Gov. Charlie Crist speaks opens his first Florida Summit on Global Climate Change at the Miami InterContinental Hotel in July 2007. | Post photo

This story was printed Aug. 12 on page 1A of The Palm Beach Post.

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Charlie Crist’s plans for a third high-profile climate summit have been indefinitely postponed as the Republican weighs the political cost of the event’s expensive price tag.

But Crist’s reluctance to appear out of touch with financially frustrated Floridians — and perhaps his party’s conservative base — has not stopped him from asking the event’s sponsors to help fund his U.S. Senate campaign.

Campaign finance reports show Crist has collected $106,500 from individuals and companies tied to past sponsors of his climate summits. That total is 40 percent of the costs of his 2006 summit and nearly 20 percent of the expenses of last year’s event.

Postponing the summit has also raised questions about whether Crist, who is facing an aggressive primary challenge and a restless base in the state GOP, is backing away from the environmental issues that marked his first two years in office.

Some environmentalists say Crist’s record has been tarnished by his recent openness to off-shore drilling and his support for a new law that weakened limits on growth.

Marco Rubio

Rubio, meanwhile, has faced questions about his own environmental policies.

On the campaign trail, Rubio says a federal cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gases will make America “the cleanest Third World country on the planet.”

But he opened the 2007 legislative session by saying emission caps were inevitable.

“Florida should be the Silicon Valley of that emerging industry,” Rubio said at the time.

A cap-and-trade program would force companies that exceed limits on greenhouse gas emissions to buy “credits” from companies that are below those limits.

In 2008, under Rubio’s leadership, lawmakers passed the Florida Climate Protection Act, which authorized the state to develop a cap-and-trade program.

But Rubio said the bill, which Crist signed at his 2008 summit, was not a sign of his support for such a program. “We wanted Florida to be in a position to comply with federal legislation,” Rubio said.

Crist laughed recently at the suggestion that Rubio’s attacks have influenced his plans for another summit. But Crist acknowledged he’s not sure whether to hold one. The reason: Cost.

Ford

“He’s already going to have some challenges in the conservative portion of his base, especially in my area,” said state House energy committee Vice Chairman Clay Ford, a Panhandle Republican.

Several sponsors of the summits, including four of the six who donated the most last year, said they would probably have donated again this year.

Cherry

“Canceling one event should not be read as a change in his attitude,” said Bud Cherry, CEO of Energy 5.0, a West Palm Beach renewable energy company that donated $75,000 to the 2008 event.

Despite no summit yet this year, sponsors are showing their support for Crist in his Senate race.

Executives from at least three companies — Walt Disney and Darden Restaurants in Orlando and TECO Energy in Tampa — have donated more to Crist’s campaign than their companies gave to the 2008 summit. TECO President John Ramil, who has given $4,800 to Crist, also helped organize a Father’s Day fund-raiser for Crist.

Dinerstein

“The issue of global warming is very far down on the public’s priority list,” Dinerstein said. “The governor is going to stick to knitting and taking care of the fiscal problems at home, like a good governor should.”

~mike_bender@pbpost.com

Tags: campaign contributions, Charlie Crist, climate change, climate summit, Marco Rubio, Republicans

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 11:40 pm and is filed under 2010 campaigns, Charlie Crist, Jeff Atwater, audio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.