Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., today introduced a bill that would force the EPA to scrap its set of Florida water quality standards and instead accept rules drafted by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
In an interview with Southeast AgNet, Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Panama City, says a set of federally mandated water pollution rules would be “terribly dangerous” for Florida, and could cost the state close to 50,000 agricultural jobs alone.
State Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, has reintroduced legislation to stop animal rights activists from obtaining photographic records of farming operations in Florida.
A petition protesting the EPA’s “numeric nutrient criteria,” a set of stringent water pollution standards specific to the state of Florida, has been sent to President Barack Obama, in an attempt to urge him to “reign in the EPA’s power grab and return water quality regulation to state government.” The petition was backed largely by the Florida Farm Bureau, a group whose members could be hit with costly upgrades or fines because of the new rules.
Water pollution in the state of Florida might be a major problem for the state’s citizens, but a Monday meeting of major stakeholders in the EPA’s “numeric nutrient criteria” — a set of standards to clean up Florida waterways — revealed that industry and agriculture leaders have laid claim to the issue.
Nearly all of Georgia’s immigration-enforcement state law, better known as H.B. 87, goes into effect today in the midst of protests over its provisions.
When asked by state lawmakers how much new EPA water quality standards may cost Florida businesses, the Department of Environmental Protection supplied them with numbers written by the very industries that could be affected. In doing so, the department vouched for the statistics as the “most ‘likely’” estimates despite the EPA’s vigorous disagreement, and without indicating the business-affiliated source of the numbers.
“If they don’t have anything to hide, what are they worrying about?”
According to the Florida Farm Bureau, state Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, drafted his controversial “Farms” bill at the behest of Wilton Simpson of Pasco County, whose Simpson Farms produces 21 million eggs annually for Florida’s second-largest egg seller, Tampa Farm Service, Inc. As currently written, Senate Bill 1246 would make photography “at or of a farm” a first-degree felony.
A controversial Senate bill currently under review in Tallahassee will be revised, according to a spokesman for the Florida Farm Bureau.
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