There are more than 130 new Florida laws and changes taking effect on July 1, and some of them have been controversial.
Florida lawmakers have codified topics included in conspiracy theories concerning chemtrails and fluoride in public water into law, prohibited local governments from having any control over President Donald Trump’s eventual presidential library, opened the door to executions by firing squad or the noose, banned smartphones in schools, rushed to change state statutes and educational materials to use the name “Gulf of America,” and repealed a law that would have moved school start times later this year so students could sleep in.
Here’s what to know.
SB 56: Geoengineering and Weather Modification Activities (chemtrail ban)
On June 20, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial bill banning “geoengineering and weather modification activities” to curb certain projected efforts to fight climate change and ban suspected efforts which some conspiracy theorists claim are used by individuals or government agencies to spread toxic chemicals on an unsuspecting populace through the white trails in the sky left by airplanes.
Government agencies including NOAA, the U.S. Air Force, FEMA and more have repeatedly denied that nefarious weather modification via chemtrails is a thing. The rumors started in 1996 with an Air Force report about proposed weather modification in response to a military directive asking for future scenarios. The USAF later clarified that such technology did not exist and there were no plans to do it, but the conspiracy theories still blamed it on mass sicknesses and hurricanes.
“The purpose of this bill is to separate fact from fiction,” bill sponsor Sen. Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, said, and she stressed that the bill was intended to look into the theories in response to numerous requests from constituents and potentially disprove them.
SB 118: Regulation of Presidential Libraries
Whenever the trustees behind the planned Donald J. Trump Presidential Library — which already has at least $37 million in funding from legal settlements and donations, as well as a $400 million luxury jet gifted by Qatar to be used as Air Force One and then transferred to the library — start planning it, legislators have ensured they won’t have any problems with local government ordinances by expressly prohibiting local governments from doing anything about it.
HB 209: State Parks Preservation Act
Last summer, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Department of Environmental Protection announced a plan to commercialize Florida’s 175 state parks with custom amenities like pickleball courts and golf courses at beloved natural icons like Anastasia State Park in St. Johns County, Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County, and Topsail Hill Preserve in Walton County.
After a great deal of public outcry, DeSantis shelved the Great Outdoors Initiative, saying “a lot of that stuff was just half-baked and was not ready for prime time.” Florida legislators were quick to make sure it couldn’t happen again, with a bill blocking any such changes and forcing the DEP to run park management plans past the public first.
HB 296: Middle School and High School Start Times
In 2023, Florida lawmakers passed a law prohibiting high schools from starting classes before 8:30 a.m. and middle schools before 8 a.m. It was a priority of then-House Speaker Paul Renner, who hoped to improve “academic scores and mental well-being.” The law was supposed to take effect in the 2026-2027 school year.
It was well-intentioned, but many school districts reported that making the change could cost the districts big to buy new buses and hire more, already-hard-to-find bus drivers since many bus routes currently complete middle and high school routes before picking up elementary school students. Some districts would have to flip routes, which could leave younger students in rural areas waiting in the dark.
The change could also disrupt the timing of parental and guardian transportation and child care, and cause scheduling issues with students’ after-school activities.
SB 296 allows school districts to set their own schedules, provided they submit reports documenting the costs included in moving class times, the efforts made to do so, and the unintended consequences to the school district, students, and the community.
HB 549: Gulf of America (Schools), HB 575: The Designation of the Gulf of Mexico
When Trump announced he was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, many jeered, but Florida GOP leaders were right there behind it.
DeSantis was also the first to use “Gulf of America” in any official capacity when he referred to it in an order concerning the freak winter storm that shattered Florida’s 130-year-old snow records just hours after Trump’s directive in January.
Now two laws go into effect July 1. One (HB 549) requires the former Gulf of Mexico to be changed to “Gulf of America” in any geographical material in state agencies and in instructional materials or library media adopted or acquired in Florida schools after July 1.
The other (HB 575) replaces Gulf of Mexico with “Gulf of America” in 54 places in Florida statutes.
SB 700: Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (The Florida Farm Bill)
During a May press conference, DeSantis said: “It’s forced medication when they’re jamming fluoride into your water supply.”
SB 700 never mentions the word “fluoride,” but it bans it nonetheless.
Fluoride in city water has long been a concern of people worried about health risk myths, and there have been movements against what the Centers for Disease Control called one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo spoke out against fluoride, causing some cities to temporarily remove it from their drinking water. Before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became Health Secretary, he said in a post to X. “Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”
Fluoride, a naturally occurring element, is found in water, soil, air and some foods, and helps prevent dental cavities and tooth decay by hardening the teeth’s outer surface, or enamel. The American Dental Association called adding fluoride to water streams a “safe, beneficial, and cost-effective” public health measure, citing studies that it cuts cavities in children and adults by 25%.
SB 700 is a massive bill that makes several changes to laws related to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services such as regulating worker housing on agricultural land, preventing the sale of plant-based products as milk, meat, poultry or eggs, bans drone use over agricultural land, bans mushrooms that can produce hallucinogenic effects or anything that can grow them, and much more.
But it also revises the definition of “water quality additive” to prohibit additives that don’t meet the definition. Such as, for example, fluoride.
HB 903: Corrections, Execution Methods
As states find it harder and harder to get the drugs needed for lethal injections, some have turned to other methods. HB 903 makes methods such as firing squads and hanging possible.
The bill doesn’t say that, but it doesn’t rule them out, either (or stoning or beheading, for that matter). It simply allows any form of execution, provided it was “not deemed unconstitutional,” if electrocution or lethal injection is found to be unconstitutional or lethal injection drugs become unavailable.
The state is likely to look at execution by nitrogen gas first, but South Carolina has executed two men by firing squad this year and four other states have legalized firing squads: Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho.
The change comes as DeSantis is on track to write more death warrants in a year than any Florida governor.
HB 1105: Education (smartphone ban)
HB 1105 is a massive one, containing a lot of individual measures that didn’t pass on their own.
The one that got the most attention was a ban on elementary and middle school students from using wireless devices (phones, tablets, etc) from “bell to bell.”
High school students will still be permitted to use their phones outside of class (depending on individual school district rules) and during class if expressly told to by teachers, but the bill also calls for a pilot program in six counties to test banning phone use during the entire school day there as well.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: School times, fluoride, chemtrails: 8 new Florida laws people are talking about
Reporting by C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
