Welcome back to the Impact Zone, Surfrider’s series dedicated to all things legislative session for Florida’s ocean, beaches, and waves. This past week, the 2025 Legislative Session officially kicked off on Tuesday, March 3. As activity in the capital heats up, Surfrider's network and staff in Florida have already been working to generate support for key campaigns and statewide ocean and coastal issues.
Committee Updates
House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee
The House subcommittee heard and passed HB209, “State Park Preservation Act,” on Tuesday, March 4. The bill is sponsored by Representatives John Snyder and Peggy Gosset-Seidman in the House and Senators Gayle Harrell and Jennifer Bradley in the Senate (SB80). This legislation is a response to the development proposals for nine of our Florida State Parks that led to widespread public outcry in Fall 2024. The development plans would have built resort-style lodging, golf courses, and pickleball courts in our state parks. The legislation improves transparency and public notification processes for any land management plans and prohibits the specific uses that were contemplated in the “Great Outdoors Initiative” last fall. While this legislation is a step in the right direction to address the threats to our state parks, the language must be strengthened to address immediate threats to the park as well as threats in the future.
Surfrider, alongside dozens of other organizations and businesses, sent a joint letter to the bill sponsors thanking them for their action and leadership while also highlighting areas for improvement to ensure we are not in the same situation again in the future. In particular, the legislation should be amended to remove language that encourages development in “disturbed” areas, eliminate vague terms that weaken protections, add explicit prohibitions and definitions, and expand protections to state forests and wildlife management areas.
During the committee, HB209 was amended to include additional language clarifying restrictions on lodging development and some other prohibited uses. Surfrider looks forward to continuing to engage with the bill sponsors to strengthen this legislation and make sure Floridians’ voices are heard to keep our state parks wild.
Senate Appropriations Committee for Agriculture, Environment, and General Government (AEG)
In the first week of regular session, the committee heard SB50 Nature-based Methods for Improving Coastal Resilience during the Wednesday meeting. Sponsored by Senator Ileana Garcia (R - Miami) in the Senate, the bill builds on 2024’s Mangrove Restoration and Replanting bill with a broader contemplation of nature-based and other methods to support coastal resilience efforts throughout the state. The House companion bill is HB371, sponsored by Representative Jim Mooney (R - Islamorada). This committee stop was SB50’s second, after passing the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee with bipartisan support during Committee Weeks in February. The bill includes important improvements to regulatory pathways for nature-based solutions for climate impacts like mangrove replanting and restoration, dune vegetation planting, and living shorelines. Surfrider has long advocated for widespread implementation, local government support, and increased awareness and education for nature-based climate solutions amidst resilience actions supported by the state. We are happy to see attention to these nature-based methods in state legislation and supportive of improvements to our regulatory framework to facilitate more widespread utilization of these methods across the state.
Notably, the bill also contemplates the creation of guidelines and increased use for “green-gray infrastructure,” hybrid infrastructure incorporating both natural and hardened components, the use of “living seawalls,” and technologies like “3D printing” in resilience actions. These methods depart from our focus on nature-based solutions for climate mitigation efforts as they incorporate more hard armoring techniques, which we have seen exacerbate erosion and development problems in vulnerable areas throughout the state. In particular, we must ensure these methods are not prioritized over nature-based methods when protecting our remaining sandy beaches and coastal ecosystems. We will continue to monitor these aspects of the bill as the legislation proceeds.
Legislation on Our Radar
While we track all legislation with impacts for our Florida coast and ocean, our top legislative priorities are protecting clean water and public health, advancing nature-based resiliency solutions, and preventing plastic pollution. You can find more details about the legislation we are tracking and focusing on at our 2025 Legislation page. Stay tuned for action alerts and ways to engage over the next 7 weeks of the 2025 Florida Session as we fight for our coast and ocean!