{"id":198152,"date":"2026-03-19T19:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/198152\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T19:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:06:08","slug":"gov-desantis-signs-bill-stopping-proposed-manatee-county-cruise-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/198152\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. DeSantis signs bill stopping proposed Manatee County cruise port"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/DSCN6839-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-255556 size-255556 wp-post-image\" alt=\"Ron DeSantis\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGovernor Ron DeSantis in Tampa \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 5\/12\/2025<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tListen:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill Thursday halting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmnf.org\/bill-halting-proposed-manatee-county-cruise-ship-terminal-heads-to-desantis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">controversial proposed Manatee cruise port<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the governor\u2019s first bill signing since the end of the legislative session.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis signed Senate Bill 302 and House Bill 1417.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, the bill bans the dredging necessary to build a controversial mega cruise ship terminal on environmentally sensitive land in Manatee County.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis says the port struck a lot of people as unnecessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s not really a need to add another port in the middle of a conserved area and aquatic preserve, especially given that Tampa Bay is already home to three deep-water ports, including SeaPort Manatee,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal has drawn significant pushback, with hundreds rallying at protests and thousands signing petitions against it.<\/p>\n<p>The bill also includes additional coastal protections to restore wetlands, oyster reefs, and mangroves.<\/p>\n<p>Republican Representative Will Robinson joined DeSantis at the press conference in Bradenton.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI cannot think of a worse place in Florida for a mega cruise terminal to be than Terra Ceia,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis also announced construction of a new fishing pier in the Manatee County side of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and improvements to the pier on the Pinellas County side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Governor Ron DeSantis in Tampa \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 5\/12\/2025 Listen: Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7088,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-198152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-manatee-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198152","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=198152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}