DeSantis culls climate change references from Florida law as extreme weather impacts increase

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed new legislation that denotes climate change as a smaller priority, and making it disappear from state laws in an attempt to protect the state from “green zealots” with a “radical climate agenda”.

Mr DeSantis signed the bill on Wednesday, that would also ban power-generating wind turbines offshore or near Florida’s large stretch of coastline, despite climate data showing temperature and sea levels rising in the state, with Florida’s location particularly being at risk of more extreme heat days per year.

Posting on his X account, the governor said that Florida has rejected “the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid, pursue a radical climate agenda, and promote foreign adversaries” while announcing he was signing legislation to protect Florida from “green zealots”.

The law will go into effect on 1 July and will delete the phrase ‘climate’ around nine times from Florida state law, among various other energy measures in what critics are saying is an attempt to downplay and ignore climate change, the Associated Press reports.

The law boosts the expansion of natural gas, reduces regulations around gas pipelines, and will repeal state grant programmes that have been encouraging the use of renewable energy and how to conserve energy.

The legislation also eliminates requirements that Florida government agencies are to hold conferences and meetings in hotels certified as “green lodging” by the state’s environmental agency and eradicates a requirement that vehicles bought by the state must be fuel-efficient.

Targeting Florida state agencies, the law will also stop the requirement for them to refer to a list of “climate-friendly products” before making purchases.

The bill will also increase protections against bans on appliances, such as gas stoves.

Summing up the legislation that was passed, along with two other bills signed by Mr DeSantis on Wednesday, the governor said this action will “keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and China out of our state,” he wrote on X.

“We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” he wrote. “Furthermore, we’re going to ensure foreign adversaries like China have no foothold in our state.”

Despite the anti-windmill rhetoric in the bill, Florida has no offshore wind industry and is already largely powered by natural gas, which provides around 74 per cent to power electric generation, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Florida is no stranger to the impacts of climate change, after experiencing its hottest year since 1895 in 2023, with the waters off its coastline warming to around 90 degrees in the summer.

The state has also accumulated billions in damages and over 100 deaths from several hurricanes that slammed Florida in recent years.

Mr DeSantis, however, has approved funding in the past to increase protection against flooding and storms, and more recently has authorised the continuation of funding for the defences against hurricanes in infrastructure improvements and support for homeowners.

$200m will be received by the My Safe Florida Home programme to safeguard homes against storms and hurricanes on the same day, 1 July, that the new bill will be enacted.