Florida State Senator BLAISE INGOGLIA's environmental preemption law is a symptom of a sick system. Who writes our laws? Oligarchs. Who benefits? Oligarchs. In Florida, the Legislature adopted another preemption ukase. So let it be written, so let it be done. Florida law says that We, the People have no "right" to be free of pollution. In the words of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, "Let the public be damned!" Louche legislator BLAISE INGOGLIA and other legislators enacted the odious preemption law in quo, blocking Titusville from protecting environmental rights. As the 5th DCA held December 26, 2024, "We recognize the overwhelming support of this charter amendment by the residents of the City of Titusville and the admirable policies of the amendment,” the judges wrote. “However, the Legislature in drafting section 403.412(9)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act has not authorized the types of rights provided for in the charter amendment. As such, an appellate court has no power to change or alter what the Legislature mandated.”
Oligarchs' one-party rule brought about this December 27, 2024 appellate court decision, a correct legal ruling given bad laws enacted in Flori-DUH, passed by the Florida House and Senate and signed by the Governor. Our State of Florida is currently run by industrial strength greedy gusses and corpulent louche lobbyists. The devastation of our State was brought to you by Tallahassee. We reject their rigged system. We reject their works and pomps. We reject the fruit of the poisonous tree of one-party rule by chauvinistic kakistocrats and kleptocracy defenders. Florida Statute 403.412(9)(a) must be overruled by a constitutional amendment. Let's just say "no" to hick hack "hired hands" like BLAISE INGOGLIA. Let's reject the bipartisan oligarchy too often enabled, suffered and permitted by spineless Democrats, who too often "go along to get along." Pitiful. Heavy-handed, hubristic Tallahassee toadies need to go.
We need to activate, support and enact the Florida Right to Clean Water, a proposed Florida constitutional amendment that would effectively reverse section 403.412(9)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act, and enact statewide environmental rights and remedies, for as President Bill Clinton said July 31, 2000 at ATLA in Chicago, "A right without a remedy is simply a suggestion." From Florida Phoenix:
Floridians have no right to bodies of water ‘free of pollution,’ appeals court rules
Speak Up Titusville group with signs, via the organization.
For the second time this year, a Florida appellate court has ruled against environmentalists fighting to enact a widely supported local clean water measure.
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.
The City of Titusville had appealed a lower court’s ruling siding with Speak Up Titusville, the group behind the local ballot measure. The three-judge appellate panel reversed the lower court’s order to codify the clean water amendment allowing residents to sue, on behalf of the “Waters of Titusville,” any entities that violate the measure.
“Although it is an admirable goal, we know of no provision that is authorized in either general law or specifically granted in the State Constitution, nor has one been provided by Speak Up, which specifically provides a citizen the right to have a body of water that ‘flows, exists in its natural form, is free of pollution, and which maintains a healthy ecosystem,'” the judges wrote.
Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia spearheaded the preemption when he was a member of the Florida House in 2020. Another appellate court cited that preemptive clause in Florida law to block an Orange County clean water measure in January.
Throughout the opinion, the judges appeared sympathetic to the environmentalists’ cause and placed the reasoning for the decision entirely on the Republican-led Legislature’s actions.
“We recognize the overwhelming support of this charter amendment by the residents of the City of Titusville and the admirable policies of the amendment,” the judges wrote. “However, the Legislature in drafting section 403.412(9)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act has not authorized the types of rights provided for in the charter amendment. As such, an appellate court has no power to change or alter what the Legislature mandated.”
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1 comment:
Scream and holler all you want. In Trump's Gilded Age system, you better have a billion dollars if you want something done or not done. Federal courts asleep and derelict in their duties in our democracy, with a good number of Congress people wanting to hand their power to the orange grifter. These people don't have the sense that their fictional God gave an ape.
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