Former Congressman Patrick Murphy and Environmental Experts Slam Rick Scott's Record on Preventing Algae Blooms

Murphy and Environmental Experts Highlighted How the Current Algae Crisis Is Not a Both Sides Issue

Today on a call, former Congressman Patrick Murphy, Florida Conservation Voters Executive Director Aliki Moncrief, and Dr. John Capece identified how Rick Scott helped create the current algae crisis.

Former Congressman Patrick Murphy: “To see Rick Scott act like he has done anything to help this problem is an embarrassment. Ever since he was elected governor, he has drastically hurt our environment. When you cut a large amount of staff from the Department of Environmental Protection, what do you think is going to happen? Rick Scott is not enforcing the laws and not going after the bad actors. When you don’t do that, you will end up with disasters like this.”

Florida Conservation Voters Executive Director Aliki Moncrief: “Rick Scott bragged about his cuts to environmental protections, even wearing them as a badge of honor. What I find most frustrating about the ads that Rick Scott is putting out on the algae issue is he keeps wanting to point the finger to others for ‘flushing the toilet’, when really it is Rick Scott and the legislature who had horrible environmental policies and rolled back environmental protections. It was Scott’s actions that filled the ‘toilet’ with pollutants to the brim. I find that finger pointing to be incredibly egregious.”

Dr. John Capece: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure…Rick Scott is a denier of climate change and a denier of science, and he is deliberately providing disinformation to the public in his advertisements on this issue. Building the dike is a very important public safety issue, but it is not a water quality solution.”