Amid a growing national witch hunt for abortion medication, Florida may fund testing for 'contaminants' in toilet water

Florida in Five: Five stories to read from the past week in Florida politics.

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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

The state of Florida may subsidize local police departments that test sewer lines for signs of narcotics, explosives and other “contaminants,” under a proposal that just surfaced in Tallahassee, where lawmakers are meeting in a special session to finalize a new state budget.

GOP leaders in the state Senate last week pitched a new “wastewater narcotics and explosives testing grant program” that would provide funding to local law enforcement agencies trying to identify illicit materials in municipal wastewater. The program would be seeded with at least $500,000 routed through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the state police agency.

Senate budget negotiators have proposed adding this proposal to the new state budget.

The idea follows a few weeks after the Trump administration proposed nationwide wastewater testing to track drug use across the country. “We will also prioritize establishing new data systems to monitor drug consumption in real-time, through a national wastewater-based monitoring system and biosurveillance,” the administration wrote in a new “National Drug Control Strategy” published May 4.

It’s also part of a rising surveillance-state movement inside Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature.

For example, state lawmakers also unveiled a new plan last week to spend $6 million of taxpayer money on a “statewide criminal intelligence” tech platform capable of merging, searching and analyzing information gleaned from disparate datasets. The procurement proposal emerged a few months after lawmakers considered legislation that would have created a new counterintelligence unit within FDLE with the power to spy on Floridians.

House budget negotiators want to add this procurement language to the new state budget.

The counterintelligence legislation ultimately failed to pass. But lawmakers did pass another bill empowering the governor and Cabinet to designate ideological groups as “domestic terrorist organizations.” Gov. Ron DeSantis, who quietly lobbied for the legislation, recently signed that one into law.

The sudden interest in searching sewage for contaminants also comes as a growing number of GOP-controlled states are exploring wastewater testing as a way to track and stop women from ending pregnancies through the use of abortion medication.

Legislation has been introduced in states such as Texas, South Carolina, Wyoming and Wisconsin that would make state environmental agencies or local utility operators test public sewage systems for traces of the abortion medication mifepristone and other abortion pill byproducts. Mifepristone is now used in more than 60 percent of all abortions in the U.S. — and it can also be discretely accessed through the mail and taken in the privacy of one’s own home.

Under some proposals, drug manufacturers or healthcare providers could face financial penalties or prison time if the testing turns up evidence of abortion medication — the use of which has been sharply restricted in more than two dozen states, including Florida. The state of Louisiana, for instance, has classified abortion pills as a “controlled substance” on par with drugs like Xanax and Valium.

Senate Republican leaders have not yet said anything publicly about their proposed wastewater testing program. The sparse details available in budget documents frame the idea as about “combatting drug manufacturing and trafficking.”

It’s entirely possible — probably likely — that supporters will say this program is intended to crack down on deadly narcotics like fentanyl and that it’s not some kind of abortion surveillance scheme in disguise.

Update (May 21): A spokesperson for Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula) said the idea was pitched by a vendor.

“The President was supportive of adding the language. It was our understanding that law enforcement can use the technology to confirm that a location is engaging in ongoing production of illegal methamphetamines (meth labs),” Albritton spokesperson Katie Betta wrote in an email. “It is my understanding that law enforcement is still required to adhere to protocols regarding legal searches (there would need to be probable cause that a location was producing these illegal drugs). It was his understanding that one of the benefits is officer safety, because making these drugs is obviously very dangerous and these illegal meth labs are prone to explosions.”

But Florida state government is run right now by Republican leaders who already misspent millions of dollars in taxpayer money to stop an abortion-rights ballot measure and gamed the state court system to cut off abortion access for teenagers facing unplanned pregnancies. There are current legislators who want to completely ban all abortion — even for rape victims — and set $100,000 bounties on anyone who helps a woman obtain abortion medication.

So even if politicians in Tallahassee swear they would never use wastewater testing to hunt down women having abortions…how could anyone trust them?

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

The grift goes on

Education commissioner is sole finalist for Polk State College presidency (Florida Phoenix)

See also: Ingoglia pressed on Florida Cabinet land giveaway for Rays stadium in Tampa (Florida Phoenix)

See also: Built for MAGA appeal, Alligator Alcatraz leaves DeSantis with big political bill (Miami Herald) ($)

Meanwhile…

Yes, Florida is the only state in the nation removing children from low-cost health insurance (PolitiFact)

See also; Florida ranks last in reading, warns nationwide education report (WUSF)

See also: Academica-tied group gets into the school voucher game (Politico Florida) ($)

Ron DeSantis tried to put one of these men on the board of a public university

The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet (The Atlantic) ($)

See also: What to know about Florida Republicans’ ongoing efforts to change surrogacy laws (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

A different shade of pink slime

The rise and fall of an AI-driven ‘local news outlet’ in South Florida (Florida Trib)

Some of the many stories buried in the state budget

The healthcare budget: HMOs cut, nursing homes rates swell, and hospitals in limbo (Florida Phoenix)

See also: Leader says Florida House will fund Tri-Rail; Senate outlook uncertain (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)

See also: Florida lawmakers consider cut to state aid for Central Florida Zoo as they care for rescued sloths (Orlando Weekly)

See also: Florida may pick up security costs for DeSantis after he leaves office (Politico Florida) ($)

See also: Florida’s DOGE days may be fading (Politico Florida) ($)

Perspectives

The ‘degradation’ of divvying up state dollars (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)

Shutdown of expensive Florida Everglades prison promises to be expensive, too (Florida Phoenix)

Surrogacy is latest target of Florida AG’s anti-abortion crusade (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

A new Pork Chop Gang now rules Florida (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)