Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is back in President Donald Trump’s good graces and using the moment to get more federal money to the state.
For months, DeSantis has been pushing a plan to get federal Everglades restoration money in the form of a block grant, but his vision got its biggest boost yet last week. As he toured the state’s new immigration detention center in the Everglades with Trump — what they’re calling “Alligator Alcatraz” — DeSantis laid out his pitch to take over the federal dollars.
“We move faster than the Army Corps, so we will finish that reservoir. If you delegate it to us, I’ll get it done much quicker,” DeSantis said.
“I’ll tell you, let me ask myself permission. Permission granted, go ahead, get the thing, get it complete,” Trump responded.
For the last 25 years, the money has been a fifty-fifty state and federal partnership and is congressionally approved. Shifting how the grant works could mark a big win for DeSantis as he works to curry back favor with the Trump administration after a deep rift from his primary challenge and longstanding feud with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
“He did commit to that, now it’s just a matter of I got to talk to the people that will formally make that happen,” DeSantis later told reporters.
His office told NOTUS last week, “We are diligently working with the federal government to finalize the details of the cooperation agreement.”
Some environmental groups say they’re alarmed by the proposal, particularly as they also fight against the state’s efforts to hold thousands of people — in cages and large tents — in the protected wetlands.
“The sudden appearance of this detention center on protected lands — and the fact that it got zero legally-required environmental review — is evidence that we need to maintain all levels of government oversight from the continuing threats to the Everglades,” Alisa Coe, deputy managing attorney for the Florida office of Earthjustice, told NOTUS.
There’s an ongoing lawsuit against the detention center filed by two other environmental groups, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, arguing that the state did not follow federal environmental and administrative rules in its fly-by-night construction on an old landing strip owned by Miami-Dade County.
The state initially told the county mayor it planned to purchase the land, but after the county responded by asking for additional environmental review and information, the state announced plans in late June to seize the land for the detention center under an extended 2023 state-level executive order declaring a state of emergency related to immigration.
Friends of the Everglades Executive Director Eve Samples told NOTUS she is also closely watching DeSantis’ effort to take greater control over restoration projects. It’s not unprecedented for the state to manage Everglades projects, but the extent to which DeSantis wants to cut the Army Corps out of the equation remains unclear.
“The devil is in the details, and we have not seen any details about this proposal for the state to assume responsibility,” she said in an email. “We will be watching this closely. The state-federal partnership in Everglades restoration provides important checks and balances to ensure projects are ecologically beneficial and cost-effective.”
Florida Democrats in Congress raised a slew of environmental concerns about the detention center to the governor in a letter.
“The proposal to pave over this land for thousands of detainees, accompanied by heavy equipment, wastewater needs, and other disruptive infrastructure fundamentally threatens decades of bipartisan progress to restore the Everglades,” they wrote.
DeSantis dismissed environmental concerns about the detention center to reporters, praising his own efforts on Everglades restoration. “If you just object to illegal immigration enforcement, just be honest about that, but don’t act like it’s gonna have impacts — because it’s not.”
The federal arm of the Army Corps of Engineers previously told NOTUS any effort to cut them out of the equation in Everglades restoration would require Congressional approval, but did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment or questions around Trump’s support of the idea.
Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel previously told NOTUS she is “totally opposed” to state block grants for Everglades restoration. “The Army Corps of Engineers is the linchpin agency that ensures that we have forward motion and [the] state-federal partnership is balanced.”