The 2024 Florida Legislative Session has begun. Advocates Assemble!

Florida's 60-day legislative session begins today, and several environmentally-damaging bills have already been proposed.

In even numbered years we get the “gift” of an early Florida Legislative Session. The 2024 Session commenced in Tallahassee today, Tuesday, January 9th and will conclude on Friday, March 8th.

The Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) has been active during the many weeks of Committee meetings held at the Capitol in preparation of the Session. We have identified a number of bills that would impact FNPS members and mission in either positive or negative ways and are in the midst of developing the necessary advocacy strategies to either advance them, modify them or keep them from being enacted altogether. Each FNPS member plays a vital role in those efforts by staying aware, being engaged, responding to Calls for Action and imparting your knowledge and expertise as a resource to policymakers.

Here is a preview of What We Know So Far (powerpoint slides).

Thank you for being such an important part of FNPS’s advocacy efforts. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

You can help us fight back against bad bills by signing up for our Action Alerts.

How do our Action Alerts work?

• We send Action Alerts to members who have “opted in” to receive them.
• Go to our Action Alerts Signup Form.
• Enter your name and email address.
• When a bad bill is scheduled for a committee hearing or the governor's signature, we will send you an Action Alert email with our position, talking points, a summary of a bill and and the contact information of the decisionmakers for you to call an/or email.

Will you add your voice to ours by signing up to receive future Action Alerts? We all receive too many unsolicited emails, so we will only reach out to you in the form of an Action Alert when we believe the need for collective action is high and timely. Please complete and submit the short sign-up form here if you would like to be included in future Action Alerts.

Thank you for supporting native plant conservation!

About our Policy & Legislation Work:

The Florida Native Plant Society’s Policy and Legislation Committee represents native plant conservation concerns to the Florida Legislature, Governor’s office, various state agencies, and even at the Federal level when warranted.

Our greatest strength to advocate for native plant conservation lies in our numbers, and in the commitment and pragmatic approach we take to advocacy. Our recent successes have been significant, and have included a major role in the resumption of funding for land conservation through Florida Forever and in ending the M-CORES toll roads project. Every year, we are the front lines of the fight to secure annual funding for endangered plant research.

To this end, we're holding a mid-session briefing at the end of the month (1/26 12:00 EST) with FNPS Executive Director Lynda Davis and Policy & Legislation Chair Eugene Kelly.⁠ Register here.

1000 Friends of Florida held a Legislative Preview webinar in December, which you can watch here.

Our annual campaign supports our policy work all year round. If you haven't already donated, please consider contributing to our annual campaign - no amount is too small. We are so grateful for your support!