Days before President Donald Trump took office, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he wanted the state to take over Everglades restoration projects from the federal government — claiming the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior were hindering Florida’s efforts.
Thanks in part to DOGE, DeSantis’ wish could come true, and even some of his fiercest critics concede that the messy process created by DOGE could give the state more leverage.
“The federal government is a mess, completely. It’s a disaster — and so is Ron DeSantis. But, you know, everything in life is relative,” Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel told NOTUS. She later texted she’s “totally opposed” to state control over Everglades restoration.
Widespread federal layoffs hit key Everglades science teams in Florida, and DOGE teams tried to slash two leases for offices housing teams involved in Everglades restoration: an Army Corps of Engineers site in Jacksonville and a Department of the Interior National Parks Service science office in Homestead, Florida.
The Army Corps’ lease cancellation was eventually reversed, but it remains unclear whether the team will keep their lease past 2027. The unpredictability of the federal government, the back-and-forth from DOGE and the notoriously slow-moving bureaucracy of the Army Corps of Engineers (which is managing the federal side of the project) have all given DeSantis’ argument more fuel.
“Trump’s Cabinet of Corruption simply cannot be trusted. And the DeSantis power grab doesn’t help.” Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also co-chairs Congress’ Everglades Caucus, wrote to NOTUS.
During an Earth Day press conference on Everglades restoration, the secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection told reporters the state is in active negotiations with the Army to take on more control of project management. (The department did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment on how DOGE’s cuts are affecting these negotiations.)
“We’re fine with taking the money from the feds, giving them credit for their share, we don’t want the credit, but then letting us actually do this stuff because we will move it quicker,” DeSantis told reporters.
Among Congressional Republicans, where DeSantis has few close allies, most told NOTUS they hadn’t heard from the governor on Congressional action to transfer control to the state — but that, on principle, they like the idea of block grants.
“I haven’t seen that,” former governor and Sen. Rick Scott told NOTUS of DeSantis’ push for control. “But does that mean they’re going to pay for all of it too?” he asked sarcastically. (It does not.)
DeSantis and his team are pushing for federal funding for Everglades restoration to be handed to the state for state agencies to manage, arguing that the state can manage the money in a cheaper and more efficient way.
“Historically, I’ve supported block grants, as long as we know the standards are high. I haven’t seen anything from him” on an Everglades block grant, however, Rep Mike Haridopolos told NOTUS.
Rep. John Rutherford, whose district includes the Jacksonville Army Corps site, said, “I’m a big believer in subsidiarity, do it at the lowest level possible, and I think that’s probably where the governor’s at. But look, I think the Army Corps has done an amazing job. Have they gone as fast as everybody would like? No, probably not, but they’ve gone as fast as they could, I believe.”
Congress authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan 25 years ago as a fifty-fifty federal-state partnership. It’s a massive engineering endeavor, primarily aimed at restoring the Everglades’ historically degraded ecosystem, which helps both to recapture the state’s freshwater supply and control flooding.
The project was originally intended to take 30 years with an $8 billion price tag. More recent estimates have put that timeline at 50 years at a cost of more than $23 billion, according to Congressional reports.
The Army Corps of Engineers told NOTUS, “We are aware of the governor’s request for some of the CERP projects to be transferred to the state for completion. Such an action could require changes to Congressional authorizations and allocated funding,” the statement said. “We currently have no guidance that is different from what has been authorized and funded by Congress, so we remain laser-focused on Everglades restoration.”
But the messy back-and-forth from DOGE has scrambled timelines and gutted the offices working on the projects.
In February, the federal General Services Administration issued a letter to the property manager of a building the Army Corps of Engineers leases in Jacksonville, Florida, “seeking to terminate the lease effective August 31, 2025,” according to the Corps. Elon Musk’s DOGE website originally included the site in its list of slashed leases, declaring $4.3 million in savings.
Less than two weeks later — amid widespread backlash to various lease cancellations — the decision was reversed and the site was removed from DOGE’s list.
The whiplash for the agency isn’t over: the Corps said it still doesn’t know if the federal government will renew its lease when its latest 5-year lease was originally scheduled to expire in 2027.
“How do you plan? That’s two years away. These are yearslong efforts that you have to sort of know what’s coming down the pike to put the steps in motion,” Tania Galloni, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Florida office, told NOTUS. “Floridians, the country, we’ve invested billions of dollars in this project. The planning can’t be thrown off, where you don’t know what’s happening next year or the year after.”
However, she and other environmental group leaders don’t see state control as the solution. They want the federal government to restore funding and positions. “There’s no state-level fix,” she said.
In South Florida, the Department of the Interior’s office headquarters for the National Park Service South Florida Natural Resource Center in Homestead, Florida, is still on the list of proposed DOGE lease cancellations. That center — which experts told NOTUS does more of the scientific research than the Corps — has also been hit hard by layoffs and reductions in force since January, according to the center’s former director, Bob Johnson.
“The team that works on CERP, that’s the team that took the big hit. Both in ecological sciences, but also in the physical sciences, just lost people with 20, 25, 30 years of experience,” Johnson, who left the center in 2020 but still works on Everglades projects as a contractor, told NOTUS. “A brain drain for the people who have been around for a long time working on Everglades restoration.”
According to data collected by the outside advocacy group Friends of the Everglades, seven of 12 science center employees have left.
A spokesperson for the center told NOTUS, “We did not provide that information, but I think that may have referenced the initial action for probationary employees, which was later rescinded.” The center did not provide further details about the number of cuts and departures.
But the Department of the Interior is reportedly preparing for another round of widespread layoffs in the coming weeks that could deliver another blow to scientific research. The department recently asked employees to hand over their resumes for review and update their work and performance histories, sources told NOTUS.
Floridians in Congress across both parties said they haven’t heard from DeSantis about his plan for state control of Everglades money. But even Democrats were willing to criticize the Army Corps — even if they don’t see shuttering offices and handing money over to the state as the solution.
Florida Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor, said, “If the state wants to depend on ongoing, robust federal investments, you have to have an important federal role. That doesn’t mean the Army Corps has been perfect by any stretch.”
The state’s Department of Environmental Protection did not respond to NOTUS’ request for comment on how DOGE’s cuts are affecting the state’s push for more control.
The state-level agency that manages Everglades projects, the South Florida Water Management District, said in a statement, “We have celebrated 75 ribbon cuttings, ground breakings and other major milestones on Everglades projects since 2019. The State of Florida will continue our significant efforts implementing Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.”
For environmental groups like Friends of the Everglades, these touted political wins for the state are exactly the problem with transferring power to the state — even if the federal government is an unstable partner at the moment, said the group’s executive director, Eve Samples.
For the state, “it’s about expediting and building as fast as they can, getting these large infrastructure projects, ‘pipes and pumps’ as they’re kind of known, kind of derogatorily in some circles,” Samples said. “Getting it done so that politicians can have more ribbon cuttings.”
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Claire Heddles is a NOTUS reporter and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Anna Kramer, a NOTUS reporter, contributed to this report.