![\"Elizabeth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/headshot-e1793386771831.jpg\")
Elizabeth Neville<\/p>\nNovember is Manatee Awareness Month, a time to celebrate and protect our beloved official state marine mammal. Despite their gentle manner, manatees are ecological and economic powerhouses; they are a \u201ckeystone species\u201d that can indicate the health of their whole ecosystem and bring millions of dollars into our state economy annually through tourism, ecosystem services and job support. Put simply, protecting manatees benefits people, as well.<\/p>\n
This Manatee Awareness Month, Floridians and our elected leaders should be aware of two major policy changes that stand to impact manatees and their aquatic habitats \u2014 which are the coastal waters, springs and rivers that we all depend on for our lives and livelihoods.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, both changes spell serious trouble for manatees and our precious waters.<\/p>\n
First, a rule change under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) deleted the regulatory definition of \u201charm,\u201d effectively removing habitat destruction from the purview of acts forbidden by the ESA (the \u201charm rule\u201d). On its own, the harm rule is very problematic for manatees, as habitat loss is manatees\u2019 greatest long-term threat. Taking things a terrible step further, however, in September, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a memorandum to Service staff stating that \u2014 based on this \u201charm rule\u201d \u2014 the Service will no longer consider any unintended actions, no matter how serious, that kill or injure a manatee or any other listed animal to be illegal under the ESA.<\/p>\n
Ninety-six of adult manatees bear scars from boat collisions, and virtually all of these collisions are unintentional. When you consider that two of the greatest threats to manatees are habitat destruction and watercraft strikes, these changes to the implementation of the ESA have greatly diminished its ability to actually protect manatees \u2014 thrusting this species\u2019 long-term survival prospects into grave uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Second, a disastrous permitting bill has been introduced by the U.S. Senate, misleadingly titled as the \u201cBipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026\u201d (s. 5653). More appropriate titles for this bill could include the \u201cSloppy Standards for Large-Scale Data Center and Offshore Drilling Act\u201d or the \u201cFlorida Wildlife Destruction Act.\u201d Whatever one calls it, this permitting bill stands to degrade key provisions of bedrock laws, including the ESA, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act. This permitting bill is bad news for manatees, as well as Florida\u2019s fiscal and environmental health. With our tourism-based economy and the iconic landscapes that it depends upon, Florida stands to suffer disproportionate harm from these unsustainable permitting rollbacks. This is not speculative; presently, there are 24 planned data center projects that pose severe harm to springs, rivers, and other water resources that comprise manatee habitat \u2014 including a proposed data center in Citrus County, home of Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, an essential habitat for manatees.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Neville<\/p>\n
While certain supporters of this permitting bill believe that it will help to address anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by facilitating \u201cgreen\u201d energy infrastructure, the fact that the bill will also degrade permitting standards for high-emissions projects such as large-scale data centers and oil and gas activities raise serious questions regarding the bill\u2019s cumulative impact on climate change. For Florida, specifically, this bill clearly presents a net-negative impact on our environment and way of life. After fast-tracking the bill through cloture, the process for passage is set to begin Nov. 9.<\/p>\n
These devastating and wholly unjustified policy changes are certain to cause immense manatee suffering, such as more manatees being severely injured and killed from boat strikes, starving from the loss of aquatic vegetation they must eat to live, and suffering from a hypothermia-like condition called \u201ccold stress\u201d from destruction of the warm-water habitat they need to survive during the winter. Degrading permitting standards will ease the way for more harmful development, resulting in reckless pumping from our aquifer and increased pollution.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, there are solutions available. Bills before both the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 9901) and the Senate (Congressional Review Act S.J. Res. 204) will, if passed, nullify the harm rule and the damaging interpretation that has ensued. Regarding the permitting bill, it is imperative that Florida\u2019s congressional leaders hear from constituents that they should vote \u201cno\u201d on s. 5653, ideally before the November 9 cloture process commencement. The congressional switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Neville is the director of environmental law and policy for the Save the Manatee Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"November is Manatee Awareness Month, a time to celebrate and protect our beloved official state marine mammal. Despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[483,482,139,141,140,109,76410],"class_list":["post-444362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-commentary","tag-opinion","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-social-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444362","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=444362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}