Florida lawmakers are advancing to allocate $100 million a year to the land buying program Florida Forever. the legislature zeroed out its funding.
Republican Senator Rob Bradley of Orange Park says he鈥檚 committed to funding environmental protection. And as the Senate鈥檚 new budget chief, he鈥檚 in the position to follow through. He鈥檚 sponsoring that would fund Florida Forever with Amendment 1 money. The 2014 proposal to set aside tax money for conservation won the approval of 75% of Florida voters. Bradley told his colleagues he鈥檒l make sure鈥
鈥淲e fulfill what I think is a pact that we have with the voters to take care of land acquisition needs whether they be in the form of easements or fee simple, as expressed in that vote in 2014 with the passage of Amendment 1,鈥 Bradley said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 long overdue that we move forward aggressively in making sure that we honor what the voters did in Amendment 1.鈥
say $100 million a year would only fund a fraction of the growing list of Florida Forever projects. But it鈥檚 an improvement on being cut from the budget entirely.
The bill passed its first committee stop in the Senate Monday. Currently there is no House version of the measure.
Copyright 2020 WFSU. To see more, visit .