In May, Florida’s Governer Ron DeSantis, who called Florida the place where “woke goes to die”, signed in a law that scrubbed climate change from the state’s thinking.
Gone was the concept of climate change - and addressing planet-warming pollution was no longer Florida’s concern.
Instead, the state’s priorities would focus on “reducing reliance on foreign energy sources and strengthening the energy infrastructure against.. natural and man-made threats.”1
Today, Florida faces the largest hurricane in its history, one that could upend the state’s already fragile insurance industry. Lives and infrastructure is at risk. People are on edge, and towns deserted as the state hunkers down for one of Mother Nature’s gifts, labelled cause and effect.
John Morales, one of America’s longest serving meteorologists, broke down this week in his report - “it’s horrific…you know what’s driving this - climate change, global warming”.
Video:2
In New Zealand, we hear similar arguments about energy sustainability and the lesser importance of environment & climate change from Ministers Shane Jones, Simeon Brown, and Chris Bishop.
Our Minister for the Environment, Penny Symonds, also took away all doubt earlier in the year, claiming NZ had swung “too far towards the environment”. Yes, Minister for the Environment.
For the record: the Climate Change Minister Simon Watts is no better.
And Shane Jones, in defending NZ’s upcoming repeal of the offshore oil and gas mining bill, argued NZ needed to do this to “keep the lights on” - even though the Ministry’s own documents show fossil fuels and mining is a dying industry, repealing it would breach our trade deals and international reputation, and taxpayers are now on the hook for billions of dollars of potential decommissioning costs.
Shane Jones also regularly attacks scientists and environmental groups, calling their ideas “ridiculous, irrelevant” and “green zombie-like”.3
6 months ago, Chris Bishop, the wannabee Prime Minister, told Jack Tame “we make no apologies” for a Fast-Track Bill that is designed to override all and any court and environmental protections.
The 5 minute video is above but here is a short excerpt:
Bishop: “Frankly, I hope [companies that otherwise would not have got a consent under the status quo will get one under Fast Track] - because that's why we're doing it.”
Tame: “What if it goes wrong? [What if you] make the wrong call and it ends up causing massive environmental damage?”
Bishop: “We're making it easy to do things. If people don't agree with that, well, they can throw us out in three years' time.”
That didn’t answer Tame’s question but what is on the cards under the Fast-Track Bill are coal mines, seabed mining, fish farms, gold mines, roads, and new housing developments.
In this interview from March, Bishop also admits he is being subject to wide scale lobbying as he notes: many people are just “excited” to “use the law” to get thing done!
Bishop: Lobbying is not illegal and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Understandable. Bishop was a tobacco company lobbyist prior to becoming a National MP.
The tobacco company he worked for was multinational Philip Morris - the same company that Casey Costello tried to gift $216mn in tax breaks to.
[Ironically, two months ago in August, Bishop was still refusing to release the fast-track list projects, citing his reason as “[if I released it], it would lead to lobbying.”]
To be clear, Fast-Track isn’t new.
Labour used it and boasted of significant projects and jobs under fast-track.
But this government has amended it to override environmental protections, accelerate approvals, and gift consents to companies that have failed for years in our courts and councils.
Chris Bishop also sent out personal invitations to companies that have failed to obtain consents e.g. Australia’s Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) which plans to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed every year for 30-35 years off the coast of Taranaki. Greenpeace NZ says TTR will access five million tonnes of iron ore and dump the rest back into the ocean.
Seabed mining is called “an avoidable environmental disaster” and has never been approved in NZ before.
Furthermore, Labour published the fast-track list prior to it becoming law.
National’s Coalition fought to keep it secret until Chris Bishop’s hand was forced this month. i.e. EDS complained to the Chief Ombudsman and Bishop finally released the full list on an October Sunday when the HMNZS Manawanui sunk and the news cycle was focused on that.
[Bishop has also been effectively reprimanded by the Ombudsman in June for “unlawful” conduct via his directive to the DOC to keep the fast-track information under wraps. And, in April, Bishop only released some initial after Forest and Bird’s complaint to the Ombudsman.]
Back to Florida -
In Florida, environmental activists and scientists sounded the alarm over DeSantis’s long standing assault on environmental protections - pointing out Florida4 faces rising seas, extreme heat, flooding and increasingly severe storms.
But that didn’t curb DeSantis.
He was voted in again on an overwhelming landslide and the state is considered an extremely strong and safe Republican electorate.
Ideology trumps evidence.
And today the USA faces that evidence.
Hope we are wiser here in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Will we be?
PS Well it turns out RNZ has the scoop on $500,000 of donations associated with the fast-track bill:
Companies and shareholders associated with 12 fast-track projects gave more than $500,000 in political donations to National, Act and New Zealand First and their candidates, RNZ analysis shows.
The projects include a quarry extension into conservation land and a development whose owner was publicly supported by National MPs during a legal battle with Kāinga Ora.
I don’t have to look up the latter - I wrote about Winton Development in July on this publication: Knives out for Kainga Ora.
Do we need a public and independent corruption body yet? I think the answer is yes.
PPS Here is Forest and Bird’s response to the release of the Fast Track Bill project list.
Fast-track list reveal is a dark day for democracy
FYI The list contains an array of projects but includes green energy projects that would have been approved anyway i.e. it was not necessary to include those - but they stand amidst a list of many projects.
Of the many damaging prospects, seabed mining is on that list.
The Australian company TTR fought unsuccessfully for a decade in our NZ courts to mine in our seas. Under this govt, its mining area has been quietly quadripled, “jeopardising the nascent offshore wind sector and other marine industries.”5
TTR was invited by Chris Bishop to apply for fast-track.
And Te Tiriti, the Treaty of Waitangi, has been an impediment to its ambitions for almost a decade.
Consider subscribing to and supporting Forest and Bird and/or EDS.
TODAY’S EXTRAS
For a laugh
Today’s comic relief moment is brought to you by the New Zealand Government, and sponsored by New Zealand First Minister Casey Costello.
In a briefing by the Public Health Communication Centre, the authors claim Associate Health Minister Casey Costello's trial of halving the excise tax on HTPs would have had minimal effect on achieving the Smokefree 2025 goal.
They also say the trial itself is no longer feasible, given most products do not comply with new safety requirements.
The briefing, Government struggling with evidence: HTPs, addiction levels, and Smokefree 2025, states the government replaced "evidence-based measures" that leading experts believed would greatly reduce smoking prevalence, with a "price discount for an unproven alternative product now no longer available".
i.e. the products Casey Costello granted $216mn of tax cuts to are no longer legal.. Therefore the tax cuts to HTP don’t apply and tax payers can save that for the health system.
OK I made the last part up, but the former is accurate.
Music Time
Related Reading:
Fast-track Approvals Bill: Chief Ombudsman calls for accountability by law (RNZ)
The fight for iron sands: the bitter battle to protect New Zealand’s sea-floor riches (Guardian)
Fast-track legislation: DOC's OIA refusal was unlawful - Ombudsman
$500,000 in political donations associated with fast track projects
Shared by David Farrier, Bluesky
Shane Jones Facebook page
Florida is among the most exposed states in the country to sea level rise and coastal storms. It has a low-lying coastal topography and more than 13,520 km i.e. much of Florida and its coastal population are vulnerable to the impacts of rising sea levels. Source: Florida Climate Center
Marc Daalder writes for Newsroom
Chris Bishop, the ex-tobacco Lobbyist, praises lobbying for Fast-Track Projects