An Attorney General-backed vendor pitched wastewater surveillance program

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

May 24, 2026

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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.

A “wastewater surveillance” company that hired former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr to lobby on its behalf is behind a last-minute measure in the Florida Legislature to fund testing of municipal toilet water for narcotics and other “contaminants.”

Stercus Bioanalytics is pitching its testing and tracking services as a tool to help law enforcement agencies, school districts and college campuses anonymously monitor drug use and communicable diseases. The company recently hired a team of lobbyists in Tallahassee and Republican leaders in the Florida Legislature are now poised to fund a program using the technology, which we wrote about last week in the context of other GOP-controlled states exploring wastewater-testing as a way to track women having abortions.

Representatives of the Kansas-based company have been in discussions with the office of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, the former Ron DeSantis chief of staff who was appointed to the powerful legal post in early 2025, according to a slide deck provided to the Florida Senate. The company has also approached the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the statewide police agency.

A slide from a deck Stercus Bioanalytics provided to the Florida Senate.

Stercus says it can detect dozens of substances in toilet water, including illicit drugs and infectious diseases, bioterrorism threats like anthrax and tuberculosis, and even specific molecules produced when someone’s body metabolizes certain types of food or pharmaceuticals. An affiliated company, Express Health, specializes in testing for sexually transmitted infections.

Stercus can do community-wide monitoring by sampling from municipal wastewater treatment plants. But it can also perform site-level testing using manholes surrounding a target; the company says it can narrow down the source of the substance it is testing for to a single sewer drain.

In its marketing materials, Stercus touts support from William “Bill” Barr, the former U.S. Attorney General who served under former President George H. W. Bush and again during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Barr, who once approved an infamous secret program tracking phone calls Americans made to other countries, now lobbies in Washington for Stercus’ parent company, Barry Road Partners. Barr has specifically sought federal funding for Stercus.

And the company could now land state funding from Florida, where legislators are currently meeting in a three-week special session to finalize a long-delayed state budget.

A few days into the budget special session, GOP leaders in the state Senate suggested $500,000 to finance wastewater testing by local police departments searching for narcotics, explosives and other “contaminants.” House leaders agreed to the proposal on Friday, although no line item is truly locked until the entire budget is done.

Katie Betta, a spokesperson for Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula), said a goal is to help police stop the spread of illegal methamphetamines and trace the location of meth labs.

“One example that was shared with the President was a school in Indiana there were students who were taking the PSAT who were sold counterfeit Adderall that was actually methamphetamine,” Betta said. “They were able to help the school explain to the parents what happened and why scores were so low, but then eventually also track down the drug dealer who sold the drugs to the students.”

Betta also said that the budget provision will not be specific to Stercus and that a contract would have to be competitively bid.

Legislative leaders say they hope to finalize Florida’s roughly $115 billion budget by the end of the day Tuesday. That would enable the full Legislature to vote on the spending plan by Friday, after a constitutionally required, three-day “cooling off” period. The state’s new fiscal year begins July 1.

Here’s a look at at few other eleventh-hour developments from budget negotiations in the state Capitol, a process known as “budget conference” that is always secretive — but especially so this year:

New College expansion

An agreement seems to be coming together to transfer the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College of Florida, the liberal arts school in southwest Florida that GOP leaders are turning into a publicly subsidized clone of explicitly conservative private institutions like Hillsdale College in Michigan.

Under the latest proposal, New College would take over USF’s satellite campus in Sarasota. But USF would get to keep roughly $20 million in annual state funding associated with the campus, which had been a sticking point for USF supporters.

At the same time, New College would get permission to divert $5 million in annual state funding it currently receives for student scholarships and use that money on other expenses instead.

More private school subsidies

House budget negotiators on Friday proposed a new subsidy program for private schools.

While specific details are sparse, the proposal would set aside $7 million to fund construction and maintenance grants for private schools in “financially disadvantaged” communities.

Further details should come this week — perhaps in one of the “budget conforming” bills, which are always the most dangerous part of budget conference.

It may also be a good time to re-read this piece from the Wall Street Journal last month: Florida’s Billionaires Want More Private Schools. So They’re Building Their Own.

Data centers…in space

Space Florida, the agency that helps secure incentive and financing deals for aerospace companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, is in line for a last-minute windfall.

Budget negotiators in the state House have proposed an extra $3 million for the agency to spend on site planning, environmental assessments and other infrastructure-development costs.

But the House also on Friday proposed another $1 million to test “space-based data storage.” Under the proposal, Space Florida would be required to contract with a Florida-based company to provide “orbital data storage services.”

The budget instructions don’t spell out a specific vendor. But a St. Petersburg-based company called Lonestar Data Holdings — which promises premium data storage in low-Earth orbit — has been lobbying lawmakers on “Space Florida budget allocations.”

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

Many, many thanks to Jason for the terrific compendium of articles by Matthew Isbell on the VRA 1965. I will be filing that for later inspection when I have an hour or two. And so timely as we are witnessing the MAGA voting rights assault of minority blocs. (And, not to put too fine a point on it, but white voters of both progressive stripe and/or modest means also have benefitted from minority-access seats.)

Can we agree that a court order be required before the poop police begin to surveil the contents of an individual's toilet? (Barr has always been a slippery fellow. Now he's covered in bodily fluids and even slicker.)

Speaking of piles of crap: MAGA henchman DeSantis has covered himself in it though he may imagine it as his "crowning glory." (The odour reportedly emanating from Trump: Jim Crow.)

S Russell

The fact that these corrupt Florida politicians are gonna waste millions of our taxpayer dollars to muck around in, and lab test our residents' shit and piss in order to find "abortions", is about the most Flori-duh thing I could possibly hear.

Surely nobody will plan on sabotaging that massive demonstration of stupidity by just, oh I don't know, dumping lots of birth control or hormones into toilets in deeply conservative, rural areas to send these idiots on wild goose chases, right?

As far as Bill Barr is concerned, maybe he should be spending his time worrying about getting subpoenaed for his, and his father's, involvement in Epstein's operations?

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An Attorney General-backed vendor pitched wastewater surveillance program

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

New College expansion

More private school subsidies

Data centers…in space

Florida’s flagship university has become a gong show

Government gone wild

Sounds familiar

‘Floridians helped fund this acquisition through their bills’

Budget bits

Perspectives

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?