Northwest Florida Daily News
Officials: Control of BP funds at stake
By TOM McLAUGHLIN
Published: April 22, 2013
Government officials in Northwest Florida raised a ruckus Monday about an amendment to a state Senate bill they viewed as an effort to steal away their control of millions in RESTORE Act funds.
“It wrests control away from the counties,” said Santa Rosa County Commissioner Lane Lynchard. “I don’t see how you could come to any other conclusion by reading it.”
The amendment, sponsored by state Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, would create a nonprofit corporation to be called Triumph Gulf Coast.
Triumph Gulf Coast, headed by an appointed, five-member board of directors, would administer BP fines and settlement funds set aside for Northwest Florida, the amendment said.
Lynchard and other Northwest Florida county commissioners view the amendment as an attempt to supersede the authority of the eight counties deemed disproportionately impacted by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
It would give control of what is expected to be millions in fines obtained through the RESTORE Act to an unelected board of directors, according to Okaloosa County Commissioner Dave Parisot, and trash a funding formula forged among the eight impacted counties.
State Senate President Don Gaetz said Monday the amendment, which he helped Detert craft, would do nothing like what the county officials said it would.
He said it had been drawn up after Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a lawsuit against BP last week seeking reimbursement for damages suffered in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The amendment language seeks only to create a secure way to distribute funds sent to the state — not directly to the counties as the RESTORE Act dictates — by BP or other responsible parties to the oil spill, said Gaetz, R-Niceville.
Federal laws such as the RESTORE Act take precedence over a state law, Gaetz said.
“The Bondi lawsuit is the only obvious example of funds that might come to the state of Florida as a result of the oil spill,” Gaetz said. “I want to make sure some funds that come to the state won’t be drained or frittered away but used in a responsible fashion to benefit the citizens, environment and economy.”
The creation of Triumph Gulf Coast will actually benefit the eight disproportionately affected counties, Gaetz said. The region not only gets a 75-25 split with the rest of the state’s counties for a whole new pot of funds, the non-profit will see to it that the money is distributed over a 30-year period.
“It allows an endowment to be created like that with the Exxon-Valdez and something like the tobacco settlement reached in Florida,” he said. “My goal as the senator for Northwest Florida is to make sure our citizens and community are protected by a 30-year endowment.”
Whether the word didn’t get out quickly enough or local elected officials just weren’t buying what they were hearing, by early evening Monday, calls had been made to Washington. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and U.S. Reps. Jeff Miller and Steve Southerland had gotten involved in discussions about the Detert amendment.
After discussing the issue with the congressional delegation, Gaetz’s office agreed to change some wording in the amendment, which will be brought before the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday morning at 9 a.m.
“At the senator’s direction, we are working to draft clarifying language that would specify that the endowment would only affect funds directed to the state,” Gaetz spokeswoman Katherine Betta said.
But it is no secret that some in the Florida Legislature are determined to obtain, if not control of the BP funds coming to Northwest Florida, at least whatever oversight is possible.
“I wouldn’t trust the Okaloosa County Commission to control an ant farm,” said state Rep. Matt Gaetz, who, with his father the Senate president, has been highly critical of Okaloosa County government’s handling of a Tourist Development Council scandal here.
Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said there is a chance that SB1024, to which the Detert amendment was added, could bounce back to the state House.
He said if it did he would continue to look for ways to obtain state oversight of dollars, including RESTORE Act dollars, bound for Northwest Florida.
“Dollars put in an endowment is spending for future generations,” Matt Gaetz said. “We can eat the golden goose for dinner or let it lay eggs for generations.”
