Lobbyists for a mining company wrote a bill to block lawsuits over radiation on former mines
The legislation is designed to help Fortune 500 industrial giant Mosaic Co. redevelop some of the more than 200 square miles of former phosphate mines it owns across the southern interior of Florida.
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One of the world’s largest mining firms wrote a bill in the Florida Legislature that would help the company dodge lawsuits related to radiation on former mines — and make it easier to develop some of its vast land holdings across the southern interior of the state.
Records obtained by Seeking Rents show that lobbyists for the Mosaic Co. — a Fortune 500 corporation that mines phosphate ore in central Florida and processes it for fertilizer at chemical factories near Tampa — gave state lawmakers the original draft of the legislation, which would effectively immunize the company against certain kinds of legal claims under a tough environmental law.
Mosaic’s goal is to snuff out lingering legal risk on the more than 200 square miles of former mines it owns across five counties in Florida, so the company can redevelop the land or sell it off to other real-estate developers without fear of future claims from homeowners exposed to elevated levels of radiation.
The records also show that Mosaic has been working on the issue with one of the most powerful people in Tallahassee: Senate President Ben Albritton, a Republican whose district includes most of Mosaic’s land.
Mosaic is one of the largest campaign contributors in Florida politics. Records show the company has donated more than $500,000 to state candidates and committees through the first nine months of the year — including more than $100,000 to a fundraising committee led by GOP leaders in the Florida Senate.
The liability legislation — which company lobbyists have told lawmakers is “very important to Mosaic” — appears to be on a fast track in Tallahassee.
After it got caught up in a budget dispute that derailed the Legislature’s 2025 session, the bill has been resurrected for 2026. And it has already been teed up for a full vote in the state House as soon as the first week of the session, which begins next month.
A long time coming
One of the strongest environmental laws on the books in Florida is a statute known as the “Water Quality Assurance Act.”
First enacted nearly 40 years ago, the law imposes something known as “strict liability” on companies that release pollution into the ground or water — which means they can be forced to compensate people impacted by that pollution regardless of whether the release was accidental or the result of corporate carelessness.
The idea is to ensure companies handling materials that can sicken or kill people and wildlife have maximum financial incentive to be as careful as possible.
Mosaic has been trying to weaken the Water Quality Assurance Act for years.
For instance, in the spring of 2024, Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature nearly passed a bill that would have dramatically reduced the legal exposure that polluters face under the law. The legislation ultimately failed to pass in part because of intense opposition from environmental groups and lobbyists for personal-injury lawyers.
That 2024 bill was pushed in public by business front groups like the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida. But records show that Mosaic lobbyists were pushing it behind the scenes.
After the 2024 session ended, one of the lawmakers who had sponsored that bill — Rep. Toby Overdorf (R-Palm City) — expressed interest in refiling it for the 2025 session. Before he did, Overdorf had an aide to reach out to a Mosaic lobbyist to ask whether the lobbyist had any updates to the legislation.
The lobbyist responded by asking Overdorf not to refile the bill at all, according to emails obtained through public-records requests. Overdorf never did.
“Please hold back for the time being,” the Mosaic lobbyist wrote in a December 2024 email to Overdorf’s aide. “Some developments on this. Will explain.”
A new strategy
The lobbyist didn’t elaborate on the “developments” in the emails, and neither he nor Overdorf responded to requests for comment. But about two months later, the same lobbyist gave lawmakers and staffers in both the House and Senate a different bill to file for the 2025 session.
The new proposal also punched a hole in the Water Quality Assurance Act — but a narrower hole tailored specifically to a threat Mosaic is facing right now.
In phosphate mining, companies dig up phosphate ore, which is typically buried between 20 feet and 50 feet underground. Once they have finished mining a site, they are required to “reclaim” the land by putting back all the soil, sand and other “overburden” that had been excavated.
But phosphate ore contains uranium and radium, which are naturally radioactive. And the mining and reclamation process leaves some of that radioactive material behind — except it is now much closer to the surface.
As a result, radiation levels are higher on land that has been mined for phosphate, which creates legal exposure if homes or businesses are later built on the site.
That’s the issue at the heart of a case known as Cruz v. Mosaic, in which residents of a pair of mobile home parks built atop former phosphate mines have sued Mosaic alleging harm from radiation exposure. The residents, who are seeking class-action status, have asked the judge to hold Mosaic to strict liability under the Water Quality Assurance Act, among other legal claims.
The case has been slowly grinding through state court for more than five years. There’s enough merit to it that the judge has denied Mosaic’s attempt to have it dismissed. The publicly traded company has warned investors about it.
This is where the company’s new legislation comes in. It would essentially create a new carveout from the Water Quality Assurance Act for legal claims that arise from “a substance that is part of part of the natural geology of a former phosphate mine.”
It’s an oblique way of saying radiation. And it means that someone living on a former phosphate mine who suffers harm from exposure to radiation — radiation that comes from the “natural geology” of phosphate ore — could no longer hold Mosaic to strict liability in a lawsuit.
In other words, it would no longer be enough to just prove that Mosaic is responsible for the elevated radiation levels. A plaintiff would also have to prove that Mosaic was somehow negligent, too. That’s a much higher bar to have to clear in court.
That’s not all. Mosaic’s legislation would also erect new hurdles even for lawsuits alleging negligence by the company.
The changes could cripple the case against Mosaic, as well as a second suit filed earlier this year against an engineering company that the plaintiffs say failed to safely remediate former phosphate mine land in Polk County.
But the impact would extend far beyond two small lawsuits. Florida has more than 450,000 acres of current and former phosphate mines — most of which is now owned by Mosaic.
Lobbying muscle
Mosaic put all of its lobbying muscle behind the lability legislation during the 2025 session, when it was filed as House Bill 585 and Senate Bill 832.
Emails obtained show that the company arranged dozens of one-on-one meetings with legislators, wrote and approved amendments, and supplied talking points and other materials.
Mosaic framed the legislation as the key to unlocking real-estate development in one of the most rural parts of Florida.
“Job creation and housing development rely on land that is available, affordable, and developable. Yet, many lands that once supported phosphate mining have untapped potential due to legal uncertainty that limits reuse,” the company said in a one-pager it distributed among lawmakers. “By providing liability protections for the sale of previously mined phosphate lands, this legislation removes barriers to repurposing them for new opportunities.
Mosaic also fed friendly lawmakers arguments to fend off changes it did not want to make to its bill — such as an amendment proposed by Rep. Lindsay Cross (D-St. Petersburg) that would have required anyone selling or renting homes built on former phosphate land to provide disclosures directly to the buyer or tenant in order to qualify for the lability protections.
Friends in high places
Mosaic isn’t the only one who made the legislation a priority.
So, too, did Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Wauchula).
Records show that Mosaic lobbyists worked closely with Albritton’s staff on the legislation even before it was filed. Calendar entries show multiple meetings to discuss drafts in Albritton’s conference room in the President’s Office.
Late in the 2025 session, as the relationship between Albritton and House Speaker Danny Perez (R-Miami) deteriorated amid a stalemate over the state budget, the House decided to hold up Mosaic’s bill.
When that happened, records show Mosaic lobbyists strategized with Albritton’s staff to find another bill the company could commandeer. The Senate ultimately crammed Mosaic’s language onto a wholly unrelated piece of legislation dealing with mitigation banks.
On the fast track
That budget stalemate ultimately doomed Mosaic’s liability legislation in 2025, as the session essentially collapsed and dozens of bills died without any resolution.
But it has been revived for 2026 as House Bill 167. Though the legislation has yet to resurface in the Senate, the new House bill is identical to the 2025 version.
Except now the bill has an influential new sponsor in the lower chamber: Rep. Lawrence McClure, a Republican from Plant City who chairs the House Budget Committee and has a history of helping Mosaic.
After allowing Mosaic’s bill to slip through the clacks last spring, House leadership seems to have fast-tracked it this time around. They have already pushed the legislation through two committee hearings — one of which took just just 10 minutes — and set it up so that the House could send it to the Senate as soon as the 60-day session formally begins.
The Florida Legislature’s 2026 session will gavel open on Jan. 13.
Phosphate mining has five fatal flaws:
1. Radioactive Phospho-gypsum stacks that grow five pounds for every one pound of fertilizer - prone to leaks, sinkholes, and collapses. The Florida legislature approved testing this dangerous waste on roads.
2. Clay Slime Pits, which are about one mile square and 70' deep, enclosed by dirt dams - they cover about 40% of mined land. Never solid, they are toxic and must be segregated forever.
3. Radiation from Uranium 238 and decay compounds like Radon. Mining exposes mined land to radiation and produces radioactive byproducts, such as reject rock, which concentrates radiation and is stored in huge piles or spread on roads.
4. Permanent phosphate nutrient runoff into streams, rivers, and the Gulf.
5. Permanent wasteland. Hardee County mined land has no houses, farms, ranches, or roads. No housing developments. Why is this? The 15 feet of topsoil were dumped into the bottom of the pits. The pits were filled with white powdered sand and toxic reagents. The land is radioactive. It's not suitable for farming. Mining companies own the mined land. To sell it, they need protection from what is on and under the ground and in the water. Mining-related companies got caught in Lakeland, failed to disclose radiation hazards to home buyers, and LOST in court.
Senate President Ben Albritton and his brother, Joe, have a long and soiled relationship with the mining industry, selling services to the industry and taking economic development money from the industry. They got caught in the first cycle of cash grants given by the Hardee County Industrial Development Authority Board (Joe was vice chair) on a grant application involving two other House Representatives, James Grant and Jason Brodeur. Ben and Joe owned part of the company, submitted the grant application, and formed a side company (Heartland Technologies LLC) to sell marketing services for LifeSync Technologies LLC. Joe signed as an owner of the grant award agreement while serving on two economic development boards providing funding. This project and follow-on projects failed completely and became the focus of a State audit and a Grand Jury. Joe and Ben Albritton were interviewed under oath during ethics investigations and admitted their involvement.
Ben Albritton lives in Wachula, Florida, the seat of Hardee County. He owns an agribusiness company that services property owned by mining interests. Joe owns the Albritton insurance agency, and their Uncle, Jim See, owns a real estate agency that represents mining interests. He was found guilty of an ethics violation because of his son being hired by the above project while he was president of the Industrial Development Board and his exclusive real estate relationship with the industry, paying about $4 million per year to his board for grants.
How Senate President Ben Albritton and others can propose, support, and promote measures that will benefit mining, especially considering he lives in the middle of a complete and permanent toxic waste site, is beyond me.
Another good job in exposing how money influences government n the Sunshine state.