Every year when the Florida legislative session convenes, we can expect a barrage of bad bills destined to coddle polluters, facilitate ever-more “sprawl” and restrict citizens’ rights to participate in decision-making.

The 2025 session lives up — or down — to that reputation..

Below is a rundown of the worst bills of the session (so far), inspired by the work of our friends at Friends of the Everglades; check out their Legislative Accountability website for more.

Senate Bill 492/House Bill 1175 – Mitigation Banking

In Florida you need an “Environmental Resource Permit” when you want to build a project that could have an effect on wetlands or other surface waters. Part of this includes mitigating the impacts of a project; one way to do that is to buy credits from a mitigation bank. But generally, you need to buy mitigation credits in the basin where you wish to build your project.

SB 492/HB 1175 would change that by allowing developers to purchase mitigation credits from other basins (or “mitigation service areas) for a higher cost. But bottom line, this legislation could result in the loss of additional wetlands in areas that can ill afford to lose even more; just buy mitigation credits from a basin miles away to “make up for” the damage you’re going to do in the local basin. The entire point is to permit additional development in areas already largely built out.

Sponsors: Sen. Stan McClain (R-9); Rep. Wyman Duggan (R-12)

SB 1118/HB 1209 – Land Use and Development Regulations

Possibly the worst bills of this session (so far), these bills give a free pass to developers and curtail citizens’ ability to be involved in the planning process.

First, these bills would allow owners of land designated as an “agricultural enclave” to receive administrative approval of development without any public hearings or any action at all by the local government boards or commissions. Citizens get aced out of the planning process.

Another provision of these bills makes it even worse, requiring that any time a community seeks to amend its comprehensive plan to make it more restrictive or burdensome concerning development, those changes must be approved by a supermajority of the governing body. And, it would require counties treat “agricultural enclaves” adjacent to an urban services district as if they were inside the urban services district, meaning even more development.

Bottom line: Florida developers are engaged in a crusade to pave over every blade of grass. SB 1118 and HB 1209, if passed, will make it easier for them to do so.

Sponsors: Sen. Stan McClain (R-9); Rep. Kevin Steele (R-55)

SB 1388/HB 1001 – Vessels

These bills would do three key things: Prohibit Florida Fish and  Wildlife Conservation Commission officers from stopping boats for inspections without probable cause; make marine sanitation equipment violation a secondary offense, thus cutting a break to polluters; and worst of all, it would prohibit local governments from restricting the use or sale of watercraft based on the energy source used to power it. In effect that means gasoline-powered vessels would be permitted to go anywhere kayaks or paddleboards are allowed.

Sponsors: Sen. Jay Trumbull (R-2); Rep. Philip Wayne Griffitts Jr. (R-6)

SB 832/HB 585 – Former Phosphate Mining Lands

As noted by investigative journalist Jason Garcia in a Feb. 23 Substack entry, these bills “would extend new legal protections to companies that have mined phosphate ore in Florida — and left behind radioactive materials buried just below the surface.” They would do this by eliminating strict liability under Florida’s “Water Quality Assurance Act” in claims arising from “the natural geology substance” of a former phosphate mine – “like naturally radioactive uranium or radium that has been moved closer to the surface by mining,” as Garcia put it.

Bottom line, once again Florida legislators are going to bat for polluters, in this case phosphate mining giant Mosaic, protecting their interests — at the expense of the average Floridian.

Sponsors: Sen. Danny Burgess (R-23); Rep. Jon Albert (R-46)

And speaking of the worst of the worst:

You may notice that Sen. Stan McClain, Republican of Ocala, sponsored two of the four bad Senate bills; he also sponsored another bad bill we’re watching, SB 1080, which places new deadlines on counties and municipalities in terms of responding to development proposals, basically rushing the process.

McClain in civilian life is a building contractor – go figure! – and is a periodic sponsor of some of the worst growth-related proposals each year. And in a hearing just this past week on SB 1080 and SB 1118, he came out and said, on several occasions, that the goal of the legislation is to make it easer to develop, to build more homes.

He is, in fact, the Chairman of Senate Community Affairs Committee (where this hearing was held). So: Rewarded for representing the Florida sprawl machine, the citizens’ wishes be damned.

That’s how you get the environmental degradation we have in Florida, and why we’ll see a lot more of it unless the thinking in Tallahassee changes.