True conservatives rail against Big Sugar's command of Congress through Farm Bill subsidies and political contributions they shed freely as the hair of a shaggy dog. For example, Grover Norquist is making opposition to sugar subsidies, supported by Marco Rubio, a GOP litmus test for presidential candidates in 2016. (For a reasoned explanation, read Robert McElroy, publisher of ThisWeekInCongress.com: "Rubio's sugar support doesn't match his conservative credentials".)
Multiple, six-figure campaign contributions have been shunted Rubio's way by the Fanjul billionaires and by US Sugar, the other branch of the Big Sugar cartel, owned primarily by the 'environmentally sensitive' Mott Foundation.
The Fanjuls summoned Rubio to run against then-governor Charlie Crist in 2010. They were outraged when Crist in 2008 had offered to buy US Sugar lands -- more than 125,000 acres at a projected cost to the state of about $1.2 billion -- without consulting them. The reason for the fury: if government built wetland marshes using US Sugar lands to store and cleanse filthy agricultural waters, then the state would be a step closer to key parcels owned by the Fanjuls in the Everglades Agricultural Area.
For the public, the end game is to provide connectivity between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, building a solution toward cleansing Big Ag's toxic mess of Lake Okeechobee. Halting toxic releases to tide -- measured in trillions of gallons -- would eventually provide clean, fresh water to the remaining three million acres of Everglades, owned in perpetuity by the public thanks to the national park and other public entities.
The cycnical, deadly chess game between Big Sugar and government is set out on a board called Lake Okeechobee. The lake is one of the largest fresh water bodies in the United States.
Why is it deadly? Because government use of massive pumps and lock infrastructure, to control Lake water height -- called "schedules" by the US Army Corps of Engineers -- is calibrated to dike safety. Possible breaches would endanger lives in downstream communities: places like Belle Glade and Clewiston that, thanks to low labor wages of Big Sugar, are also among the poorest in the Florida.
From the background -- where they operate like Florida's version of the Koch Brothers -- the Fanjuls pushed Marco Rubio into the US Senate seat. Today Rubio -- thanks to Big Sugar's early support -- is a contender for the GOP nomination to be president. At the same time the Fanjuls also moved to block any future plans to use their land for cleansing the toxic mess they created in Lake Okeechobee by pushing at the county and state level for zoning changes to allow massive new developments like "inland ports" in the Everglades Agricultural Area. (When pushed to answer for his support of Big Sugar, Rubio defaults to a rote response: "sugar subsidies are a matter of national security".)
Tic-tac-toe, the public is the schmoe. That is a brief caption to the historic rainfalls in South Florida this winter and the outrage of citizens on both Florida coasts.
To keep the Lake from bursting, the Corps opened the floodgates of hell into the St. Lucie and Indian River, opening to the Atlantic, and the Caloosahatchee River, opening to the Gulf, until public outrage -- from mainly Republican districts -- became so intense that the politicians begged for relief. Groups like Bullsugar.org on the east coast of Florida and Southwest Florida Clean Water on the west coast have been driving the point home, but Florida political leaders led by Gov. Rick Scott and Ag Secretary Adam Putnam found a way to relieve their pressure: don't buy the land south, move the pollution south.
The net result: as of yesterday, filthy Lake Okeechobee water has been diverted through public lands toward other, more distant water bodies like Florida Bay and the Florida Keys. State officials claim the water will be "clean" although what none will confess this is an uncontrolled experiment for the purposes of political expediency.
Miami-Dade County, the most politically influential in the state, deserves some credit. Last year, the county commission unanimously passed a resolution by Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava, urging the Florida legislature to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire Big Sugar lands. The resolution by the county commission fell on deaf ears including Miami-Dade's own state delegation.
The public has been arguing for many, many years that the only solution to the Lake Okeechobee crisis: BUY THE LAND SOUTH. Create surface water storage, a rigorous water quality regime and conveyance adequate to deal with the toxic mess. And not just arguing. Voters went to the polls in the 1990's and agreed that Big Sugar must be primarily responsible to clean up its pollution. Hasn't happened. Voters went to the polls in 2014 to pass a constitutional amendment -- approved by more than 75 percent of Floridians -- to buy environmentally important lands like those owned by US Sugar and the Fanjuls. Hasn't happened.