Noah Valenstein’s resignation as the head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has touched off an interesting debate over executive power that may still be an issue during next year’s election.
Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced he planned to name the new FDEP head all by himself without consulting the Florida Cabinet.
As it turns out, one of DeSantis’ announced opponents in his bid for re-election is Cabinet member Nikki Fried, Florida’s secretary of agriculture and consumer services.
She pushed back, charging that was illegal.
No, it’s not, DeSantis replied.
A check of the Florida Constitution and Florida statutes shows Fried was right.
20.055 (1) of Florida statutes reads:
“The head of the Department of Environmental Protection shall be a secretary, who shall be appointed by the Governor, with the concurrence of three members of the Cabinet. ”
Section 6 of the Florida Constitution reads:
“When provided by law, confirmation by the senate or the approval of three members of the cabinet shall be required for appointment to or removal from any designated statutory office.”
Florida has a three-member Cabinet, so that means the vote must be unanimous.
That means Fried potentially has veto power if DeSantis appoints, for instance, someone with strong ties to the enterprises the department is supposed to regulated.
That also may be why DeSantis doesn’t want to deal with any dissenting voices if he is thinking of making some Trump-like appointment (coal lobbyist to head EPA), which would mirror some of the other decisions that have emerged from DeSantis’ office recently.
Just for the record, Sierra Club has made no endorsements in the governor’s race.
Sierra does support strong environmental protection and who leads the agency sets the tone for whether the protection is strong or weak.