On the recordJuly 14, 2014
Madam President, I am just busting out with ideas I wish to discuss with the Senate. Since we don't have any other Senators standing in line, I will share where I have been today and what is of urgency for the environmental community and particularly the Environmental Protection Agency in the Federal Government. We have been spending hundreds of billions of dollars to restore the Florida Everglades. This is a natural resource that is unique in all of the world, and its environmental effects are felt far beyond Florida and the United States--indeed, on the entire planet. It is a source of water that starts southwest of Orlando in a little creek called Shingle Creek and flows south through the Kissimmee chain of lakes, into the Kissimmee River, into Lake Okeechobee, the big lake in southern Florida. From there the water then flows further to the south in what is termed the River of Grass--the Florida Everglades. From there it moves very slowly through all of that grass, and it eventually ends up on the southern tip of the peninsula in Florida Bay by the Florida Keys or to the southwest of Florida, coming out through what is an area known as the Shark River Slough into the Gulf of Mexico. It is a unique natural resource. I once had Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairman of the environment committee, down there. We travel in the Everglades in an airboat since there is little depth to the water. Of course, it is all watered grass.…





