Florida Congressman Jimmy Patronis took time between two House votes to talk about issues that matter to people in Northwest Florida.
Due to time constraints, Mid Bay News was unable to ask Patronis several questions. We have sent those questions to his office, and will update the article when those are recieved.
(Editor’s Note: The following is the transcript of an interview between Mid Bay News reporter Collin Bestor and Rep. Jimmy Patronis. It has been edited to fit AP guidelines.
There were questions that we weren’t able to ask due to time constraints. We have sent those to his office, and once those questions are answered, they will be added at the end of this article.”
Collin Bestor: “Hey, congressman.”
Rep. Jimmy Patronis: “Hey, bud, how are you?”
CB: “I’m good. I saw that you’ve had a busy morning.”
JP: “It’s been a busy week. We had the patriarch of the Orthodox church in town this week. As you may not know, I am Greek Orthodox, and a couple of us are in the process. And so the speaker was very accommodating with, you know, honoring him, and then had meetings with the President. And so, just a lot is going on with his visit to the United States.”
CB: “I was reading with a CBS you guys, the Republican House passed a short-term funding bill, and now it’s going to face a fight in the Senate where they don’t necessarily have the democratic support like they did earlier in the year.”
JP: “Well, they say, they say they don’t, you know. So, I mean, now it’s going to be time to, you know, either fish or cut bait. Do these guys want to be the ones really, truly responsible for the government shutdown? We send them a totally clean, continued resolution. And look, it’s, it’s, it’s not perfect. We’ve still got work. To do. But, you know, nobody’s got any pet projects, personal agendas in there. You know, we just need to continue taking care of keeping the government operational.”
CB: I know you’re pressed on time, so we’ll get right into the interview. We have a couple questions from the constituents. We actually got it on Facebook, so we have that, and we’ll get that towards the end, but I kind of want to go over that you’ve been a busy guy, and since we last talked to you, you’ve introduced multiple bills. You’ve introduced a resolution as well.
CB: So we’ll start with H.R. 5029, the Blue Angels Act. It’s basically to keep the Blue Angels in Northwest Florida for quite some time. How do you think this impacts Florida’s economy, in Northwest Florida, and the culture by keeping the Blue Angels here in Pensacola?
JP: “Well, you know, I don’t think that people realize how important the Blue Angels are to Northwest Florida. And as you start to realize the impact and the identity they have developed. But, you know, just look, one of the things I learned when I took on this job, you know, I thought I knew some of the details of how those families operate. But, you know, they’re almost home every single weekend, their families become neighbors with Northwest Florida families, and we become attached. And then when you see them travel all over the country, it’s like rooting for your home team. So look, were there some threats by other members of Congress that would have liked to have taken the Blue Angels to their districts? There were internal discussions about that. So I thought, you know what, it’s time to go and put a few more little guardrails in place to ensure that that’s not an issue that we’re gonna have to debate in the future. I don’t know if Jimmy Patronis is going to be the member of Congress that you’re going to elect every single time moving forward, but I do know the love for the Blue Angels exists, and it’s very deep in Northwest Florida. And I think it’s the appropriate thing to do to ensure for members to come or generations to come, they call Northwest Florida home.”
CB: “Most of these bills that you’ve introduced are heavily military-focused. So we’ll continue on with the HOMEFRONT Act, which got a lot of attention on our website, you say it cuts the red tape for some of these service members. Some of these service members live in very old homes. They need to be renovated. Why was this so important to you? Was this one of the things you learned by traveling to, because I know you went to every military base in Northwest Florida recently. Was this something that came up during these conversations that allowed you to introduce this bill?”
JP: “Actually, it came up before that. So, back when I was in the state legislature, I had done some work on base housing issues where it had a state of Florida Nexus. So you know, as I learned, especially after Hurricane Michael hit Tyndall Air Force Base, and you saw the massive undertaking to rebuild all those homes. But you know, seeing and understanding how these homes look, people are moving in and out of these homes every, you know, 12 to 18 months. So they get beat up. They sometimes are built with older technology, older building codes, older efficiencies. And, you know, there’s a lot to be said when somebody moves into a new home. So I sit on the subcommittee that has oversight over the Coast Guard. I was touring one of the Coast Guard bases earlier this year, and I was walking through one of their new communities that they had developed for the Coasties, and the house was so incredibly nice. I’m thinking, you know what, as a family is moving to serve our country, and you can afford them this type of place to live, I tell you, that is a real shot in the arm to the quality of life, to that family and their commitment to serving our country. So as you start to see where we have older dwellings, older homes, and there becomes some red tape in place that keeps you from being able to make those necessary improvements, my gosh. You know, our men and women deserve the best, and sometimes that means the older homes need to go and we need to give them a brighter, fresher, safer place to raise their family. I mean, some of these, some of these places, they’re built for a Midwest environment where there’s zero humidity, and they use the exact same construction methods in a part of the country where it’s 100% humidity, so the AC units struggle. They don’t work because they’re not engineered for our type of environment. That’s foolish. That needs to be corrected. And we need to start with this legislation.
CB: “In your tour (of military bases), what other concerns from local service members have you received? Are you going to take any action based on those concerns?”
JP: ‘Well, I mean, so you take NAS Pensacola again, home of the Blue Angels, the hangars and structures over there. These things are older than me. Okay, so the facilities that they’re using, they’re dated. They have been hurricane-ravaged. They’re kind of held together with netting and duct tape. So, you know, it would be nice to be able to make those type of necessary improvements, replacements or renovations, to be able to allow these facilities to do their jobs for with max efficiency. So the installations need some TLC. So we have to go and advocate. I’m not a big person. If you’re coming to me wanting to earmark for something, one thing or another, I’m probably not going to be your guy. But when it comes to getting the resources back to our installations, I feel that is truly a use of federal dollars that is in the guidelines of what they’re intended to be used for, and putting them back to work in our district, at those installations, I think is a good use of bringing dollars home to Northwest Florida”.
CB: “Another project that could gain some support from you, Congressman, is Highway 98 and Highway 85 infrastructure improvements. The base commanders at Hurlburt and Eglin Air Force Base say that traffic is impacting mission readiness. Let’s say if something happens, people need to get on base quickly. Highways 98 and 85 don’t necessarily have the capability to handle a mass influx of traffic. Obviously, I feel like you’ve been stuck on 98 and 85 at times in your life. Is there anything that they’ve talked to about the get the federal help to solve these problems?
JP: “Yeah. So we worked on changing some language to help the prioritization of dollars when it comes to military safety or military readiness. And so there’s dollars that come from the federal government to the State Department of Transportation, and you got to put a little more strings attached to it, saying these dollars have to go to our military installations for egress issues, especially when it comes to being able to get them in and out to complete their missions and do their job. So we’ve been working it from the Federal angle. I’ve also been working with stakeholders on the installation. Some places you’re going to need easements, and some places you’re going to need to acquire right away. These are expensive endeavors, and so there are more value oriented plans that do exist, but sometimes you have to work the bureaucracy. You have to be able to make sense of how you’re going to make a better quality of life and also readiness of the mission by utilizing some ideas that may not have been standard operating procedure by, you know, somebody’s standards. So again, I care about time. Time is something you can never get back, and when it comes back to the time of being a react or time with your family, we should make that a priority when we make decisions, and sometimes have to force some of these things to come to fruition.
CB: “And more about Hurlburt and Duke Field, you learned earlier this week, as much of all of us did, that several squadrons are actually leaving Hurlburt and Duke Field, going to Arizona. This was a big fight by your predecessor, Representative Matt Gatez, and Senator Rick Scott, who will also get to later in our interview. But are there any things that you’re advocating for for the retention of missions at local installations? Are there any talks about replacement missions coming to local bases?”
JP: “So you know, this has been something that has been all consuming for about the last two weeks. This decision has started in 2023. Call it whatever you want, if I’m going to read the tea leaves and stitch together the narrative that I understand, this seems like a very political move. As you’ve got a blue state like Arizona, and you’ve got blue senators over there that are trying to figure out a way how to be relevant. You’ve got a fight taking place in Arizona of wanting to Air Force, wanting to retire the A-10s, and the Air Force is blaming, you know, Congress doesn’t want to retire the A-10s. So you get these fights that are ensuing, and you’re trying to find how to make you know, the protecting of the missions in Northwest Florida, a top priority. I’m telling you the families that are going to be displaced, they’re going to have to leave from Northwest Florida (to) Arizona. I guarantee you can ask every single one of them, do you want to move to Arizona? I guarantee you it’ll be 100% consensus amongst them. They would rather stay put in the state of Florida, and so it’s frustrating. I’ve had dialogues with Secretary (Pete) Hegseth, Senator (Rick) Scott and I personally met earlier this week with the Secretary of the Air Force. And look, I think you know, some of these things were put into motion when there was a different administration in place. I tell people all the time, if you don’t engage, if you don’t engage, your elections and you get the government you deserve. And unfortunately, with those four years of the Biden administration, I feel like you know, our part of the country, you know we were treated in a way that was not going to be where our agenda was going to be a priority, but it was going to be other parts of the country where it was going to be a President’s priority because of politics. Again, that is, that is purely Jimmy Patronis. his own commentary. But you know, we got to fight fire with fire. So as you know, I was wearing out the Secretary, as I had very productive dialogs with Pete Hegseth, you got to be able to find ways to turn this bowl of lemons into a lemon pie or lemonade. So again, the relationships are being established, the encouraging and massaging of the relationships with the Air Force and their future mission readiness of where it might go and where they might plan, have got to be something that we’re after nurture and grow. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the relationship with the previous administration we’ve got with this one, so we’ve got to make the best of it.”
CB: “And any word on replacement missions coming to Northwest Florida is that still too soon to talk about? It s too soon?”
JP: “There’s still some documents that have to go. So an EIS is an environmental impact statement. There’s going have to still be some of that before this mission moves. It’s not going to happen overnight, and there are still opportunities where you might be able to protect it. Some of these are mission components that have never even been started yet. So, you know, this new crop duster plane that they’ve got that’s going to be something that has not flown yet, that’ll be based in the brain. You said we didn’t lose anything with that one. You know, did we lose the right to have that training take place? But then you have the finger point with the Air Force that, you know, the Gulf range is important as it is. You know, it’s, it’s outside of the control of Hurlburt Field,with a schoolhouse training mission of equipment like that. So look, we, we have got to continue to advocate, and we will when the opportunity fits, where a new mission comes online, or we have something that makes sense to move to Northwest Florida for any of a number of the great reasons why Florida’s a great place to do business. You know, we’ll be prepared to make that argument.”
CB: “Moving on to some state and more national issues, the NDAA recently passed your amendment to repeal a Biden administration mandate, which was successful, about $898 billion dollars, is now going towards military bases. There’s a Senate companion bill as well. How do you feel about that NDAA process, getting your amendment passed through, looking back on it now, what was your reaction from that?”
JP: “Well, Senate, I don’t believe the Senate’s taken their full vote on this yet. So it’s past the stage where the Senate can be doing any amendments to the bill. But, you know, with the type of DEI and issues that were placed enforced upon our military made no sense. These were things that were going to be cost drivers, philosophically, they weren’t going to help or complement mission readiness. And when you look at, you tell our installations that you’re going to have to buy EVs, and you’re going (to) have to buy hybrids for these non-tactical vehicles. The problem you’re going to run into is that, as I look at our installations, every one of them has a Gulf front attachment to it. Any type of saltwater flooding takes place, which it was not, if it’s when it’s going to happen. EVs are combustible where you have what’s called a thermal runaway, the car gets flooded, the battery starts to short out because of high mineral content, shorts out the battery, and then you can’t put these things out. That’s not the type of equipment we should be expecting our best and brightest staff to depend on. So when I was CFO of the state, we learned this the hard way with Hurricane Ian, as it flooded Southwest Florida, we had arguably about 25 different EVs that caught on fire, and then you’ve got a vehicle that is going to burn up to maybe six hours or longer, and you can’t, you can’t do anything but watch it burn. And so, you know, I told in debate on the floor about it, you know, the democratic colleague of mine was making the arguments that he’s a mechanic. And you know why these are good things to happen? Well, dude, I was a state fire marshal, and this is why they’re bad. And you just can’t take a chance of having that type of hazardous, unpredictable dependency on that type of a technology, as fantastic as it is, to be a threat when it comes to a time of hurricanes, that’s what they do when, during the storm, they become a threat.”
CB: “And moving on to a couple other things that you’ve been doing nationally. You introduced H.R. 4873, preventing woke AI in the federal government. And this is sort of, I think, a little bit of a little picture, and sort of your fight. I follow you on Twitter. It’s a good Twitter follow, by the way. About you going after big tech. But it’s, big tech companies, you know, and the, I guess, sort of nefarious things, they hide from consumers, and you want that all in the open. You said that big tech collects data behind the scenes about people (without) realizing it. Are there any examples about Floridians being harmed today due to that lack of transparency?”
JP: “So I’ve always been an advocate of making sure that the user of any technology is having the ability to opt out. And you know, California has this on the law on the books, and so you get different states that fight back. Well, you’re going to tie our hands because you’re going to force us to have different websites for different states. And I said, Well, guys, I said, I hear you, but California already does this. Just let the consumer opt out. If I go and log on to whatever website it might be, you’ll start to see more and more of the pop-up that comes up. Some of them are very friendly, saying I would like to opt out. Other ones say I do not want you to collect cookies. You know, some of them force you to go into a menu to opt out. And I look, I just encourage people to opt out. Don’t let anyone have your information. And I’m give you a quick example. So earlier this week in my office, one of our staffers got a phone call, and we posted this on the internet where a very official sounding individual was calling, threatening our employee with a federal arrest warrant, and so was walking him through text him a document, that document is loaded full of personal information, so it seems like an official federal document, a civil warrant, you know, basically given the directions, you could go to a local law enforcement office there in Washington, DC, and turn yourself in. This document actually gives you the opportunity. You can go to Bitcoin terminal and pay your bail there, your fine there, and forgo having to go to the station. So what they’re they’re scaring you. We’re all pretty much law-biding citizens. But now you’ve got somebody who sounds very official, saying you’re a very official-sounding document, all that information that they collaborated to put together, that document was taken off the internet. So this one, I’m just telling you, there’s data breaches every single day. Why would you allow a total stranger to have access to your social security number, your cell phone number, your home address, any of that? You would never do it. So why are you given some strange website you’ve never been to that same access to your information? So again, please err on the side of caution. Never sign anything. Never opt in. And by all means, if you can’t opt out before engaging in these websites, you should. Unfortunately, social media companies have been very good at developing content that forces our eyes to be glued to it. It’s like a digital fentanyl. And where I care about it the most is with our seniors and our kids. You know, when you’re after 18, you’re pretty much an adult. You know, buyer beware, but where we can help put some guardrails in place, and one, I think, is what’s called the repealing of Section 230. If you got rid of 230, the liability protections those social media companies hide behind goes away, and you know what’ll happen? They’ll start to be a hell of a lot more conscientious about what they’re going to show you or what they’re going to ask you for.”
CB: “Yeah, and okay, so we only have I know you’re I know you’re busy, but I want to get to quick hits, so just I have a couple questions from constituents, and we’ll get you out of here.”
CB: “So Andrew from Crestview said, Will you join your predecessor? Obviously, Matt Gatez, and supporting transparency into the unidentified aerial phenomena?
JP: “So I’m not sitting on that particular committee. I’ve been trying to keep up with what’s taking place. Look, I would rather have as much transparency as you can have,possible. Sometimes it’s a little slower coming to fruition then, then we would all like but again, I was getting a just like a news clip briefing about it the other day, and I was actually pretty startled from some of the testimonies some of our own members of the military were giving. So, you know, definitely intrigued me to want to learn more about it and whatever we can provide forward. It’d be nice to have the public to be able to see for their own two eyes.”
CB: “All right. Another question is from Victoria. She asked, What solutions do you have for helping constituents respect each other and improve the community, even across disagreements? This obviously, is in line with the discourse we’ve seen on social media since the death of Charlie
Kirk.”
JP: “Yeah, you know, it’s really been sad how a murder of a young husband has been twisted into such a hate rant by some people, you know? And I don’t know how somebody could wish (violence on other people.) You hear the comments of people (saying they are) glad that it happened. That is so just….it’s terrible to know that people actually getting horrible, those type of emotions. And so, you know, look, I grew up in the restaurant business. My attitude has always been, everybody’s a customer, you know. So, you know, the restaurant business is very competitive. If you don’t take care of the customer, somebody else will. But I’m also told people, some people shouldn’t go out to eat. So, I mean, you know, you got to understand that. You know your words, they may not necessarily cause harm or pain, but they definitely can create a reaction that is going to lead to some other type of discourse. And you look at Jimmy Kimmel, you know, Jimmy Kimmel is coloring outside of the lines and (bringing) in some very high, charged emotions. And you know, oh, what’s his own free speech? Well, it’s his own free speech in front of a microphone that has a global audience. So you know, when things like that happen with Kimmel, television stations say, You know what, I don’t want to carry it anymore because it’s hurting my ability to sell ads, so it becomes a business decision. And, you know, unfortunately, time heals wounds. This one’s going to take a little bit longer. I think the healing will start, probably after Sunday’s funeral service, but yeah, civil discourse and political hate and political violence, there’s no room for any of that stuff.”
CB: “All right. And final question for you, Congressman, because I respect the hustle of the person who asked this question. He’s a former radio guy like myself, Kevin McKay from 99 Rock. He wants your opinion on what do you think of Kevin McKay? And what do you think of 99 Rock in Fort Walton Beach?”
JP: “Oh, man, you know, whenever I’m driving through Fort Walton Beach, it’s tuned in to my radio. Actually, I tuned it into Kevin’s radio station, and I ripped the knob off the radio so I can’t change it.”
CB: “Well, I feel like you just gave them a free ad. Congratulations, Congressman. Thank you so much for joining us. We’re going to do these quarterly, so the next time I think we’ll talk to you is December.”
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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