EPA Still Needed, Despite Accident

While the recent unleashing of three million gallons of toxic wastewater from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River in Colorado by contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency has been called "outrageous" in a Miami Herald editorial ("Accident Aside, EPA Still Needed"), the "horrific accident helps drive home the point that the agency is needed more than ever."

The editorial states that the EPA "must keep their promises to effectively undo the damage done by the spill," as well as compensate landowners affected by it.

While thousands of Superfund sites - "hazardous-wast dumping grounds often created by irresponsible private companies" - about across the U.S., several states are fighting the EPA, including Florida. Florida is one of 17 states involved in a legal action against the EPA, "accusing it of illegally invalidating the individual air-quality protection plans in those states. The reason: In June, the EPA issued a final rule requiring 35 states, including Florida, to revise their individual State Implementation Plans governing carbon emissions during a power plant’s start-up, shutdown or malfunction."

The Miami Herald's editorial goes on to briefly outline the fight, as well as reiterating the fact that "the EPA must be allowed to carry out its extremely important role" of protecting the nation's environment.

To read the editorial in its entirety, go to http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article31135991.html#storylink=cpy.

Rick Scott - Worst Governer?

Is Rick Scott Florida's worst governor? That is the question Carl Hiaasen asks in his Miami Herald column ("Carl Hiaasen: Gov. Scott picks the public's pockets).

While Florida has had many governors since 1845, some good, some great, and some flat-out lousy, Hiaasen writes that, "Scott is certainly a prime contender for worst ever, and each new screwing of Floridians pushes him closer to the title."

"During the last few months, taxpayers have been soaked for more than $1 million to settle lawsuits in which Scott and his dim-bulb Cabinet flagrantly violated Florida’s open-records and open-meetings laws," Hiaasen continues. "No other sitting governor has used tax money to end public-records cases that were caused by his own secretive misbehavior. Scott couldn’t care less."

Hiaasen contines his case for Scott as "worst Florida governor ever." To read his column in its entirety, go to http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/carl-hiaasen/article31132001.html#storylink=cpy.