeowners for  Solar installations made during this last year. The Legislature earlier this  year failed to  renew the property tax  exemption which existed for solar property installed by homeowners who installed solar PV or solar thermal water heating in their homes. The Legislature failed to regulate PACE which has been very sucessfull in other states. The final stroke came today, failing to ban offshore drilling off our costs.

We are doomed with the political class at the helm of the Florida Legislature. G’d help us. Florida has no future with these outdated and outmoded politicians. What will they answer their grandchildren when asked” Grandfather why can’t we swim on our beaches?”  They might answer something brilliant like “It is not my fault dear, we  could not get the number of votes for an agreement between my fellow congressmen and congresswomen.” What value or importance will this have to our future generations. These men and women are not prepared to embrace the future. G’d help us.