Tampa Bay residents spoke before utility regulators at a rare set of public hearings. Florida residents pay some of the highest energy bills in the country.

Bradley Marshall, Attorney, Florida Office: “They’re using a completely different cost of service methodology that is driving residential bills through the roof.”

Bradley Marshall, Attorney, Florida Office: “Out in the real world, citizens are dealing with devastating impacts as our climate heats up and gets more volatile. Heat is killing our reefs, our creatures, and even our citizens. State leaders should be doing all they can to protect and prepare us.”

An opinion piece by Laura Arroyo (Senior Attorney at Earthjustice) and Favianna Rodriguez (Founder and CEO of The Center for Cultural Power)

Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Florida Office: “If Florida wants the program back, it has to comply with federal law. In the meantime, the Corps is more than capable of handling Florida’s 404 permits, as it has for more than 40 years.”

Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Florida Office: “If [Florida officials] want the program back, they need to fix their mistakes, not dig into them.”

An opinion piece by Alisa Coe, Deputy Managing Attorney, Florida Office, Earthjustice

Christina Reichert, Attorney, Florida Office: “This would be creating brand new fossil fuel infrastructure in a time where we need to be transitioning away from that.”

Bradley Marshall, Attorney, Florida Office: “The Apalachicola River is an outstanding Florida water and it is designated by the United Nations as an International Biosphere Reserve. It’s foolish to consider drilling for oil there, especially at a time when we know we need to be moving away from fossil fuels and towards the future, which…

Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Florida Office: “The bottom line is that the [Army Corps of Engineers] is open for business and the only thing standing in the way of 404 permitting now is Florida’s refusal to transfer applications.”

Bradley Marshall, Attorney, Florida Office: “It’s not a secret that the utilities have a great deal of political power in Florida and have been able to get statutes that are beneficial to their interests and they’ve gotten favorable decisions at the Florida Public Service Commission.”

Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Florida Office: “The decision is incredibly important because it goes back to the fundamentals, which is that the Endangered Species Act means what it says. The judge was on really solid ground in his ruling. He’s relying on decades of Endangered Species Act case law.”

Christina Reichert, Attorney, Florida Office: “They didn’t do what was required to make sure that there wouldn’t be any substantial harm to the many protected species that are in the state of Florida. Florida has … over 130 listed species in the state; we have immense biodiversity that needs to be protected. And a lot…

A discussion on environmental justice with Dominique Burkhardt, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, and DeLesslin “Roo” George-Warren, a Special Projects Coordinator for the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project

Jordan Luebkemann, Attorney, Florida Office: “PHMSA already admitted that its 2020 rule was rushed and unsafe when it proposed suspending it in 2021, and we hope the court will act swiftly to vacate the rule for good.”

Bonnie Malloy, Attorney, Florida Office: “The trigger for (the state) to file an appeal hasn’t happened yet because the court hasn’t rendered a final judgment yet. This is something developers sought because they could get permits quicker than when they go through the (U.S. Army) Corps process, but there were several illegal shortcuts they took…

Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Florida Office: “The judge got it right. There’s a lot of reasons this program is illegal.”

Tania Galloni, Managing Attorney, Florida Office: “’It’s hard’ is NOT a reason to not comply with federal law.”