DeSantis pummels critics for pinning Hurricane Idalia on climate change
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday scoffed at the notion that wild weather such as Hurricane Idalia has anything to do with climate change, while blasting President Biden and others for claiming it does.
“If you look, there was a storm that went on this almost exact track in 1896, and it had 125 mph winds just like this one,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Yankeetown, Fla., when asked about the role of climate change in the deadly ‘cane that just pelted his state.
“If you look at the state of Florida, the most powerful hurricane we’ve ever had … the anniversary is now — it’s the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935,” the GOP presidential hopeful said. “It had 185 mph sustained winds.
“So, I think sometimes people need to take a breath and get a little bit of perspective here,” added DeSantis, who has long been skeptical about what he describes as “climate change alarmism.”
“The notion that somehow if we just adopt, you know, very left-wing policies at the federal level that somehow we will not have hurricanes, that is a lie,” he said when asked by a reporter about climate-change warnings issued by Biden and others, including many in the scientific community.
“And that is people trying to take what happened with different types of storms and use that as a pretext to advance their agenda on the backs of people that are suffering. And that’s wrong, and we’re not going to do that in the state of Florida,” he said.
DeSantis has put his campaign-trail work on hold to oversee the cleanup of Idalia, which became a Category 4 storm and battered northern Florida last week, leaving at least two dead in the Sunshine State.
Damage from the storm is estimated to cost somewhere between $18 billion to $20 billion, according to AccuWeather’s preliminary analysis.
Biden again raised concerns about climate change two days before his Saturday visit to the state to tour the wreckage.
“There’s still some deniers out there in terms of whether or not climate change had anything to do with any of this, and we’re gonna need a whole hell of a lot more money,” Biden said.
DeSantis did not accompany Biden on his Florida visit Saturday, with his office citing logistics and security concerns.
Biden has vowed to marshal federal resources for Florida and pressed Congress to replenish federal disaster aid funds.
Although DeSantis has skeptical about doing “left-wing stuff” to mitigate climate change, he has previously taken steps to shore up Florida’s infrastructure for extreme weather events.
In late 2021, he rolled out an “Always Ready Florida” three-year plan to spend roughly $270 million on projects across the state to combat flooding and other extreme weather phenomenon.
When asked Monday about how much faith he had in the federal government to assist with the cleanup efforts, DeSantis underscored the state’s preparations.
“I think that the state of Florida, we prepare for this stuff. We were prepared. We responded,” DeSantis replied. “And really, what the federal government’s role is just turning on programs Congress has enacted over many, many years So, it’s basically serving as a checkbook to get people reimbursed for debris clean up.
“I anticipate that that will go smoothly, but most of the nuts and bolts is done by our local communities and by the state of Florida,” he said. “And that’s really how it should be. Disaster response is really bottom up.”
