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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation on Wednesday that eliminates climate change as a priority in state policymaking, as well as most references to it in state law. Florida is known as one of the most climate-vulnerable states in the country due to its susceptibility to sea level rise, hurricanes and flooding.
The new legislation, which will take effect on July 1, also weakens natural gas pipeline regulations and bans offshore wind turbines off the Florida coast, reported The Washington Post.
“The legislation I signed today — HB 1645, HB 7071, and HB 1331 — will keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and China out of our state,” DeSantis said in a social media post on Wednesday. “We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots.”
With solar energy thriving in the state, some climate advocates have said the new law would not have much impact on Florida’s transition toward renewable energy, The Washington Post reported. It also isn’t a big target of the wind industry due to its generally low winds.
Environmentalists said the new regulations dismissed the many climate-related threats facing the state, reported The Hill.
“It is extremely alarming that leaders in Tallahassee have eliminated statutory language that recognized the dangers of climate pollution, the importance of energy efficiency, and realities of increasing extreme weather events due to a warming planet,” Yoca Arditi-Rocha, executive director of the Miami-based climate advocacy organization CLEO Institute, said in a statement, as The Hill reported.
In a recent survey conducted by Florida Atlantic University, 90 percent of the state’s residents said they accepted the reality of climate change, while 69 percent supported the state taking action to address the crisis.
Greg Knecht, Florida’s Nature Conservancy director, commented that the legislation “is very much out of line with public opinion,” reported The Washington Post.
Knect said that, while Republicans have directed millions of dollars toward flood control projects, they also portray the reduction of carbon pollution as radical.
“On one hand, we recognize that we’re seeing flooding and we’re seeing property damage and we’re seeing hurricanes, and we’re conveying to the public that we can build our way out of these problems,” Knecht said. “And then on the other hand, we’re turning around and saying, ‘Yeah, but climate change isn’t really real, and we don’t need to do anything about it.’”
In addition to eliminating “climate change” from state policy, the regulations took away language that gave state officials the power to set targets for increasing green energy.
“What Florida is really doing is saying we’re going to deemphasize any policies that would help mitigate climate change,” said Emily Hammond, a George Washington University professor of law, as CNN reported.
Government agencies are also no longer required to consult a list of “climate-friendly” products, hold meetings in “green lodging” hotels or make fuel efficiency a priority in the purchase of new vehicles, reported The Washington Post.
“Floridians are on the frontlines of rising sea levels, rising extreme heat, rising property insurance prices, more frequent flooding, and more severe storms. This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the Governor and the State Legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry,” Arditi-Rocha said, as The Hill reported.
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