U.S. Sugar deal was Crist's idea

St. Petersburg Times ^ | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 | Craig Pittman

[NautiNurse]

[snip] Florida will buy every bit of land now owned by the nation's largest sugar company and use it to restore the River of Grass.

Although many details of the $1.75-billion deal still must be worked out before it closes in November, the bottom line is this: U.S. Sugar will continue farming its land — 187,000 acres, three times the size of Orlando — for six more years, then shut everything down and hand it over to the state.

[snip]

Company executives called the decision to sell bittersweet, since it will end more than 70 years of farming there. U.S. Sugar produces 700,000 tons of sugar a year, or about 10 percent of all sugar produced in the nation. The company, which operates its own railroad, employs 1,700 workers, most of whom live in Clewiston, "the sweetest town in America."

[NautiNurse]

Bittersweet, indeed. U.S. Sugar will cease to exist after 76 years. Clewiston (population 7300) will lose upward of 1700 workers.

Charlie Crist, the Green Governor

[driftdiver]

So the town will disappear and the buildings abandoned. Crist is an idiot. I’d imagine this is a card he’s playing to be named VP.

[RKV]

Sugar tariffs make US customers pay more than the world market price and payoff certain business interests and politicians. US Sugar makes a fine product I am sure, but other countries make just as good product and cheaper.

http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/imports/ussugar.asp

[wafflehouse]

so, the government owns more land it doesnt need, and 2000 people are out of a job. nice. pretty convenient how government agencies started making life difficult for them once this guy decided to take their land.

"Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785.

[poobear]

What's he planning on doing without the 2 billion GDP that sugar generated. That's going to leave quite a hole in local and state taxes collected. Not to mention the countless state regulator jobs that will be lost. (That might not be a bad thing)

I'm beginning to wonder if Crist started this tomato salmonella rumor to wipe out the entire farming industry.

What's next Crist? No more citrus industry, no ranching, maybe no more tourism?

[JerseyHighlander]

It is EXTREMELY disingenuous to try to blame this deal on Crist. More blame should go on Bush the Elder for defunding the buyout in fiscal year 1992 to pay off the Gulf War.

This deal has been in the works since the early 1980’s. The only people who have been at the negotiating tables the entire time are the Fanjul brothers, owners of US Sugar and conglomerates.

[NonZeroSum]

What's he planning on doing without the 2 billion GDP that sugar generated

It doesn't generate anything. US grown sugar is a net loss, considering the subsidies and tariffs that screw both the taxpayers and the consumer by keeping the price artificially high. The country would be wealthier if we simply removed the tariffs and imported it from the Caribbean. So would the Caribbeaners. If we did that, the industry would simply go out of business, and the state wouldn't have to do this expensive deal to pay them to go out of business.

[Joe Boucher]

Hello driftdiver,
You are correct, Crist is an idiot and he is about to piddle in his pants he wants to be V.P.so badly.
Clewiston is an energetic thriving community, one of several like Belle Glades and Pahokee that will die. Folks that live in both are the poorest of the poor, pickers.
What is to happen to them?

Also today I went outside the Saint Lucie inlet on the north side as there was an edy current sending river stuff south.
Saw about 100 3 to 5 foot tarpon, some snook, nurse sharks, black tips, and so many turtles I couldn’t count them all. Was just snorkeling but tomorrow I’ll head back with poles.

[doc30]

Sugar was never a net generator of revenue. It was a big corporate welfare recipient. Plus, the land is needed to undo all the damage that was done to one of the worlds largest wetlands.

[NautiNurse]

Nice quote—good find. Thanks.

[poobear]

Well, I'll have to agree with the both of you then, but for my entire life I've heard arguments on both sides.

I suspect that a few small towns will fade. I worry for our State. Crist’s back door green deals have me with a tin foil hat on hand daily. He canceled a clean burning coal power plant 6 months ago. I had the Contract to build it. When I heard the rumor I informed Southern B and got out before I had more than $50,000 invested in administration costs.

While I would love to see the Everglades returned to it's pristine origins, development in Dade/Broward have continued to move west. There are parts of the Everglades that will never be restored.

[NautiNurse]

I hope you don't like orange juice.

The deal includes 30,000 acres of orange groves and citrus processing plant. The company is the largest supplier of not-from-concentrate juice to Tropicana. Al Reuters

[Nick Danger]

the land is needed to undo all the damage that was done to one of the worlds largest wetlands.

Yeah, but who are we to decide that "wetlands" are more valuable than any other kind of lands? I think we should flatten your house and return your land to the ants and flies.

[dennisw]

$1.75-billion deal ......

This gay greenie weenie is blowing money the State of Florida doesn’t have. An idiotic deal that probably bails out the Fanjul family. They love the money they’ll get

Florida is sinking economically and Crist is blowing this wad of money. I despise him for caving into the Seminoles too

[NautiNurse]

Crist has been chumming with McCain to spread the $1.75B purchase across fed and state budgets. Here we have a photo of them campaigning across the Everglades in an airboat... Other than the media, McCain's biggest audience was the alligators.