Wilton Simpson, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about what’s been going on in the state.
Maintaining water quality is incredibly important in the state of Florida, especially in light of the odd fish behavior that’s been seen recently.
Simpson said, “Mote Marine (Laboratory and Aquarium) is doing a tremendous job there. They have been for several decades now. We’ve had various outbreaks around the state and we still have a lot of nutrient loads that are coming from sources that we shouldn’t be coming from, a lot of septic systems and outfalls and wastewater runoff and things of this nature. Look, we’re spending billions of dollars annually, trying to repair those types of systems and make them more environmentally friendly. We’ve just got to continue to get ahead of the curve. But at Mote Marine, what we saw there was not only the fishing network as it relates to tropical fish and things of that nature, but obviously a very large aquaculture industry, growing food that we’re going to eat, oysters, clams, shrimp, and the like, but using seaweeds and other aquaculture for bio remediation purposes, removing these nutrients from these urban runoffs, not only are we continuing to promote aquaculture, we are one of the leading states in the country of research of aquaculture, growing ironical culture industry, and not only will it provide the food that we need for the future, but it will also provide a major cleanup operation of our oceans and waterways. It has already been it will continue to grow in that manner. It’s something we’re very proud of that Florida is a leading state in these types of operations.”
The Department of Agriculture will always look for solutions to any issues that arise.
Simpson said, “This is something that we’re promoting, like in the Keys, for instance, and obviously, I’ve served in the Senate the last 10 years. We’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on substantive sewer conversions in the Keys, reef restoration, and things of that nature to really restore that ecosystem and it makes sure that the Keys can continue to thrive as a vital part of the state of Florida. Aquaculture is one of the subsets of that, that we’re very proud of. I think it shows a lot of promise and already is showing a lot of promise, but it’s certainly something we’re going to continue to push. It’s a multifaceted thing and of course, we still have 1,000 people a day moving here. So we’re having to deal with all of this at the same time. But it’s something that I’m proud of the efforts that we’re making, I’m proud of the progress we’re making. Clearly, it just can’t come soon enough for all of us.”
Preservation and restoring the Everglades is also critical.
Simpson said, “I started in the Senate, my first year was 2013. One of my first bills that I got passed was the Everglades Restoration Act. So at the same time, as we’re working through any of our water issues, the Everglades, we had the time we as the eighth wonder of the world. During my time in the legislature, not only did we get funded the C 43 and 44 reservoirs, which are within a few years of really coming online and making a significant difference. All the water farming projects that we did in and around the Everglades has been tens of millions of dollars spent on those projects, to remove nutrients out of those products. We are focused, when I say focused, those projects are all ongoing, we have what we call an EAA reservoir, which is south of the lake. It’s a 10 or 12 year project and to put these own scale, they’re 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 acres in some cases, and the structures that have to be built cost billions of dollars and also take a decade or so to build. So once we get started, we’re going to have the same recurring issues until we get them built, until those systems are going. A very large piece of that puzzle is that northern storage component because 70% of the nutrient loads that come into these waterways come from the north of Lake Okeechobee. Everyone hears a lot about south of Lake Okeechobee and the farmers in that area that we have to do everything we can to protect our way of life and the food supply that we have in this state. Those farmers get a bad to rap from a lot of groups that are misinformed. Farmers are not polluting the Everglades and they are not creating this pollution that’s coming into South Florida. Like I said, 70% of that is coming from the northern Everglades. We do have a way to stop that process. It’s called northern storage, where we would use ASR wells and they’re under the process of getting put in, it’s just going to take another decade.”
The process has been underway for the last four or five years.
Simpson said, “It’s going to take another decade to get a large part of that system built out. Again, because it’s such a large system. On the northern piece, which I think is very important for everyone to hear, what we do is we gather that water before it comes into Lake Okeechobee from the north, and we treat it to drinking water standards. Then we use ASR wells to put it down into the aquifer, the water. Here’s the really neat part, it stops 70% of the nutrient load from coming into the Everglades. The second neat part about that is it would eliminate 70%, 80% of the releases on the Caloosahatchee or the St. Lucie. So it would solve a very large problem there. The third really neat thing there is, is that when you put this down in the aquifer, then during drought times, we can pull that water right back up and put it back into the system. Obviously, we would be putting clean drinking water back into the system, so that we can continue to hydrate and have water for our population, for our environment and for our agriculture industry in those areas. So the northern storage component of this is going to solve a substantial amount of the problems. I believe if we’d have started on that first, 20 years ago and had it completed by now, we would have substantially less nutrient load in all of South Florida because we would remove a very large portion of it coming from the north.”
A recent law to help target those who target children with THC products went into effect.
Simpson said, “This is an operation that’s been ongoing. This has been very important to us. It is the Department of Agriculture, which is obviously protecting our agriculture and food supply in this country, but also the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Last July the law went into effect that said, these manufacturers of these types of products can no longer target our children with nice, colorful, gummy bears, and Skittles and candies that look like, you cannot tell the gummy bears, you cannot tell the Skittles or anything from the candies that you eat. So since July 1 last year, we’ve removed well over half a million products out of our stores and stations to protect our children. Just last week, we found an additional 187,000, I believe packages of this product at a manufacturing facility and we removed that and placed a stop sell on it. If you look at the products, they look exactly like the gummy bears that you would buy in the store for your kids or Skittles or other candy products. That is against the state law and it’s something that we’re going to continue to be very aggressive about.”
More than 2,000 children were hospitalized last year because of ingesting these products.
Simpson said, “In the vast majority of the cases they had no idea that it was a high THC product, they just thought it was candy. From my perspective, we have to protect our children from these products. We have to make sure they’re properly labeled so that we’re actually protecting adults. What adults do is not our concern here. Some of these products are legal, but we need to number one, protect our children and number two, we need to make sure that the adults that are using these products at least know what they’re using. I think we’ve got a very robust medical marijuana system in this state. I think we’ve gotten a lot of relief to a lot of folks because of that, I think it’s great program. When it comes to these programs, these high THC programs, adults should know, just like a Tylenol, if you buy a Tylenol, it says, it’s 250 milligrams, or 500 milligrams, or whatever the case happens to be, you know what kind of medicine you’re taking. When you’re taking these types of products, high THC products, you should know what you’re taking and then as an adult, if you make those decisions, well, that’s your business. But the reality is, is children should not be being targeted by those same adult products and it’s something that your Department of Agriculture’s going to be very aggressive at protecting and getting rid of.”
The budget is still on the governor’s desk, but will hopefully be signed soon.
Simpson said, “When you think about Rural and Family Lands, there’s $100 million dollars of recurring revenues specifically in the budget for Rural and Family Lands. There’s an additional 100 million dollars that we would have access to as the department to utilize that program of Rural and Family Lands. This is where we go and buy development rights from your farmers throughout the state. By doing so 95 plus percent of these lands are within the area called the wildlife corridor. Under the wildlife corridor, if you want to know what that what I describe it as, if you Google a map of the state of Florida at nighttime, and you’ll see all the beautiful lights of the states. Everywhere it’s dark on that map is the wildlife corridor, essentially. That’s where we grow your food. That’s where animals traverse the state and it’s where our aquifer gets recharged. So we need to continue to fund these programs. As Senate President, I did put $300 million in the budget for those properties. We have utilized those dollars, we’re waiting for these additional dollars to come in. We’re very proud of the program and it’s something that I fully support. It’s a way that we can continue to make sure that future generations of Floridians have a way to, again, animals traverse the state, aquifer recharge and where we can grow your food. So we’re doing all of those things at once when we use these dollars. So we’re hopeful that the governor will sign that budget here in the coming weeks and that those programs will still be in there and that we can continue our good work on protecting our environment and our way of life.”
A recent news report showed California is up to $7.29 a gallon for gas. Why is it so different in Florida?
Simpson said, “The state of California and Florida is on the polar opposite ends of the political spectrum. When you have a state like the Free State of Florida, we here promote safe, affordable, clean, abundant energy and we promote it through natural gas, which the United States is a the largest producer of natural gas anywhere in the world. We have 300 years of storage. So when you think about energy supply, if you go back 40 years ago, about 65%, 70% of our energy was coal based energy. Today about the same percentage 65%, 70% is on natural gas. We produce less greenhouse gases in the state of Florida today than we did in 1990 and we have, by the way, probably 10 more million people living here. So when you think about the vast majority of this population that has really exploded in the last 30 years, and then we’re producing less greenhouse gases, it can show you that you can manage these things in a way that is affordable. The reason that states like California and liberal groups really push gas taxes is because they want to make it similar as electric car or other types of vehicles, to be able to compete with gas. So if gasoline is $2.50, $3 a gallon, it’s very difficult for these other technologies to compete with them, they can’t compete with them. So they continue to put regulations in place. By the way, what the Biden administration has done to create all of the inflation in our system, and really pushing the idea that all of us are going to be driving golf carts in the next 10, 15 years. I call them golf carts. They’re EVs. They’re golf carts that are fancy. Think about the destruction of our environment to produce the EVs and golf carts. The rare earths that have to go in there are produced by mostly our foreign enemies. Then 500,000 pounds of Earth has to be cultivated to produce a battery for one of these EVs. Then I think about the state of Florida, here you are in the Keys, and a hurricane decides to come and you believe it’s going to go around, but at the last minute, it decides to turn and people try to evacuate, you run out to your garage, to get in your golf cart and you see it’s on 20% charge. You couldn’t make it even to the northern Keys with that, perhaps, and so those systems just do not work in Florida. The environmental concerns we’ve talked about with our energy supply and safe, affordable, abundant energy, our federal government has decided to skip the technology of natural gas and our clean burning fuels to go straight to an EV. By the way, in 20 years, there will be better technologies than EVs. One last thing I’ll say about these EVs and our energy supply and grid, they weigh twice as much as most of our cars, so they do probably twice as much damage to our roads and they produce no revenue to replace our roads or maintain our roads because there’s no gas tax on them. We’re plugging in at night at home or other places using energy to charge these cars, using a lot of energy to do that. But they put nothing back into the system to continue develop a system where gas and diesel and others pay, we pay taxes to be able to spend our $15 billion a year on our roads and road infrastructure. So all of the above when it comes to this energy policy, I believe California’s is completely perpendicular to the way it should be. That’s why their gases are $7 a gallon or more and the reason that we’ve maintained some affordability, even with the Biden inflation, is because in Florida, we take a different approach where we do not tax the same, we do not regulate the same and we are promoting on a competitive basis, the safe, clean, affordable, abundant natural gas and LNG products. That’s what’s cleaning up our environment and we’re being very aggressive on these things and you’re seeing the difference and the results.”
Was the $95 billion foreign aid package passed by our federal government a good idea?
Simpson said, “We run our federal government from one crisis to the next, so I’m not sure there’s an overall strategy here. Clearly, Israel support, I would be 100% for it. When I say that, Israel is a democracy and one of our best allies, maybe the best allies we have in the world. They are protecting all of our way of life. They are at the tip of the sword of what can easily be World War III. They’re a very small country, very great country. I have said in the past that Israel has done so much, with so little for so long, they can practically do anything with nothing. When you think about the support that we give Israel, I think we cannot do enough support for Israel. We have to make sure they have the tools to do the job with and it’s one of the few countries that never asked for troops to come on the ground. They just want us to give them the tools and let them do the job. Some of the other foreign aid, like in Ukraine, I think that we identified a lot of things that are flaws in the Ukraine funding. If it’s just purely military equipment to help fight the Russians and push them back out, that’s probably okay. But when it comes to funding their government operations, and pensions and things of that nature, I think that’s not okay. I don’t think it’s okay for the taxpayer of the United States to pay for politicians pay when they’re under war or in any condition. I’m not at the federal level, but if there are safeguards to make sure this is going towards military equipment, to push the Russians out of their country, and maybe put a wall up there, we always talk about stopping Germany, Munich, or all the things that can happen to trip wires that leads you into World Wars. Unfortunately, I will say this, we probably have the worst president since Jimmy Carter, on any of these issues. You’ll remember, we had the hostage crisis under Carter and he was very weak and the moment that we swore President Reagan in, they released them. They knew that there would be serious consequences if they didn’t, the Iranians. Think about today with all the wars in the world going on, and all of the just aggression by China and Russia and other countries, North Korea, if you had a President Trump, you wouldn’t have this type of aggression, because they would know you have an American president that would enforce what’s in the best interests of the United States around the world and they wouldn’t be doing these things. So this foreign aid, I think it’s important at all cost to support Israel. I think that the aid in there for Ukraine is probably going to be misused and misappropriated in a lot of ways. I do think we should continue to support them militarily to push the Russians out of their country. But the reality is, with this weak leadership of Joe Biden, I’m not hopeful that the right things will be done. I think he will continue to put pressure on Israel to not do their job. We’re trying to tell Israel how to defend themselves from over here, living in the best country in the world with all these luxuries. We need to let Israel do what they need to do to eradicate the terrorism, that’s not only in Gaza, but around their country and we need to give them whatever support and no questions asked, they need to get that job done. I hope that we do not squander too many more billions of dollars in Ukraine, on their politicians and their pensions and things of that nature. I hope that this is going for real military support that’s going to drive the Russians out of their country. If that is what we do, great, but, I have zero confidence that Joe Biden is capable of putting that type of operation together.”
Governor DeSantis and his cabinet are taking a stand against anti semitism on college campuses in Florida.
Simpson said, “We are the Free State of Florida. We are not going to let anti semitism run loose in the state. We do not let our state invest in companies who promote anti semitism. We are going to stand with Israel in Florida. I visited Israel with the governor three or four years ago, we went on a mission right before COVID, where I believe about 30 MOU’s were signed with our university and education systems and private businesses to try to stimulate business between Israel and Florida. It’s something that we’ve been very supportive and we’re going to continue as the state of Florida to be supportive of the country of Israel. So we’re doing our part and what we can do and we’re going to continue to promote it. We’re going to continue to work with our legislators, our federal legislators, to make sure that they support Israel, and I believe the vast majority of them do from Florida. I think we’re in lockstep not only as a cabinet, but as a delegation from the state of Florida in support of Israel and doing more business and cultivating more of a deeper relationships with that country that again, is a bright shining star in the Middle East, that’s obviously protecting a lot of our way of life. We’re going to continue as a Department of Agriculture to make sure that we protect our supply chain, try to protect our way of life here in the state of Florida, produce the most safe, affordable, abundant food. I know that inflation has hit agriculture and families very hard in the last several years. I’m hoping that we’ll have a better result in our federal elections at the end of the year, so we can start getting that in order. We’re working every day on your behalf and if you have any issues with the department we have a very robust website and ways to get ahold of us and we’re going to continue your job.”