Bill Nelson (left) speaks at a press conference about Hurricane Irma with fellow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (center) and Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Sept. 6 in Doral, Florida. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Florida Sen. Bill Nelson: Republicans ‘denying reality’ on climate change

Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, after surveying the damage that Hurricane Irma inflicted across his state, blasted Republican politicians who reject the science and minimize the importance of climate change—including his likely opponent in 2018, Governor Rick Scott.

In an interview Tuesday evening with POLITICO, Nelson said it’s clear that manmade global warming made Irma worse by increasing the temperature and the height of the seas that fueled the storm. He said he didn’t want to play partisan politics in the aftermath of a hurricane, but then went on to criticize Republicans in general and Scott in particular—though not by name—for opposing climate action. He noted that both the Trump administration in Washington and the Scott administration in Tallahassee have reportedly discouraged government employees from even talking about climate change.


“It’s denying reality,” Nelson said. “You can call it politics or whatever, but the Earth is getting hotter. This storm is another reminder of what we’re going to have to deal with in the future.”

Nelson, a former astronaut, launched into a detailed explanation of the science of climate change and the greenhouse effect, and how it has helped make the waters around Florida higher and warmer in recent decades. He said it would be a crucial issue in his reelection campaign, even as he avoided the words “Rick Scott.”

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“It’s certainly going to be an important issue, and if certain people such as the one you mentioned is my opponent, there’s a significant contrast in what we believe,” Nelson said.

Florida is a swing state in presidential elections, but its state government and statewide offices tilt heavily Republican; Nelson has been an exception to the red wave, but a well-known, well-funded opponent like Scott would be by far his most difficult challenge to date. He clearly sees climate as a potential wedge issue in a state with a heavily coastal population and increasing vulnerability to Irma-type disasters. Scott did not discuss the issue in his frequent Irma briefings; a spokesperson for the governor, when asked about Nelson’s comments, said, “Now is not the time for politics. This storm is not a partisan issue. Now is the time to focus on helping Florida rebuild.”

But in the past, he has questioned climate science—or declined to affirm the scientific consensus that it’s being cause by humans, often noting, “I am not a scientist”—and fossil-fuel interests have supported his campaigns. In 2015, the Miami Herald reported that Scott’s administration had even banned the use of the terms “climate change,” “global warming” and “sustainability” in official documents.

Nelson is not known in Washington as a leader on climate issues, but he said he’s focused on them since he was Florida’s insurance commissioner in the 1990s. He’s fought against President Trump’s proposed cuts to climate science at agencies like NOAA, NASA and EPA, and said he helped persuade the Obama administration to launch a satellite, first dreamed up by Al Gore, that takes continuous pictures of the Earth from deep space.

But Nelson didn’t really argue that he deserved kudos for accepting the conclusions of the scientific community; he argued that Republicans on the other side of the issue need to explain why they think “99.5 percent of climate scientists” are wrong. Several prominent Republicans in South Florida—including Miami-Dade County mayor Carlos Gimenez and Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen—have made it clear they believe Washington needs to take climate seriously. Nelson pointed out that politicians don’t question government scientists when they say a hurricane is coming—but when the same agencies use the same scientific instruments to measure long-term climate trends, opinions suddenly differ.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Nelson said. “They accept the hurricane information, but deny the climate information … Look, some people still think the Earth is flat.”