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> The Fifth District Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that although 83% of voters in Titusville approved a 2022 initiative establishing the right to clean water, the city in Brevard County couldn’t enact it because of a 2020 state law preventing local government from giving rights to bodies of water, plants, and animals.

Finding seems to be that the city law is prohibited under a state law, and the state law does not contravene the state constitution and so cannot be invalidated to allow the city's new law. which makes for a ridiculous headline, but doesn't seem wrong on its face.

The problem is Florida's state government reserving environmental protection for itself, and then failing to sufficiently protect its environment...

1 comments

Why did the state enact the legislation in the first place?

Was it because it meant to save the environment, or was it to stop towns and cities from frustrating lobby interests?

The third option is that it's so you don't end up with a patchwork of different laws/rights/restrictions and potential conflict between local and state laws. That's supposed to be the intent with most preemptive laws. In theory, there's supposed to be a balance between the use of natural resources and their protection.

The latter.

The state has also prohibited cities from issuing heat ordinances because some localities wanted to mandate water and rest breaks for workers when temperatures are above a certain threshold, and Florida thinks that only restriction that should be on corporations is that they toe the Florida state party line and otherwise not be interfered with in any way.

> why?

There are ok-ish third reasons (consistency, etc.) to keep muni governments out of environmental regulation, but this provision is undoubtably meant to frustrate exactly the kind of group it did. The provision was added in 2020, presumably in response to the 2019 Lake Erie Bill of Rights[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_personhood#Unite...

A third options is to prevent towns from establishing rights that override those of other individuals (and interests).