Bush Goes Green on Florida Visit

By Peter Wallsten and Matea Gold

April 24, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

NAPLES, Fla. — President Bush on Friday cast himself as a guardian of the environment as he unleashed a thinly veiled slap at John F. Kerry over the Massachusetts senator’s recent remarks on a pivotal topic for Florida: oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, came under fire from Republicans after he told reporters in Tampa on Tuesday that he supported drilling in the deep Gulf waters but was vague about his stance on drilling directly off Florida’s coast. The issue is vital because of the economic importance of the state’s beaches and tourism industry.

“As you can see,” Bush said, standing near an estuary preserve on the western edge of Florida, “there is no ambiguity in my position on drilling off the coast of Florida.”

Florida is the largest battleground state in the presidential election.

Kerry’s remarks, in which he failed to explicitly rule out drilling off Florida’s coastline, first were reported in the University of Florida’s student newspaper. They prompted the president’s brother, Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to wield a copy of the story when he confronted reporters the next day to express his “outrage.”

Kerry, according to news reports, said in response to questions about drilling that “there is a capacity to protect what we have today -- the protections for the coast of Florida -- and still be able to drill in those locations where they’re already permitting, already had the environmental impact study, they’ve already had the leases -- and the only reason drilling isn’t taking place is because it doesn’t pay; it’s not cost-effective.”

Kerry’s campaign said the senator always had and always would oppose drilling directly off Florida’s coast, and that his comments were taken out of context. The Independent Florida Alligator, the student newspaper, ran a correction at the request of the Kerry campaign, but cited the candidate’s ambiguous language as the reason for the confusion.

The president’s comments Friday forced the Kerry campaign to explain his views once again, with Carol Browner, President Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, insisting that the senator is on the right side.

“I wouldn’t be supporting John Kerry if there was any ambiguity on his position on offshore oil drilling,” Browner said.

The issue is a political third rail in the state that decided the 2000 election by just 537 votes, where much of the economy relies on tourists flocking to the white sands of the Gulf beaches, from Naples to the Panhandle.

The Bush brothers won plaudits from environmentalists in 2002, months before Jeb Bush’s reelection as governor, when they announced that the government would pay more than $230 million to buy back oil and gas rights in an area off the Panhandle coast and on land near the Everglades.

The deal, parts of which are awaiting congressional approval, essentially blocked drilling in some of Florida’s most fragile ecosystems.

Bush talked about the deal Friday as evidence that he had been a protector of the environment -- and of his brother’s home state.

“We’ve been working hard because we share a common goal to conserve our environment, to do our duty as stewards of this beautiful part of the world,” Bush said.

The dust-up over Kerry’s remarks made for a convenient reference point for a president seeking to color his record more green after years of criticism from environmentalists, who have assailed Bush’s moves to loosen restrictions on air and water polluters.

The very bay that served as the president’s backdrop here was the subject of a federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Tallahassee by a coalition of environmental groups. It alleged that fish in Rookery Bay were contaminated with mercury and that the Clean Water Act required the federal government to intervene.

Browner, former chief environmental regulator in Florida, said she was “stunned” that Bush held events showcasing his environmental record at the site of a wetland, given that it has become easier for landowners to build on certain types of the once-protected swamps.

She called the president’s appearance Friday emblematic of his overall environmental policy: “They have a pretty picture, they give a nice speech, the rhetoric pushes all the right buttons, but the reality is simply not there.”

The president and Gov. Bush on Friday also helped the Republican National Committee raise $4.4 million for get-out-the-vote efforts, drawing on their friendships with some of Florida’s most influential real estate developers.

Longtime Jeb Bush business partner Armando Codina, a Miami developer, was a leading fundraiser for an event in Coral Gables. A second fundraiser, a $25,000-a-person lunch in Naples, was held at the home of investment banker Jack Donahue, a longtime GOP donor.

Speaking late in the afternoon in Coral Gables, President Bush sought to heal some South Florida wounds, uttering some Spanish phrases and promising to thunderous cheering: “Cuba libre.”

Bush has come under attack from some Cuban American leaders in recent months, accused of failing to fulfill campaign promises to get tougher on Fidel Castro’s regime.

Nearly half a million Cuban Americans voted in 2000, with more than 8 in 10 backing Bush in his narrow win.

On Friday, Bush labeled Castro a “tyrant.”

“We want the people of Cuba to hear this message loud and clear: We will make no concession to tyranny,” Bush said. “We believe strongly in freedom.”

Wallsten reported from Naples and Gold from New York.