In a high-stakes skirmish on taxes, lobbyists are dueling once more over legislation that would impose a 40-cent-per-pack tax on a Florida cigarette maker.
State Sen. Thad Altman's proposed bill has the deep-pocketed support of Big Tobacco companies, who say they want to "level the playing field" by requiring Dosal Tobacco Corp. to pay the same fees they've been paying since settling the state's tobacco lawsuit in 1997.
The weakest part of our political system, by a considerable margin, is the presidential nominating process. It tends to exclude from consideration those with the greatest experience in what is uniquely the president's responsibility, foreign policy and military strategy.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to requests Wednesday made by former Gov. Charlie Crist, current Gov. Rick Scott and members of the Florida congressional delegation to have more than half of the counties across the Sunshine State declared disaster areas due to the severe cold that gripped the state during November and December.
More than nine years after the 9/11 attacks, two Florida Republicans in Congress, both of whom are receiving some attention as possible candidates to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012, introduced measures on how the United States tries captured terrorists.
Republican U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan took to the House floor on Wednesday to repeat his call to prevent Cuba from drilling off the Florida coastline.
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While most of the leading Republican presidential candidates have been fairly quiet in their takes on President Barack Obamas State of the Union address, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who ran for the GOP nod in 2008 and is almost certain to do so again in 2012, offered his view on the speech on Wednesday afternoon.
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Deriding a law that requires septic tank inspections once every five years that was passed last year as "one-size-fits-all," Sen. Charlie Dean, R-Inverness, who chairs the Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, said he wants to rework the law to allow for greater local control. He has filed a bill that would repeal the law, which requires the Department of Health to conduct inspections on septic tanks.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to requests made by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, current Gov. Rick Scott and members of the Florida congressional delegation to have counties across the Sunshine State declared disaster areas due to the cold weather that impacted the state in December and January.
Comments are now closed.
Carol Browner, who headed the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation under Gov. Lawton Chiles, is leaving her post at the White House, where she ran the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.
