Rubio presses Pentagon to reject Miami-Dade’s plan for airport at Homestead base

As talks continue between the Air Force and Miami-Dade to bring a small airport to the Homestead Air Reserve Base, U.S Sen. Marco Rubio is pressing the Pentagon to reject the plan.

The Air Force this week responded to a critical letter about the plan from Rubio, a Republican from West Miami running for reelection, saying it was “well aware” of concerns by environmental groups that the county’s plan would harm surrounding wetlands and underwater coral reefs if commercial operations came to the military facility.

Backers of the plan call the fears baseless, with the proposal only calling for a small airport for private jets and not the cargo planes critics claim are the real goal for the site.

“I appreciate the Air Force’s commitment that protects the ongoing Everglades restoration and core mission set of Homestead Air Reserve Base,” Rubio said in a statement released by his office Thursday. “I will continue to work with my colleagues, the Air Force, and local officials to make sure our national security and resiliency efforts are not jeopardized for the sake of Amazon’s convenience.”

In the Jan. 4 response to Rubio, an Air Force executive said the military was awaiting another formal proposal after rejecting a prior plan by Miami-Dade to build an airport on base land.

The letter by Jennifer Miller, an assistant secretary at the Air Force, appears to refer to a March 2020 memo she sent to the county rejecting a site on the northern side of the base but suggesting an alternative location for a small airport (known as a “fixed-base operator”) partially outside the facility’s southeastern perimeter.

The Air Force “rejected [the county] proposal when we determined the proposed Fixed-Base Operator (FBO) location would impact missions at Homestead ARB,” Miller wrote Rubio. The Air Force “does anticipate a revised proposal with a new FBO location forthcoming.”

She said the Air Force would try to “strike a balance between economic and environmental policies” in deciding on the county’s request.

The letter didn’t seem to break new ground in an airport quest that’s been underway for years.

But it highlights the alliance between Rubio and environmental groups against South Miami-Dade commercial efforts as he faces a well-funded challenge by Democrat Val Demings, a member of Congress from the Orlando area.

In his Dec. 8 letter to the Air Force opposing the airport, Rubio linked the plan to a proposed 9-million-square-foot industrial park planned nearby on farmland outside of Miami-Dade’s Urban Development Boundary. Rubio called it a “misguided” proposal centered around a facility planned for Amazon.

Developer Aligned Real Estate Holdings wrote the Air Force days later to rebut Rubio, saying the Amazon assertion “is not correct,” and called the senator’s environmental warnings faulty because developing the farmland would significantly reduce runoff pollution from fertilizer.

Rubio is allied with the county’s leading Democrat, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, in opposing the Aligned project.

But the Levine Cava administration is negotiating with the Air Force for an airport deal, which county commissioners last endorsed in October 2020, during the final weeks of the prior administration under then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez. Then a commissioner herself, Levine Cava passed an amendment limiting the proposal to small passenger aircraft known as “general aviation” and not commercial or cargo planes.

Critics of the plan say opening Homestead to private planes will make the shift to cargo too tempting, given the expansion of industrial projects like the Aligned proposal in the area.

Eve Samples, director of the Friends of the Everglades, said she was encouraged that in her letter, Miller cited talks with environmental groups over the airport project and the military’s plan for an extensive environmental review if the two sides agree on a potential location.

“I think the letter shows the Air Force is giving this proposal some serious scrutiny because of all the concerns it raises,” she said. “That’s a good thing.”

This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 7:37 PM.