The effects of climate change are real, not theoretical for the city of Miami, and more federal funding is needed to keep the city safe from rising waters, increasing storms, and more as a result, Mayor Francis Suarez said Sunday.
"We deal with it day in and day out, year after year," the Republican mayor said in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We've been dedicating a tremendous amount of resources, updating our building codes over decades, since 1992, when we had a 200-mile-per-hour hurricane event called Hurricane Andrew."
The latest challenge, though is the water and the heat wave, Suarez continued, while further discussing the city's "Miami Forever" plan that was approved in 2017, after Hurricane Irma caused a four-to-six-foot storm surge in the Florida city's central business district.
"The basis of the plan is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, [through] a voter-approved tax, and combine them with other funding sources like the state and federal government to be able to upgrade our infrastructure to deal with all the things that are being thrown our way from Mother Nature," said Suarez.
But when asked if he thinks Republicans are taking climate change seriously enough, the mayor, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the only action that is occurring at the national level is on a bipartisan basis.
"The Democrats, unfortunately, have failed to be able to pass bills to address climate at any sort of scale," said Suarez, to which show anchor Margaret Brennan pointed out that there are no Republican votes for the Democrats' measures.
"I think what it means is that it has to be bipartisan in terms of their outreach in terms of their messaging, in terms of how they pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill with Republican votes," said Suarez. "We still haven't seen any funding from that bill. Like I said, we've dedicated $200 million dollars in funding from our city residents."
Suarez said he doesn't know why none of the money has come to the cities that need it, as the Biden administration has a "great infrastructure czar" in former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
"We've gotten about $30 million or $40 million from the state, but we need significantly more than that," said Suarez.
Money has also come from the $2 trillion American Rescue plan that passed last spring, with no GOP votes, of which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has allocated over $400 million, but Suarez said more is needed.
Meanwhile, earlier this year Suarez had said he had reached out to DeSantis about health precautions he wanted to take in Miami, and on Sunday, he said he and the governor have different leadership styles.
"The state did give us about $40 million that we combined with $200 million and we did a press conference together in Broward County, so on the environment, I have to say his record over the last four years, including the legislature's record, has been very much pro-environment and something that he and I share," said Suarez.
He added that when it comes to health concerns, that city officials are monitoring the outbreak of monkeypox and he is not aware of any shortages of vaccines or testing.
"I certainly will work with the state and certainly will work with the federal government to make sure that our city is protected and that those here get the necessary testing and vaccination and to protect themselves against the monkeypox virus," Suarez said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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