BRADENTON, Fla. \u2013 Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation intended to tighten coastal protections, speed environmental rulemaking and fund repairs to a damaged fishing pier.<\/p>\n
He said the bill would prevent dredging needed to convert the protected area into a commercial port while allowing limited dredging for recreation and water-quality projects. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be signing Senate Bill 302, which will provide additional Coastal protections and enhance our Coastal resiliency across the state,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n
DeSantis said SB 302 tightens permit review, requires state approval with public notice, and encourages nature-based coastal solutions and new technologies. <\/p>\n
DeSantis added that the bill would include projects focused on \u201cnew technologies such as 3D printing to supplement ongoing coastal resiliency efforts, including mangrove planning, oyster reef restoration, and wetland rehabilitation.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also said he would sign a second bill to streamline environmental rulemaking, \u201crepealing the outdated environmental regulation commission, making it faster to update rules to protect our environment and keep our economy thriving,\u201d DeSantis said. <\/p>\n
He and DEP officials said the measure is intended to remove redundant steps and speed updates to water and environmental standards.<\/p>\n
The governor also announced repairs to the Sunshine Skyway fishing pier after storm damage. \u201cI\u2019m happy to announce that we will be constructing a new pier adjacent to where the pier currently stands on the Manatee County side and then improving the existing Pier on the Pinellas County side to extend its lifetime for another 20 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRADENTON, Fla. \u2013 Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation intended to tighten coastal protections, speed environmental rulemaking and fund…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,116,118,117,99,412],"class_list":["post-198073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-politics","tag-ron-desantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198073","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=198073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}