Everglades National Park, Florida (CNN)President Barack Obama ventured into the South Florida Everglades on Wednesday to lend urgency to his environmental agenda, declaring the dangers of climate change an imminent threat to the state's economy.
"We do not have time to deny the effects of climate change," Obama said, standing in front of a sawgrass prairie on the eastern edge of the 1.5 million acre wetland.
"This is not some impossible problem that we cannot solve," he said. "We can solve it if we have some political will."
Even before Obama arrived to the wide expanse of mangroves and slash pines, Republicans were dismissing his Everglades visit as a stunt meant to promote policies they claim are job killers. But during his remarks, Obama cast the issue of combating climate change as a bipartisan calling.
The trip comes after a flurry of unilateral actions on climate change, which Obama began taking when legislative action on the issue appeared impossible. The White House hopes by issuing new rules on carbon pollution and greenhouse gases they can reinforce the President's environmental legacy.
Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott issued a statement ahead of Obama's arrival Wednesday hitting the President for, as he wrote, failing to "live up to his commitment on the Everglades and find a way to fund the $58 million in backlog funding Everglades National Park hasn't received from the federal government."
The White House countered that Republicans in Congress were responsible for the funding shortfall, and that efforts to reinstate the funding would have the "enthusiastic support of the Democratic administration."
Administration officials also noted that, according to reports in Florida newspapers, Scott put a ban in place among state employees on using the term "climate change."
His office denies such a rule was enacted, but that didn't stop Obama from dinging the governor Wednesday.
"Refusing to say the words climate change doesn't mean climate change isn't here," he said.
Scott did not greet Obama on the tarmac in Miami when he landed in Florida Wednesday afternoon.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/22/politics/obama-everglades-florida-climate-change/index.html
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