Arizona’s Grijalva will step down as top Dem on key U.S. House panel on environment • Florida Phoenix Raúl Grijalva, the top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, will not seek to remain in that position in the next Congress, he said in a written statement Monday. The announcement from Grijalva, an Arizona progressive who has led Democrats on the committee overseeing environmental, public lands and tribal issues for a decade, […]

Arizona’s Grijalva will step down as top Dem on key U.S. House panel on environment #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Be thankful you don’t live in this Florida city, which is trying to punish its own citizens • Florida Phoenix Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! Contrary to what you were told in the second grade, the first Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine 56 years before the Pilgrims arrived. The attendees were Spanish settlers and the native Timucuans. They ate garbanzo stew and alligator and afterward probably got into an argument over whose sports team had a […]

Three Cape Coral residents tried to stop the city from boosting local pollution and now the city expects them to pay nearly $2 million. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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To save a river, Florida small town’s activists oust every incumbent • Florida Phoenix I’m back in the Panhandle this week visiting family and while here I felt compelled to check in on the Blackwater River. It’s the first river I ever canoed back when I was in Boy Scouts, so it holds a special place in my memory. Imagine my surprise to learn that the river had just […]

Their mission, should they choose to accept it, turns out to be quite possible after all. #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida man wins election, will ensure Florida loses on environment • Florida Phoenix Since we became a state in 1845, Florida-based candidates have repeatedly run for president but repeatedly lost. Reubin Askew, Bob Graham, Jeb Bush — each one struck out, despite their qualifications for the top job. As Politico noted last year, “A half-dozen have run in the last 50 years … but all have ended up […]

Trump hates all this progress. He hates it the way Ebenezer Scrooge used to hate Christmas before those ghosts showed up. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Climate change is spreading the deadly organism, but our governor and Legislature couldn’t be bothered. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida politicians’ climate denial draws destructive response from Helene • Florida Phoenix I hope you readers all came through the horrors of Hurricane Helene fairly unscathed. At my rickety Craftsman humble-abode in St. Petersburg, we suffered eight or nine brownouts and scores of tree limbs knocked down, but that was it — this time. Just a few blocks away, though, the storm surge washed over the street […]

“I used to think, ‘Oh, I could at least go to North Carolina.’ Now that doesn’t look so appealing.” #Florida #ClimateChange #HurricaneHelene #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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DeSantis ignores law requiring new rules to protect Florida springs • Florida Phoenix Gov. Ron “Golf Means More to Me Than Your Silly State Parks” DeSantis likes to tout himself as a serious law-and-order politician, despite endorsing a convicted felon for president But did you know he’s actually an outlaw? It’s true! He’s the biggest scofflaw Florida’s seen since notorious Western gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was captured in […]

“The DEP is not interested in protecting the springs from harm. They’re concerned about doing something to look like they’re doing something." #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Polk County’s growing pains show what’s ahead for the rest of Florida • Florida Phoenix If you ever tire of the monotonous flatness of peninsular Florida, just drive through Polk County. The landscape there is dotted by massive mountains of phosphate waste, the result of companies mining the remnants of prehistoric bones. That’s why it’s known as “Bone Valley.” I sometimes wonder how so many ancient critters crowded in there […]

"Communities need to feel like places for human habitation, with human connections through front porches and other places for friends to interact.” #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Secret Florida water summit lets polluters talk to government without press or public present • Florida Phoenix If I were the king of Florida, there’d be a statue of J. Emory “Red” Cross in front of every government building. Red Cross was a state senator from Gainesville who became the Father of the Sunshine Law. Cross was a classic Florida character. He strolled the marble halls of Tallahassee clad in a white […]

"Water quality and clean drinking water are two issues of huge public concern, and to think public officials would attend a meeting of this importance and fail to include the press is absurd." #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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It’s not easy being a green anole • Florida Phoenix She sits, her sleek, green body invisible in the tangle of leaves, and waits. High up in the trees, in her favorite hunting spot, the green anole is patient, her bright, black eyes swiveling independently of each other, searching for the smallest flicker of movement. The green anole isn’t picky when it comes to food. […]

Green anoles, previously left undisturbed on the entire continent, have never faced pressure like they do from brown anoles today. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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DeSantis wants to build golf courses and hotels in Florida’s state parks • Florida Phoenix When Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Caddyshack, was majoring in history at Yale, I bet he heard someone quote that famous saying by philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Yet our Ivy League-educated chief executive failed to learn from a couple of the worst mistakes of former Gov. Rick […]

“This is being kept secret. Not even the managers of the parks involved knew about it.” #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Horsey Florida town’s council OKs controversial development in equestrian preserve • Florida Phoenix The best job I ever had was as an assistant horse wrangler at a summer camp. I liked it for two reasons: One, I got paid to ride horses on wooded trails every day. And two, if anything went wrong, I wasn’t responsible, because I was just the assistant. I mention this to explain that […]

But as we have seen time and again, “preserve” doesn’t mean the same thing in Florida that it does in Webster’s Dictionary. #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida development threatens beloved greenway with road and flooding • Florida Phoenix Reporters file a lot of legislative stories datelined Tallahassee, so people might have the wrong impression of our fine capital city. When the session is on, you could echo Obi-Wan Kenobi’s grousing about never finding “a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” But the rest of the year, Tallahassee is a charming little city […]

“It’s kind of a tale of woe.” #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Revival of the Florida grasshopper sparrow shows hope for future of endangered species • Florida Phoenix Bird bird bird, bird is the word. … Everybody knows that bird is the word! When I was in college at Troy State University, home of the Fighting Prophylactics, my buddies and I would spend aimless Sunday nights cruising around solving all the world’s problems while listening to the oldies show from 50,000-watt WLAC out […]

“The Florida grasshopper sparrow is worth saving simply because it exists." #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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“If Florida doesn’t use the money to build out charging infrastructure, then DeSantis is in essence cheating his own state’s residents of getting something in return for their tax payments.” #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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New College of Florida tears up nature preserve, claims it’s an improvement • Florida Phoenix Sarasota used to be home base for the Ringling Brothers Circus. Maybe that’s what’s led to so much clowning around with the fate of its institution of higher learning, New College of Florida. Gov. Ron “I Went to Two Ivy League Schools To Become An Educated Fool” DeSantis has done his best to tear down […]

Neighbors and alumni are outraged but President Richard Corcoran pushes on with his expansion of sports facilities. #florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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DeSantis’ veto of Ocklawaha River rehabilitation study marks a first for the issue • Florida Phoenix Pens can be tricky. Once I was using one to write notes as fast as possible, trying to keep up with a former Monroe County judge telling me tales of Key West corruption, such as the one about a patrolman who got caught helping a crook drag a safe down the street. Suddenly, my pen […]

“We had 40 years straight with seven different governors, four Democrats and three Republicans, who endorsed restoration of the Ocklawaha River." #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Conservationists amp up the intensity in calling on DeSantis to veto bear-shooting bill • Florida Phoenix Among the bills that Gov. Ron DeSantis will soon have to act on is a measure that would allow people to kill bears in self-defense, and conservation and environmental groups in Florida are urging their members to ask the governor to veto it. The bill (HB 87), dubbed the “Self Defense Act,” says that an […]

“We’re talking about the ones that are on crack, and they break your door down, and they’re standing in your living room, growling and tearing your house apart." #Florida #Conservation #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz wants Congress to OK killing rare whale • Florida Phoenix Of all the movies ever made in Florida — “Body Heat,” “Cocoon,” and “Spring Breakers,” to name a few — the one with the oddest concept was “The Truman Show.” Jim Carrey plays a man with a sunny disposition who has no idea that secret cameras are recording every moment of his life for the […]

“People does stupid things." #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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21 states join Biden administration in bid to modernize nation’s aging grid • Florida Phoenix Twenty-one states are joining a push by the Biden administration to modernize America’s aging electric grid, which is under pressure from growing demand, a changing power generation mix that includes lots of wind and solar, and severe weather. The administration, which has set a goal of a carbon-free power sector by 2035, announced Tuesday that the states […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has in several orders prodded utilities and grid operators to consider more use of grid-enhancing technologies. #Florida #Energy #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Ag Commissioner Wilton Simpson wants to sell off lots of Florida preserve land • Florida Phoenix One of the great glories of Florida is the incredible amount of land that we’ve been able to save from development by buying it and turning it into state parks, beaches, and forests. Using such land-buying programs as Florida Forever, we’ve protected more than 10 million acres out of 42 million total in the entire […]

“That would do incredible damage to the springs and rivers.” #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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He didn’t start out as the champion of natural Florida that he eventually became. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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In Florida, our elected leaders have become accustomed to ignoring or opposing what the voters want, or overriding what they approve. #Florida #EarthDay2024 #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida buys springs to preserve them, does little to stop harm from beyond boundaries • Florida Phoenix A couple of weeks ago, I drove up to the picturesque small town of High Springs, about 30 miles north of Gainesville. Then I kept driving, heading out of town for several miles until I reached Florida’s newest state park. Park No. 175 is Ruth B. Kirby Gilchrist Blue Springs, formerly a family-owned and operated […]

Florida buys springs to preserve them, does little to stop harm from beyond boundaries #Florida #FLSprings #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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New study of Florida pollution just an expensive way to delay cleanup • Florida Phoenix Friday marks World Water Day. I feel bad about this, but I just know I’m going to be late sending out Water Day cards this year. But we can still go caroling door-to-door. I figure we’ll start with “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers, then segue into Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” We […]

The Legislature wants to spend $25M to find out something we already know. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida conservation easements preserve land – until a developer needs it • Florida Phoenix Florida may be the only state where the economy depends on the willing suspension of disbelief. I’m not just talking about the thousands of tourists drawn here by the theme park fantasy factories along Interstate 4. I’m talking about all the developers who tout retention pond lots as “lakefront.” The Ponzi schemers who assure suckers […]

Florida conservation easements preserve land – until a developer needs it #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Like all magic tricks, these two bills depend on smoke and mirrors to work #Florida #environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Court ruling stops Florida’s sloppy wetlands permitting, saves panthers • Florida Phoenix Florida has inspired a lot of great writing, from Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” to Carl Hiaasen’s “Squeeze Me.” It’s not just novels, either. I totally loved Jack E. Davis’ nonfiction Pulitzer-winner, “The Gulf.” I just read another powerful piece of nonfiction about Florida, one that I think should make the bestseller […]

“'It’s hard’ is NOT a reason to not comply with federal law.” #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida lawmakers try to move aquatic preserve’s boundary to benefit developer • Florida Phoenix Hollywood is famous for its ability to spin colorful worlds of wild fantasy. Elves and dwarves fight over jewelry in “The Lord of the Rings”! Drug addicts ride giant worms in “Dune”! Old dudes battle with big flashlights in “Star Wars”! But nothing compares to the unbelievable flights of fancy spun by our fine Florida […]

“We’re at a fork in the road to determine how we recover from the hurricane.” #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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Florida observatory may be forced to shut down if county OKs sand mine • Florida Phoenix The TV commercials that feature recurring characters fascinate me. Doesn’t Flo from Progressive realize she’s just as annoying as her sister? Does the Geico gecko have any predators? Am I the only one who finds the Maytag Man as creepy as any horror movie villain? The one that really grabs my attention is Jake from […]

If the sand mine opens, you can kiss all that stargazing goodbye. #Florida #Environmentvia @FLPhoenixNews

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