After Hurricane Helene, election nearing, Rick Scott talks a little louder about climate change
Just weeks before he goes before voters seeking reelection, U.S. Sen. Rick Scottedged slightly away from his long-held stance of minimizing the impact of climate change.
But what it means to Floridians still reeling from the impact of Hurricane Helene is almost anyone’s guess.
Scott’s campaign said his shift may not mean much policy-wise going forward. And environmentalists also expect little change from the Republican senator.
“He’s never been a friend to conservation or environmental issues. So for him to attempt in any way to suggest (that) he is now is pretty ridiculous,” said Gil Smart, executive director of VoteWater, a Florida environmental organization. “He’s stuck a finger in the air and determined which way the wind blows and is moving in that direction.”
As a two-term governor of Florida, Scott eliminated the state’s growth management agency, abolished the state’s short-lived carbon-reduction goals and reportedly worked to keep climate change out of the vocabulary of his administration, which he has denied.
He also pushed through the Legislature cuts to water management districts, forcing wholesale layoffs and reducing state environmental oversight.
Among the wealthiest members of Congress, Scott has invested heavily in energy companies, some of which have contributed to his political campaigns.
But he recently told CNN that, “The climate is clearly changing.”
He went on: “We know things are changing. We’ve got to figure out, how do we react to that?”
Florida's history of stiff-arming green efforts
Although many environmentalists are wary of Scott, as governor he did pour millions of state dollars into Everglades restoration and attempts to revive freshwater springs.
Scott also successfully defied President Trump's efforts to allow oil-drilling off Florida.
But while setting in place Florida's stiff-arming of efforts to ease greenhouse gases and limit coastal development, his successor, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has enhanced this position at the state level.
DeSantis signed legislation this year that erases references to climate change in state law. The governor also rejected more than $350 million in federal funding for energy efficiency initiatives and another $320 million to reduce vehicle emissions.
More:Florida Gov. DeSantis erases climate change references from state law before hurricane season
But Floridians may be demanding more this election year.
A Florida Atlantic University poll of 1,400 Floridians just before hurricane season began found that 90% of respondents agreed that climate change is occurring. Among those, 58% blame human activity, including 64% of no-party aligned voters, 40% of Republicans and 74% of Democrats. And more than two-thirds of all voters wanted the state and federal governments to do more.
Scott, like DeSantis and many other Republican elected officials, are reluctant to diverge from the path cut by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax.” Still, a Scott campaign representative rejected talk that his comments about climate change were an election-season conversion, designed to attract voters.
Chris Hartline, a senior adviser to the campaign, pointed out that Scott has embraced the fact of climate change, going back to shortly after Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle in 2018, less than a month before he was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Hartline said Democrats are pushing that Scott is only now citing climate change because he’s in what polls show is a relatively tight reelection contest with Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee recently began airing a TV spot against Scott, who polls show is favored to win a second term. Scott has said he then plans to run for Senate Republican leader, succeeding Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell.
Are Democrats pushing a narrative on Scott?
“The Democrats want to push their narrative, but the reality is he didn’t say anything different than he did all along,” Hartline said of Scott’s recent comments.
Hartline referred to an Orlando Sentinel op-ed by Scott from 2019, where he acknowledged climate change but said he opposed “Green New Deal” proposals advanced by progressive Democrats which would move the U.S. economy away from fossil fuel.
In it, Scott wrote, "Climate change (which is real and requires real solutions) is the religion of the new Left in America."
In Washington, Hartline said Scott’s view of climate will translate into continued support for funding intended to help communities deal with the impacts of flooding and powerful storms.
“It’s a debate not over the issue but over policy and what’s more effective,” he said. “The Democrats want more bureaucracy.”
Florida Democrats, though, criticized Scott for leaving Washington last month before voting on a temporary spending bill to avert a government shutdown which still failed to provide needed money for a depleted Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief fund.
Scott’s office has said he supports enhancing FEMA’s funding, but Democrats are unmoved.
Democrats say Scott's head buried in sand
“Rick Scott continues to bury his head in the sand and do nothing to protect Florida communities threatened by extreme weather and sea level rise,” the Florida Democratic Party said in a statement.
A decade ago, facing a tough re-election campaign as governor, Scott also took the unusual step of meeting with five Florida environmental scientists after earlier rejecting their requests for a meeting.
They’d reached out to him after Scott had downplayed the threat of global warming and dismissed, “I’m not a scientist.”
From 2014:Florida Gov. Rick Scott meets climate scientists; didn't comment or ask questions
The half-hour exchange between the governor and climate experts turned out to be a largely one-sided affair. The five scientists presented evidence of increased carbon levels in the atmosphere, polar ice melt and rising oceans while Scott listened, but said little.
When time was up, Scott rose and exited quickly for another office meeting.
“I’d like to think climate change is obvious to everyone,” one of the scientists, Jeff Chanton of Florida State University, said of Scott’s latest comments. “Maybe he’s moving to the middle for political purposes. That’s cynical, but it’s hard not to be cynical.”
Susan Glickman, a vice-president with The CLEO Institute, a climate education organization, said Scott’s position on climate matters was unconvincing. She said his policies have heightened the state’s risk.
“He acts like he doesn’t know the cause. He’s the cause,” Glickman said.
John Kennedy is a reporter in the USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jkennedy2@gannett.com, or on X at @JKennedyReport.