Florida's renewable energy bright lights -- feeling frisky Wednesday during the first day of the Florida Energy Summit -- took turns describing feats of new-energy derring-do just over the next horizon.
Arguing that fish and other sea life in the Gulf of Mexico are being damaged, two environmental groups are challenging the state's decision to renew a permit for Progress Energy Florida power plants in Citrus County.
The Sierra Club and the Florida Wildlife Federation, in a case filed last week in the state Division of Administrative Hearings, target two coal-fired plants at Progress Energy's Crystal River complex.
At the moment, national polls show Herman Cain leading or tied for the lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Legislation setting up a Department of Gaming Control and a State Gaming Commission puts Florida on track to approve mega-casinos and become a top-flight gambling destination.
With one gaming company vowing to build the biggest casino in the world, and deep-pocketed lobbyists touting the economic benefits of gambling projects, two lawmakers introduced a casino bill on Wednesday.
Nobody lost benefits already earned or the right to collectively bargain when the state required workers to pay 3 percent of their salaries into the retirement system, an attorney for the state argued Wednesday.
However, a Leon County judge, who has previously ruled against the states prison privatization plan, appeared to question some of the states arguments for how lawmakers changed the government employee pension program earlier this year.
The Commission on Ethics on Wednesday dismissed a complaint filed by a union that alleged conflict of interest by Gov. Rick Scott in the move to privatize prisons.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is in the middle of an effort to represent the state's corrections officers, had alleged in the complaint that Scott was conflicted because he oversees both the prisons agency and is a trustee of the State Board of Administration, which invests state money -- including holdings in companies that would benefit from prison privatization.
