Florida takes great pride in its copious coral reefs, which rival even those of the Caribbean, the state’s environmental agency boasts on its website. Imagine, then, the surprise among delegates at this week’s annual gathering of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force in Washington that the state of Florida — for the first time in anyone’s memory — was a no-show.

“Florida didn’t even send anyone at all – not even a staff person,” marveled Dan Clark, of South Florida reef conservation group Cry of the Water, in a telephone interview from the meeting.

An higher-up at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which usually sends a top staffer to task force meeting, told Clark that Gov. Charlie Crist had cut travel for state workers because of the state’s budget woes. But the feds even offered to pick up the tab for whomever Florida would be willing to send, a surprised task force staffer told Clark at the meeting.

It’s not clear why Crist didn’t take them up on the offer, and a spokesman for the governor would not return calls for comment. Was it in protest to the tougher pollution limits the EPA wants to impose on state waterways? An attempt to duck the debate over whether to protect reef habitat at the expense of future beach replenishment projects? Simple oversight?

“It’s politics, no doubt,” said Clark, suggesting the Crist doesn’t want to appear to be cozying up to environmentalists as the gap between him and front-runner GOP Senate rival Marco Rubio grows. “I hate to read too much into it, but I’ve got to wonder if the governor is distancing himself from environmental issues.”

Tags: Charlie Crist, coral reef, Department of Environmental Protection

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Charlie Crist, Oceans/Reefs, Politics, State government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.