Florida legislators sacrifice nation’s second-largest seagrass bed for oil drilling

Florida legislators killed a bill that would have protected a 380,000-acre seagrass bed — the second-largest in the nation — off the coast of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.

Why? So they would be free to destroy it with offshore oil drilling.

Rep. Paige Kreegel, R-Punta Gorda, who argued that establishing the preserve would interfere with offshore drilling, led the committee that killed the bill. Kreegel is a political ally of the Legislature’s leading drilling advocate, incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park.

In the St. Petersburg Times, Dan DeWitt writes,

It’s hard to imagine that any responsible citizen could object to adding this expanse of sea grass to a long list of aquatic preserves in the state. But powerful state lawmakers could, and did.