Another bill would\u00a0require teachers to take loyalty oaths<\/a>, because it\u2019s always a great idea to copy U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy. In fact, why not require teachers to swear their loyalty to Mr. Red Scare, too?<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a bill that would\u00a0ban the display of pride flags<\/a>\u00a0at any government office in the allegedly \u201cFree\u201d State of Florida. Sorry, \u201cfreedom\u201d is available only to people who vote the government-approved way.<\/p>\n But my pick for the worst of the worst is\u00a0HB 479<\/a>.\u00a0This bill would ban cities and counties from imposing \u201claws, regulations, rules, or policies\u201d to protect wetlands and prevent water pollution.<\/p>\n How bad is it? \u201cThe impacts of it are incredibly broad,\u201d said\u00a0Matt Singer of the Florida League of Cities<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cThis is a world-ender.\u201d<\/p>\n Local government needs to be involved in regulating these water and wetland issues because they\u2019re better able to tailor their actions to fit local circumstances, said\u00a0Gil Smart of VoteWater.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bill would just blow that up,\u201d Smart told me.<\/p>\n The bill is titled \u201cLand and Water Management,\u201d but I think that\u2019s misleading. In the interest of accuracy, it should be called \u201cLack of Any Land and Water Management.\u201d<\/p>\n Cragin Mosteller of the Florida Association of Counties<\/a>\u00a0suggested an even better name: the \u201cI Hate Water Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n Mosteller pointed out that clean water \u201cis very important to our quality of life in Florida. It should be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, this bill orders local governments to leave the job of controlling pollution and saving wetlands to a state agency, the Florida Department of Environmental Pro \u2013\u00a0 HA HA HA HA HA!<\/p>\n Sorry, I can never get through that word \u201cProtection\u201d without cracking up.<\/p>\n Why do I react that way to the DEP? Because this is the agency that\u2019s been\u00a0dragging its feet since 2017<\/a>\u00a0on cleaning up the state\u2019s outstanding springs, despite clear orders from the Legislature.<\/p>\n Florida is ranked\u00a0No. 1 in the U.S for polluted lakes<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 in fact, our largest, Lake Okeechobee, has been named\u00a0the most polluted lake in the nation<\/a>. Florida\u2019s longest river, the St. Johns, is\u00a0coping with steadily increasing pollution<\/a>\u00a0from septic waste.<\/p>\n Perhaps most telling of all is what happened when a pollution-fueled algae bloom killed off so much seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon that 2,000 manatees starved to death. A federal judge ruled that by failing to stop the pollution, the\u00a0DEP had violated the Endangered Species Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n As for wetlands, Florida developers tried for years to get the DEP to be put in charge of issuing federal wetland permits. They finally got their wish at the tail end of the first Donald Trump administration, when the feds handed over their authority to the DEP<\/a>.<\/p>\n Four years later, a federal Judge ruled the DEP was so intent on cranking out wetlands destruction permits as fast as possible that it had done an illegal end run around the Endangered Species Act<\/a>.\u00a0The decision is being appealed, but his ruling calling out the DEP for failing to protect manatees is hard to ignore.<\/p>\n In other words, in Florida the initials \u201cDEP\u201d actually stand for \u201cDo Expect Pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n Passing this bill to put every bit of wetlands and pollution protection in the hands of the DEP would be about as smart as assigning the Cookie Monster to guard the Publix bakery.<\/p>\n The nest and the nephew<\/p>\n \u201cThis bill doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d\u00a0Kim Dinkins of the smart-growth group 1000 Friends of Florida<\/a>\u00a0told me. \u201cWe stand to lose a lot more than we might gain if it passes.\u201d<\/p>\n But the bill makes perfect sense if you know its origin story.<\/p>\n HB 479 is sponsored by\u00a0Rep. Randy Maggard<\/a>, who comes from a politically well-connected family in Pasco County. His brother is a business partner of Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and is married to the sister of a Pasco Commissioner.<\/p>\n I mention this because this new bill is nearly identical to one that Maggard filed in 2023 after his nephew,\u00a0Zach Maggard, had a problem with Pasco County.<\/p>\n Soon after Zach Maggard bought a lot in a subdivision called\u00a0Lake Jovita Golf & Country Club<\/a>,\u00a0his neighbors noticed something disturbing.\u00a0As I reported at the time<\/a>, a large eagle nest on that property, one that had been there for 27 years, suddenly disappeared \u2014 and no, it wasn\u2019t knocked down by a storm. The tree was still there, but there was no trace of the nest.<\/p>\n Upset neighbors and outraged bird advocates called officials from Pasco County, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to figure out who illegally destroyed the nest.<\/p>\n The investigators were unable to pin the crime on anyone, but they noticed that the wetlands shown on Zach Maggard\u2019s building plans did not match the wetlands on the ground.<\/p>\n A county building official\u00a0ordered a new wetlands map and\u00a0further scrutinized the situation.\u00a0The big fight turned out to be over a 12-foot \u201cwalkway\u201d down to the lake \u2014 one that clearly wasn\u2019t going to be a walkway but a concrete driveway for a boat ramp.<\/p>\n The Pasco building official suggested making the \u201cwalkway\u201d out of some permeable material, so water could continue to flow through it. Zach Maggard didn\u2019t like the idea.<\/p>\n I was told that Maggard went over the building official\u2019s head. The project got approved \u2014 although not by the building official who\u2019d actually been on the scene.<\/p>\n The bottom line: Rep. Maggard told me in 2023 that he filed this bill because his nephew did some things that Pasco officials objected to, yet paid no penalty for them. He seemed intent on punishing the regulators for trying to interfere with his nephew\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n Maggard\u2019s original bill crashed and burned, and the eagles rebuilt their Lake Jovita nest.<\/p>\n \u201cThis beautiful eagle pair is currently raising two very young eaglets,\u201d Kim Rexroat, Audubon Florida\u2019s eagle watch coordinator for Pasco, told me this week.<\/p>\n Maggard\u2019s awful bill is back too, just like a bad penny.<\/p>\n The sponsor<\/p>\n I tried several times to talk to Rep. Maggard about him filing the worst bill of the 2026 Session. Alas, he never called me back. Perhaps he was too busy dancing in delight after hearing about his nomination for Worst Bill.<\/p>\n But he did acknowledge to me\u00a0in 2023<\/a>\u00a0about how he had turned the Lake Jovita situation involving his nephew into a legislative attack on all 67 counties and 400 or so cities across the state.<\/p>\n That interview lingers in my memory as both the funniest and most painful conversation (I actually bit my tongue) I\u2019ve ever had with a Florida politician.<\/p>\n At first, our discussion was confusing. Rep. Maggard kept saying the word\u00a0\u201cduplicitous<\/a>\u201d\u00a0but after a while I figured out he was using it to mean something other than \u201cdeceptive.\u201d When I finally asked him if he meant people were lying about his bill, he said no.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, \u2018duplicitous\u2019 means you\u2019re duplicating something,\u201d he said, explaining he thought all the local water and wetland regulations were just duplicates of the state ones (they\u2019re not).<\/p>\n Maggard also told me he was in favor of protecting our clean water from pollution, but \u201cwhy do the customers, the consumers, the citizens have to go through all these hurdles?\u201d He didn\u2019t see the role that regulation plays in preventing pollution from tainting our water supply.<\/p>\n And now he\u2019s trying to end all the non-DEP regulations.<\/p>\n Sprawl on steroids<\/p>\n Rep. Maggard is far from alone in this ill-considered pursuit.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a companion bill in the other chamber,\u00a0SB 718<\/a>, just as there was in 2023. The 2023 bill was sponsored by Sen. Danny Burgess, whose law partner was another of Maggard\u2019s nephews. This year, the Senate version of the bill this year is sponsored by Ocala\u2019s\u00a0Sen. Stan McClain<\/a>.<\/p>\n If that name sounds familiar, it\u2019s because he\u2019s behind\u00a0quite a few pro-development bills<\/a>. One is\u00a0the bill creating \u201cBlue Ribbon\u201d developments<\/a>\u00a0that don\u2019t have to obey local zoning rules or pay attention to what the public wants.<\/p>\n Smart of the VoteWater organization suggested that that\u2019s why McCain is supporting Maggard\u2019s bill, too. By shutting local governments out of water pollution and wetlands regulation, he said, the public gets silenced as well. The DEP rarely holds public hearings on individual permits.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of this is to cut the public out of the process,\u201d Smart said.<\/p>\n McClain, by the way, happens to be\u00a0a homebuilder in Marion County<\/a>. In fact, his legislative website says he\u2019s executive officer of the Marion County Building Industry Association.<\/p>\n Environmental advocates dubbed the legislative session a couple of years back as \u201cThe Year of Sprawl.\u201d Thanks to McClain, Smart said, \u201cThis is the Year of Sprawl on Steroids.\u201d<\/p>\n Drink up<\/p>\n The Legislature has spent a lot of energy over the past few years trying to handcuff local governments to\u00a0prevent them from doing things<\/a>\u00a0that upset major campaign contrib\u2013 er, I mean, fine, upstanding citizens who just happen to sit on very big wallets.<\/p>\n But this goes beyond that. This is a bill designed to let polluters run amok, even if the result threatens all our health.<\/p>\n If anyone tries to resist, Maggard\u2019s bill contains a strong penalty to stop them. If any city or county persists in trying to protect its citizens from pollution, the DEP is ordered to notify the state\u2019s Chief Financial Officer.<\/p>\n Then, per the bill, the CFO is supposed to withhold state funds from those local governments, effectively killing their ability to pay for police, fire departments, solid waste, libraries and so forth.<\/p>\n Both have been referred to not one, not two, but THREE committees.<\/p>\n Perhaps, as happened in 2023, the process of wading through multiple committees will slow them down too much to pass.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to make sure Rep. Maggard really understands the importance of Florida water quality.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my plan: We hire a fancy calligrapher to draft a lovely invitation to notify Rep. Maggard that he\u2019s been chosen for a major award.<\/p>\n We invite him to the Worst Bill awards ceremony at\u00a0the Governor\u2019s Inn in Tallahassee<\/a>, which I hear is quite the hot venue for political shindigs in our state capital.<\/p>\n Then, when Rep. Maggard shows up, ready to accept his award, we hand him a large glass of ugly, nasty, polluted water and say, \u201cYou made that. It\u2019s yours. Now drink it all.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Reporting by Craig Pittman. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline\u00a0for questions:\u00a0[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is such an exciting time of year for us Florida columnists! The 2026 Legislative Session begins next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[56770,3940,11046,56771,5186,28,33912,30,46187,29,56772,56773,56774,56775,56776,21865,56777,56778,30903,40168,56779],"class_list":["post-111399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-1000-friends-of-florida","tag-2026-session","tag-audubon-florida","tag-cragin-mosteller","tag-danny-burgess","tag-florida","tag-florida-association-of-counties","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-league-of-cities","tag-florida-news","tag-gil-smart","tag-hb-479","tag-kim-dinkins","tag-kim-rexroat","tag-matt-singer","tag-pollution","tag-randy-maggard","tag-sb-718","tag-stan-mcclain","tag-water-pollution","tag-wetlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/35430585-724C-4774-BF52-F6A1E4F0D36C.png\")
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\nDo expect pollution<\/p>\n