The Florida Roundup - A conversation with Florida’s CFO, judge orders halt of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, food and climate change, and weekly news briefing

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with Florida’s CFO Blaise Ingoglia about the latest ruling on “Alligator Alcatraz,” redistricting, and the state’s DOGE audits (00:00). Then, POLITICO’s Kimberly Leonard joined us for a deeper dive into this week’s two court decisions around the controversial immigrant detention center in the Everglades (12:14). Plus, author and journalist Michael Grunwald spoke about his latest book that explores the tension between food production and climate change (20:26). And later, a roundup of news from across the state including a ruling on Florida’s book ban (37:34), the standoff between local governments and state officials over crosswalks (39:40), and why a growing number of undocumented migrants are making the decision this year to self-deport (43:14).

The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator program, providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace. Assistance is available at 877-813 or coveringflora.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have you along this week. Florida and the Trump administration have been given 60 days to close down the immigrant detention center in the Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz. A federal judge in Miami ruled late Thursday that the quick construction of the facility

violated federal environmental review laws. The DeSantis administration filed notice that it will appeal. The center was opened in a matter of days and has continued to expand something the judge's order stops for now. While hundreds of millions of dollars of state tax money is paying for the site, Florida has said

it will be reimbursed by the federal government. Just one of the many issues now, we will put to the chief financial officer of the state of Florida. Blaz and Goliah. Blaise, welcome back to Florida Public Radio. Nice to have you. Great to be here. Your reaction to the order to stop construction, stop accepting new

detainees, and wind down the operation at Alligator Alcatraz in 60 days. I think it's an activist ruling from an activist judge. It's nothing short of that. Is it a legitimate ruling? I don't think so.

The footprint has not been expanded more than what was already there. Even the plaintiffs did not know that it was an active active airstrip. So look, this is nothing more than politics, fully expecting this to be overturned by another judge. So this judge ruled that because of the involvement of the federal government, federal environmental review should have been undertaken, and it was not thus leading to the ruling. What is the flaw in that rationale in your your opinion?

The flaw is that the footprint really didn't expand past what, what alligator alcatraz was already there for. So despite putting more than a thousand people there prior where there were maybe just a few dozen, because the actual use of the land hasn't changed, then the environmental review is not necessary. Is that your opinion? Yeah, because it's a self-contained unit. They are, they are shipping in water.

They are shipping out human waste. they're shipping in food. So everything that you see there right now on a dime's notice can be returned to the regular natural Florida beauty. So that's why it's an activist judge giving an activist ruling. How much has been spent by the state? I don't have an exact number, but even if you take the number of 450 million, which has been bandied about in the media, that is money that is to be refunded to the state by the federal government. This is standard fair. It is nothing that goes on in other states.

When we house detainees in any state, regardless of which Florida, New York, New Jersey, California, the states get reimbursed and the local governments get reimbursed. So look, the problem isn't necessarily the amount of money that the state is laying out that's eventually going to be reimbursed. the problem is the cost of illegal immigration. You know, the leftist will always complain about how much alligator Alcatraz is costing, but they never spoke up at all when the federal government was spending $2 billion to house illegal immigrants in New York City and hotel rooms. So it's a little duplicitous, if you ask me. Well, as the chief financial officer, you are watching these bills ultimately responsible for them. Has the state applied for any reimbursement of the

costs that it has paid for alligator alcatraz in the process and the guy know the governor's have personal conversations with uh with fema and with uh president trump on reimbursing this money any paperwork filed with fema uh that i don't know that would be a question for uh kevin guthrie over d em d em being the department of uh emergency management uh what kind of timeline do you anticipate once the paperwork if the paperwork is filed with the federal government for reimbursement. Yeah, look, there's a pot of money at the federal government right now, and some of that money will be carried over until the next fiscal year.

So timeline, look, I want the money back in the coffers as soon as possible, but let's not forget, again, I will reiterate that this money wouldn't have been spent, would have not had been spent if it would not for the open border Biden administration. We're speaking with the chief financial officer of the state of Florida, Blaze and Golia. week blaze the governor said the official census population count of florida should be updated we're talking about the 2020 census population count the once a decade count that is a nationwide who should be included in this updated count if there is one not illegal immigrants and i do agree with the governor that the that the counts should be adjusted prior to every 10 years if you think about

10 years is a very, very long time. With the amount of data and technology that we have, we can balance out these states in terms of waiting congressional districts and waiting states when it comes to delegates and electoral votes and electoral college and congressional members. To wait every 10 years seems like an awfully long time with the amount of information that we have. And we know over the last five or six years that we have had people move out of California. California in droves into Utah. We have had people move out of droves in New York and New Jersey into the state of Florida. So if you think about it, currently under the current system every 10 years, we're not getting proper representation. Proper representation would to wait it every two years, but at the very least, definitely not 10 years. So in terms of who could be included in this updated count, you don't think anybody without legal status in the United States should be counted. Everybody else should be counted? of course because then you're disproportionately giving representation to a state that doesn't have legal

residents and then if you're going to count non-legal residents and give them a bigger proportion is an outside proportionality to it and i just don't agree with that so even unregistered voters for instance should be counted no unregistered voters are counted because they're citizens um the illegal immigrants or people that are not in the country lawfully should definitely not be counted A higher population could result in more seats in Congress for Florida, more electoral college votes, and more federal funding based upon population. As the chief financial officer blaze, which of those is the priority for the administration? But the administration being the DeSantis administration or the Trump administration. The DeSantis administration here in Florida.

Yeah, I think it's all of the above, but it all starts with properly awaiting the proportionality of the districts and making sure that we get the right amount of delegates. to Congress. I think that comes first and foremost. You're leading the state audits of local governments across the state with the Department of Government Efficiency. You've launched some audits in Broward, Hillsborough, Manatee counties, for instance, the cities of Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Orlando. What have you found so far? Well, we're not going to disclose what we found, and there's a strategic reason for that because we don't want to say, hey, we found X, but we still have to do the audit in another county and the other county will know that we're looking at X. So that gives them time to rearrange things and potentially hide some of the information from our auditors and reviewers.

But rest assured that we will start sending out the findings, roughly about 60 days after we complete the audits. So 60 days after you complete each individual audit or 60 days after you complete all the audits that are currently undergoing right now? Each individual audit. So if you've been paying attention, which I'm sure you have, this is what you do for a living. you have we were doing about two a week for the last four weeks so at some point in the future we'll be doing two reports a week as we start finishing up those audits are you including the budgets of sheriff's departments yeah we're including everything um everything that government is spending on right now we are focused on general fund budgets which includes a lot of law enforcement and first responders so the answer to that is yes and what are you looking for what are these auditors looking for as they're scraping through spreadsheets of financial data? Yeah, we're looking for anything that is going to be waste, fraud, and abuse. So when I meet with the auditors and the reviewers, I tell them, I said, if you are a taxpayer

that resides in whatever city or county that we're in, that they're doing the audit in, if you found out that the government was paying for this, how would you feel? So is that your definition of abuse, budgetary abuse? Well, I would say that's a definition of wasteful spending because if you're winding up spending on stuff that has nothing to do with making the lives of people better, protecting its citizens. Yeah, I would definitely say that that is a claim. And when you see some of the examples that we put out there,

I think it is going to be undeniable how local governments are wasting taxpayer dollars. And the worst part about it is they cry poor. And so what comes after these audits? Hold on a second. Not only do they waste the money, then they go and they try to ask for more money in a form of ballot referendums to increase sales taxes or property taxes. So what comes after the audits? An informational campaign, number one, to let people in the jurisdiction know how they are spending their money, how much their government has grown, the general fund budgets over the last four or five years. And a lot of this is going to be a prelude to a constitutional amendment for property tax reform because property tax. have gone crazy here in the last five years post-COVID.

So of property values, which underlie the property tax collections. Yeah, but the problem is the homestead exemption. The original $25,000 homestead exemption years ago shielded about one-third of your home from property taxation. Now it's closer to 9%. The current structure that we have for homestead exemption is outdated. It doesn't work. It's not protecting anyone.

in fact it's hurting people because it's a flat fee it hasn't risen with inflation or property values as a proportion of the underlying value well right because it hasn't moved um it hasn't moved it moves every five or six years isn't it blaze than then then the use of the revenue no two well one leads to the other you cannot have property tax relief unless you have good stewards of the taxpayer dollars at the local levels because they are the ones that assess and collect property taxes You cannot have one without the other. Do you anticipate the legislature or the administration stepping into local governments and making fiscal decisions based upon maybe some results of an audit that are troubling to you

in the DeSantis administration? Well, I think one thing that the state can do is just not give the locals any money in a form of appropriations. If you have a county that has a demonstrated waste of a neglect of taxpayer dollars and they're not being good stewards, of taxpayer dollars, why should the state then come in and continue to throw more money after bad money? I think that would be really bad form for us if we know that they're wasting locals' monies. Why would they waste state tax dollars also? But to answer your question, the ultimate question is going to be answered in November 26th when the voters have an opportunity to curb this spending in a form of a constitutional amendment to reform property taxes.

You're expecting to get that through the legislature and to be able to put that on the ballot. But the chief financial officer of the state of Florida, Blaze and Goliath, Blaze, always a pleasure. Thanks for your time today. Much appreciated. You got to take care. We are here on the Florida Roundup, and there were those two federal court rulings this week regarding the immigration detention facility in the Everglades, known as Alligator Alcatraz, as we were just talking with the chief financial officer.

Late Thursday, a federal judge ruled the facility did not undergo proper environmental review and ordered it to stop accepting new detainees and shut it down in 60 days. the state is appealing that. Kimberly Leonard covers politics with Politico and is with us here in studio. Kimberly, welcome back to the program. Hi, thank you. So this one case, there were two cases. This first case that really is in the headlines today as we're talking on this Friday is an environmental case with groups alleging the facilities violating environmental standards. What was the rationale by the judge, Kathleen Williams, to shut down, try to shut down this facility? Well, the state was trying to argue that because it was a state-run facility that they didn't have to

follow environmental protocols, but the judge determined that because the state was so interlocked with the federal government in terms of ICE, you know, deporting people and ICE overseeing the facility in terms of standards and things like that, that they did violate the law, and therefore they have to start pulling out generators, taking away the sewage setups, the lighting, etc., within 60 days. How significant is this ruling, considering the state is appealing it and asking a higher court to set it aside? Well, it's significant just because it means that they have to probably come up with some

other backup as everything is making its way through the courts. And they have done that. They've actually begun setting up an old prison in North Florida. And that also kind of underscores a lot of the questions that the judge was asking. I was there for every single day of the hearing where she was saying, why does it have to be in the middle of the Everglades? Why does the detention center have to be somewhere that we, you know, have preserved for years and years. And the opening of another, you know, prison shows that it clearly doesn't have

to be at this location. It can be elsewhere. There was a temporary order issued by this judge that stopped construction, stopped the physical expansion of the facility. The state did announce opening of this other detention facility, this closed state prison in North Florida. Might this all be moot in a matter of a few weeks or a few months' time? Well, I don't know that it necessarily would be. It may also be that they decide that it's not the best facility to keep operating out of, just because logistically it can be a little difficult. Yes, it's an air strip that makes it easy to conduct deportations.

But in terms of waste removal, air conditioning, rain, it just seems like a lot. Everything has to be shipped in by dozens and dozens of miles from either the east in the South Florida region or from the west in the Naples and Fort Myers area. This other ruling that came in earlier in the week in a different federal judge, same district court here in Miami, Rudolfo Ruiz II, this was about the legal rights of detainees. Some of the case was dismissed by this judge, thrown out. Why? Well, it was because the state said that detainees could use the chrome facility to go before an immigration judge. And that's a detention facility that's been built and used for years and years and years in western Miami-Dade County. Exactly. And so they had said, well, they didn't know where detainee.

could appeal their case. And so once the state said, oh, it's here, then that piece where they were suing to be able to have that assigned, that piece became moot. The judge also ruled that another part of this case over the right to in-person and confidential conversations between the detainees and their lawyers. That could go forward, but he said, but not in the Southern District, federal district in Florida, not the one where he sits in Miami, but kicked it to a different federal court system. Right, right. And the reason for that, it's sort of complicated, but basically the airstrip itself is actually in Collier County. Most of it, there's a sliver that's apparently

in Miami-Dade, but it was operated by Miami-Dade, so there was just a lot of question. It was owned by Miami-Dade County. Yeah, and operated. And so the thing is, there was just some dispute over whether which court it should be in. And Ruiz did say during the hearings, which I attended, he said, well, I hope that all the transcripts and everything can help inform the next judge so that they can make a decision quickly as well. the transfer is to the middle district of the state of Florida. Is that seen as a more conservatively friendly district than the Southern District of Florida? Well, I believe the judge who's been assigned it was actually appointed by a Democratic president. I have to double

check that. But so not necessarily. Really is a Trump appointee from the first Trump administration and then Williams, who made the environmental decision, is an Obama-era appointee. So a big picture here, Kimberly, as you sat and heard these arguments, listened to the testimony, How committed is the state to Alligator Alcatraz and the legal challenges, considering it is opening another facility in North Florida in an old prison? Well, they ended up not bringing up as many witnesses as they had initially planned. So I think they got the sense of where Williams was going to be ruling. But they have always talked about doing other facilities. So Republicans have benefited a lot from doing the Alligator Alcatraz swag and things like that.

You know, they've raised a lot of money for the state party. that way, but logistically speaking and financially, you know, I think they would prefer to keep it here, at least for the way that it looks, but I'm not sure that it is operating, you know, at the level. I mean, we haven't had access to be able to go in and look around lately. And there's been significant questions about its resiliency when it comes to the season that Shelby not be named that we are still in here in Florida as well. Yeah, exactly. So there's just a lot of questions about that. And they have other places. They were looking at Fort Landing for a while, that, you know, they have the North Florida.

a prison that's that's going to be opening soon so they have other places that they can set this up because they do want to they do want to show that they're supportive of mass deportations and be able to provide more facilities for that Kimberly Leonard with Politico thanks for coming from the courthouse here on the Florida roundup appreciate it Sharon you're reporting with us yeah thank you coming up here on the Florida roundup we're going to be talking about climate and food a fascinating new book out talking about the impact and the cost of land use, how we use it, what we grow on it, be it crops, be it livestock, be it real estate development.

That is coming up here on the Florida Roundup. So we'd love to hear about how climate affects your diet. Do you think about climate when you go to the grocery store and the produce that you and the protein that you purchase? Give us a call now, 305-995-1800. 305-9-9-8100 climate carbohydrates coming up here on the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to The Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. Stick with us.

The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator Program, providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace. Assistance is available at 877-813 or Coveringflora.org. We're back on the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson next week on a program. The unofficial end of summer is coming. Labor Day is right around the corner. So we will listen to our summer bookshelf program one more time. We're going to hear from authors who write in or about the Sunshine State, including an eye-opening exploration of one of the state's least favorite reptiles. Snakes are merely one of myriad partners and ecological web. Wait until you hear about what pythons may be able to teach. us about eating. It's a really cool conversation. And then we'll have an only from Florida family story. She has used her trusty BB gun to shoot at a man who she claimed was stealing mangoes from her yard. Don't mess with the mangoes. We do want to know what you've been reading

this summer. You can send us an email radio at the florida roundup.org. That's next week on this program. Today imagine a football field, an American football field, 100 yards long, right? From one end on to about the 15-yard line, that represents the proportion of land in Florida that's occupied by cities and suburbs, roads and homes, kind of where all of us, most of us, kind of live and build our lives. The next 20 yards, though, that's used by agriculture throughout the Sunshine State. Farms and ranches take up more land here in Florida than our neighborhoods and strip malls, more than our beach parking lots and theme parks. Ag is, after all, one of the traditional legs of the three-legs stool of Florida's economy, tourism, agriculture, and real

estate development. And you know those last two are often in opposition with each other in the battle for land. And land, how it is used as one of the themes of the new book, we are eating the earth, the race to fix our food system and save our climate by journalist Michael Grunwald, who joins us now. Mike, welcome to the program. Nice to see you. Oh, thanks for having me back, Tom. Congratulations on the book. It is a fascinating and, dare I say, a bit terrifying read as well about the path that we're on here. You write, the carbohydrate problem will be even trickier to solve than the hydrocarbon problem. So does food pose a higher risk to the climate than fossil fuels?

I mean, it poses a pretty big risk to the planet generally, right? I mean, agriculture uses about 70% of our fresh water. It's the leading driver of deforestation, of wetland drainage, of water pollution, of biodiversity loss. But yeah, right now it's about a third of our climate problem, and it's getting bigger. And the main reason is, you know, we're eating the earth, right? hungry. More people, more tummies to feed. Right. And more land. It's two of every five acres of the planet are now either cropped or grazed by contrast one of every hundred acres or cities or

suburbs. So it's even worse globally than it is in Florida. And what was it? 10 or 15 years ago where you start the book about looking to the land to help feed our fuel hunger, not our appetites. That's right. I mean, there was back then 20 years ago, right, there was, were no alternative to fossil fuels when people started really coming up with this idea like, hey, well, we could just grow alternatives, corn ethanol, soy biodiesel. But it turns out to be way worse for the climate than even gasoline, certainly worse than electric vehicles. But the reason again is because, you know, biofuels, it turns out they're eating about a Texas worth of the earth. Now livestock are eating 50 Texas's worth of the earth. So it's an even bigger

problem agriculture is eating 75 texas but it really is when you when you take a cross-country flight and you look out the window and you see all those rectangles and circles it's like you know there's a lot of agriculture out there but there is a lot of agriculture out there and you don't even to go cross-country you could fly from tallahassee to key west okay maybe you'll go across the golf on that one how about tallahassee to Orlando for instance right no it's true and obviously as you know when i wrote the swamp yep um there was a And this was now, God, I mean, we're old, Tom. That was 20 years ago.

I know. I know. But then, I mean, there was a lot in there about cattle pastures and about, of course, sugar farms, vegetable farms. But I wasn't at the time thinking at all about the climate impact. And again, you have the crop dusters and diesel tractors. You have the burping and farting cows and the fertilizer. The methane, all that.

But the main impact on the climate, again, is that when you, You know, use more acres, you know, when you can grow fewer acres, less food per acre, you need more acres to grow food. You end up chopping down trees that store a lot of carbon. Right. This was the insight by your main character, Tim Surchinger, who got some of his environmental credibility right here in Florida. That's right.

He was one of the lawyers on the original Everglades lawsuit, the water quality lawsuit, which is still going on today. And, of course, has led to better water quality. the Everglades, even if some of Everglades restoration isn't going so well. But that's when I first met him. Yeah. And his big insight that he shared with you was that land is not free. And listen, Florida knows that. We used to sell land by the gallon as the case, as the saying used to go, right? We're very familiar with this, that the cost of land and how we use it has a cost and an opportunity cost by not using it in other ways, right? That's exactly right. And I think

that's what Tim found is that basically climate analysis of biofuels, but really of all agriculture was just ignoring the cost of land, right? If you grow fuel instead of food, then somewhere else you're going to have to grow more food. And it's probably not going to be a parking lot, even in Florida, right? It's going to be a wetland or it's going to be a forest. And my line is always that trying to decarbonize the planet while we're continuing to vaporize trees. It's like trying to clean your house while smashing your vacuum cleaner to bits in the living room because you're making a huge mess, but you're also really crippling your ability to clean up the mess because that's what forests do.

Real estate development has been driven by the concept of higher, highest and best use, right? Highest and best use. You know that phrase. As an investigative reporter, as a Floridian, you know that use, that phrase. What's the opportunity cost to food and climate as we think about the growing population in Florida and the highest and best use of the limited land we have. Well, one of the things, and, you know, this gets a different group of people mad at me is that you have to remember that American agriculture generally is pretty efficient.

We make more food per acre, so we don't need as many acres to make the same amount of food. Like you took a look at a, you know, an Indian dairy cow. You need 23 of them to make as much as a California dairy cow, which means you have to feed them 23 times more. to grow all those hooves and those tails and all those things that don't make milk. So, again, there is absolutely an opportunity cost not only to using land for agriculture, but to using land inefficiently. And that's something that, you know, when I talk to farmers, some of them, they don't like

the idea that, like, hey, you know, they think of themselves as good stewards of the land. Conservationists themselves. Yeah, but what I always say is that, like, that may be true, but collectively, you're stewarding a mess. And so what we need to do is help you make even more food with even less land and fewer emissions, because we're going to, to meet those Paris climate targets, we're going to have to make about 50% more food with 80% fewer agricultural emissions and no more land. Michael Grunwald is with us, the author of the new book. We are eating the earth, the race to fix our food system and save our climate. We are talking about it here on the Florida Rondup, 305-995-1800. How is the climate affecting what's in your cupboard?

Ilan is listening in Hollywood. Ilan, go ahead. You're on the radio. Hi, thank you for the opportunity to participate. Yes, I turn, I have been a vegetarian for a long time, but five years ago, I turned vegan because of all the impact that the dairy and the cattle have on the environment. Basically, we are building, we are growing crops to feed the cattle and the peak. you know, all the meat that we eat. So it's not efficient.

It's completely disproportionate. And, yeah, because, so because of the impact of the environment and because of ethical reasons. So, you know, I think it's a win-win for everybody to become vegan. Elon. You know, some people that are, go ahead. Yeah, just thanks for sharing us your story. We want to get to another one.

And he's right. Elon's right, that going vegan is the best diet for the plant. I'd like to say I'm vegan, but I'm not. I've cut out beef and lamb because it turns out beef and lamb are about 10 times worse for the climate and the planet than poultry and pork. They're just spectacularly inefficient converters of their feed into our food. I mean, unfortunately, only about 1% of Americans who are vegan. I'm not one of them.

I'm not one of them. I am not either. And I want to ask you about cultivated meat and lab grown meat in a second here. David's been patient in Delray Beach. Go ahead, David. You're on the radio. Hi, liberal Democrat here. I very reluctantly believe that human beings are supposed to eat meat.

That this is what our ancestors were eating 60,000 years ago or 80,000 years ago. And that's what we evolved to live on. I've been eating since 2008. I've been eating high fat meat. protein, high fat, and I'm healthy. I'm lean. I get a blood test every year, and I'm healthy. Oh, I'm glad to hear it. Stay healthy and keep listening to Public Radio, David. Appreciate it, regardless of what you're diet. Well, there's some truth to what he said. We actually did evolve our ancestors two million years ago when they started eating meat. That's when we started

developing bigger brains and smaller stomachs. But not this much meat. And in fact, the average The average American eats the equivalent of three burgers a week. And if you cut it to two, we'd save a Massachusetts worth of land every year. Look, we eat four times the global average. So a little less probably wouldn't kill us. And protein is the macro of the moment, certainly. When I started working on the book, veggie diets were the macro. Sure, plant-based, right?

There was that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger produced that James Cameron directed, was telling you you're going to have a great. great sex life if you went vegan. Well, listen, before there was artificial intelligence, it was plant-based and lab-grown, cultivated meat, right? That was the hype in Silicon Valley that you detail extensively in the book. Absolutely. I started my reporting for this book at the Good Food Institute conference in 2019, sort of all the fake meat companies getting together. And I thought I was going to accidentally raise a series A round in the drinks line, right? You were going to be the investor. Beyond it just gone public. It was going up to 250.

Beyond meat, yeah. Now it's down to $2 a share. But again, look, the dogs didn't like the food, but the cow is a pretty mature technology, and alternative proteins aren't, so they could get better. So with alternative proteins, Florida has become the first state to ban lab grown meat. This is what Governor DeSantis said in 2024 when he signed that prohibition into law. Take your fake lab grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida. So that's been banned. Michael. Chuck sent us an email writing, I find it outrageous that our elected officials have outlawed lab-grown meat. Scientists are in agreement. Animal agriculture is a leading driving force of the environmental collapse that we're experiencing. Raising animals for food uses vast amounts of resources that are better utilized by using them directly to feed humans.

Lab-grown meat uses way less resources. What hope does lab-grown meat hold and is Florida, missing out somehow with this prohibition. Well, that email is exactly right. Lab grown and real, I call it cultivated meat, the industry, because it actually isn't grown in a lab anymore. It's going to be brewed like in a brewery. And I've eaten it.

It's delicious. Brood meat doesn't quite have the same. Yeah, you know, cultivated is nice. And I've eaten it. I've eaten, I've eaten, you know, cultivated sushi. I've eaten cultivated burgers. I've eaten cultivated chicken, which tastes like chicken because it is chicken. And as the caller said, it's 90%.

less land, 90% fewer emissions. And it's insane that in the free state of Florida, right, supposedly cares about competition and the free market. They're telling us what kind of meat we can eat. It's not even on the market. And they're already sucking up to the cattlemen to try to ban this stuff. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Ronde up from your Florida Public Radio Station. We're speaking with Michael Grunwald, author of We Are Eating the Earth, the Race to fix our food system and save our climate. We're talking about the climate in your cupboard. Richard is joining us from Redlands. That is the rural agriculture area in Miami-Dade County.

Yeah, Richard, welcome to the program. Thanks for listening and calling. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be on your show. You've got an aquaponic farm. Is that right? That's right.

It's an indoor farm. Basically, we raise fish and plants. They work in synergy to nurse and nourish each other. And we are USDA-certified organic. So tell us, yeah, go ahead, Richard. I was going to say a one acre facility, 43.5,000 square foot building, which is one acre, we could put out the annual output of a 609-acre farm. That's great.

And that's from the fish protein that you're producing? Right, and also the produce. And in our cases, lettuce, leases, leasy, green. beans and herbs. Yeah. We can produce any kind of vegetable fruit or tuber. And so are you planting that? You're planting that not in the soil of Florida, but in what exactly?

Well, we produce our own plugs. And then basically aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture, which is raising fish, and hydroponics, which is producing plants in a water-based media. I see. Richard, thanks for listening to sharing your perspective there from Redley. Mike, you talk about these alternative farming methods, and here it is in our backyard here in Florida, with Richard doing it. Yeah, not only there are vertical farms, mostly growing lettuce, and it seems to work pretty well for lettuce, maybe tomatoes, strawberries, and weed certainly isn't going to... We needy marijuana.

Yeah, you're not going to feed the world with this stuff. But I also write about land-based fish farms, including the huge one in homestead. There's an enormous one that grows salmon, I think it is, right? Atlantic Sapphire, exactly. But is that a highest and best use for limited land to essentially put an entire aqua farm there to grow something that we could have in the ocean? It absolutely could be. I mean, certainly the, I mean, Atlantic Sapphire has had some real problems. They've had some major fish kills.

But the idea of doing it on land and, you know, getting salmon are incredibly efficient converters of their feed into our food. and doing it indoors without spoiling the oceans, without having all these pesticides and antibiotics. It's a very promising technology, but like many of the technologies I write about in this book, they kind of haven't nailed it yet. Yeah, the scalability factor. It's really tough to make this stuff work.

I mean, I always say that if it was easy, somebody would have already done it. But look, we're still on track to deforest another dozen California's by 2050. So I'm very excited about these, you know, people who are trying to do it differently. You know, I think hopefully there'll be the kind of investment that we saw in alternative energy in solar, wind, and electric vehicles that are now you're seeing get to scale. Food is kind of 20 years behind. We've got on about 30 seconds left here, but folks are looking at a Friday night dinner, maybe, you know, Saturday brunch, Sunday brunch. Like, how does this have packed what were the produce were, or protein we're purchasing a Publix?

Well, look, if you want to do something for the planet with your own diet, and I think it's great to try to be better, eat less beef and waste less food. Beef really is the baddie. It's 10 times worse than chicken or pork. It's dairy is a problem too because cows are the problem. But of course, like, you know, they make milk several times a day and only make beef once. And then food, we waste a quarter of our food. That means we waste a quarter of the farmland. We use to grow it. We use it landmass the size of China to go. grow garbage. It makes no sense. Those are really the two biggies. The scale of this is, it's just overwhelming at times, but you write about it very eloquently and in a way that we can conceptualize all of this scale here, Mike. But we appreciate your sharing the brook with us today. Oh, thanks so much for your kind words, Tom. Yeah, congratulations. We are eating the earth, the race to fix our food system and save our climate by best-selling author Michael Grunwald. You are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. We've got more to come. Stick with us.

We'll be right back. The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator Program, providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace. Assistance is available at 877-813 or covering Florida.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Terrific to have you along. Some news from around the state now, starting with two stories about books in school, first textbooks. The state sued two of the biggest textbook publishers in the country this week.

Governor Ron DeSantis claims McGraw-Hill and Savas Learning Company overpriced the textbooks they sold to Florida. DeSantis accuses the publishers of selling textbooks at higher than their base price, at least 5,900 times, and both companies could owe up to $60 million in civil penalties and combined, according to the governor. Those resources should be going to the school districts, to the teachers, and doing ways that are going to be productive, not to pad the profits of textbook companies who are not following the letter of the law. McGraw-Hill and Savas Learning Company denied the claims and said they'll vigorously

defend their companies. Now school library books, a federal judge. judge has overturned most of the state's book ban law. And while the ruling won't return ban books to shelves right away, Central Florida Public Media's education reporter Daniel Pryor finds it gives parents and students more power to challenge book bans. The judge found that the state's law goes against students' First Amendment rights, and he said more than 20 books on a list of titles challenged in Florida are not obscene. Florida Freedom to Read Projects director Stefana Farrell says the judge's ruling is a huge win for Florida schools, parents,

and kids. The judge affirmed that students have a right to access information and that authors have have a right to have their books reach their intended audience without viewpoint-based limitations placed on that access. She says the ruling makes it easier for parents and students to sue if certain books are restricted. That is important and that does give parents and students that have had these books restricted in their districts the right to pursue litigation if they feel necessary. The Florida Department of Ed says it plans on appealing the ruling. In Orlando, I'm Danielle Pryor. The latest flashpoint between the state and local governments is over crosswalks, especially brightly painted, colored crosswalks. The Florida Department

of Transportation has ordered the removal of any painted design on intersections and pedestrian and crosswalks throughout the state. Rainbow crosswalk painted at the Memorial at the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando was painted over late Wednesday night. Here's Joe Burns from partner Central Florida Public Media. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer denounced the surprise erasure

as, quote, a cruel political act. Democratic State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith spoke by phone from the site. He's seeing a lot of emotion there, a lot of anger, he says, but also a lot of resolve. We will not be erased. there will be another rainbow mural on a building or a garage or a surface nearby that's even bigger, queerer, and more colorful than they can ever imagine.

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis reacted on X to comments from the senator. DeSantis says, quote, we will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes. The city is in the process of creating a permanent memorial at the post site. I'm Joe Burns. The Tampa Bay Times this week reported St. Petersburg sent a letter to the Florida Department of Transportation, asking it to exempt five street art installations, including a Pride crosswalk and a University of South Florida crosswalk. President of St. Pete Pride, Dr. Byron Kalish, says what happened in Orlando could happen in St. Petersburg. We recognize that FDOT could just pop up, swoop in like they did in Orlando.

The order from the state comes after a directive from the Trump administration about consistent road markings. In a social media post, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote, quote, political banners have no place on public roads. Del Rey Beach officials remain defiant against the order, though, including its rainbow LGBTQ pride crosswalk, despite some escalating threats of fines and funding cuts for the city. Wilkin Brutus from our partner WLRN reports. Dale Ray Beach voted to keep its pride mural for now, ahead of an administrative hearing next week, to decide if the Florida Department of Transportation can mandate its removal. Here's Dale Ray Beach Commissioner Rob Long.

Frankly, it's a declaration of war on our community. It's our property. These are our city streets. These aren't state roads. I can't think of a more egregious incursion on home rule than that. The state has warned it will forcibly remove the mural if the city doesn't comply by the deadline. Long says it could set a dangerous precedent. You know, what comes next?

Is it our menorah lighting? Do they attack our historic district? tricks. Do they attack our 100-foot Christmas tree? Long says Delray Beach is following the lead of Key West officials who recently decided to legally challenge the state's mandate to remove their pride crosswalk. I'm Wilkin Brutus in Palm Beach County. And for the last several years, Knight Creative Communities Institute has promoted the beautification of public spaces with a number of projects, including painting pedestrian crosswalks and high traffic areas, especially around schools. Betsy Couch is the executive director. The Florida Department of Transportation is forcing

our local governments to spend our local taxpayer dollars removing something that has shown they improved safety. Now most of the crosswalks are placed around elementary schools and designed and painted by students. I'm Tom Hudson and you're listening to the Florida Rondo from your Florida Public Radio Station. A growing number of undocumented migrants are making the decision this year to self-deport in the face of President Donald Trump's sweeping and controversial immigration arrests campaign. Tino is one of those who was called Florida home for years. I love this country. I'm basically losing everything I built through the years. But we came to the conclusion that we're no longer welcome here. Reporter Tim Padgett with our partner WLRN in Miami has

the story. Tino came to South Florida as a teenager almost 25 years ago. He was escaping the economic chaos and political violence tearing his native Argentina. apart in those days. He applied for U.S. asylum, but 9-11 had just happened, and U.S. immigration processing had all but ground to a halt. Tina was left in migratory limbo. Still, he found that if he stayed underground, under the official radar, he could build a life here. So the idea was to do everything legal, but yeah, I wasn't expecting that. I had seen stories of people that been here for 20 years without papers, and I got,

now, whoa, that's crazy. And here I am. Tino is a nickname. He asked us not to use his real name because, I don't know. As he concedes, he's technically in the U.S. illegally. Even so, Tino is a successful, tax-paying business owner and family man in Broward County. He's law-abiding. He often helps the homeless. But legal residency still looks years off for him. So Tino has decided to beat the Trump administration to the deportation punch.

In a few months, he, his wife and their two U.S.-born children will leave the country before he's rounded up and detained. I'm like one stop sign, one traffic issue from being, you know, point to like a criminal. Even if my problems are solved tomorrow, I will still consider the move because I don't like the way Hispanic people is being treated. You want to get rid of immigrants that have no papers, you're on your right to do so. But I've seen a lot of racism to treat people like garbage. As we drank coffee at his business in Broward, I asked Tino, is his self-deportation in that sense of victory for the Trump administration? They're winning in that part. But at the end, they're going to lose, because they're going to get rid of people that actually help the community.

I mean, what's going to happen when you have to pay $25 for a pound of tomatoes because there's no one to pick them? Tino's one consolation, his kids are U.S. citizens by birth, and his teenage son will stay here with a relative who has legal residence and finish high school. Another self-deporter W. LR.N. spoke to, a Venezuelan, named Meliana, has her own U.S. born child, a two-year-old. Meliana took him with her to Spain this summer after she decided her own asylum application would not keep the Trump administration from deporting her. She came to Miami legally two years ago to escape Venezuela's brutal dictatorship and economic collapse. But her humanitarian parole has expired. And like Tino, she says the Trump administration's actions made her question the U.S.

No valia the xenophobia and so odio for who can't. I would never take my children back to Venezuela, said Meliana, who asked us not to use her last name, but neither was it worth a xenophobia and hatred to try to keep them here. It was a danger to them. Meliana, who spoke to me from Madrid, said she feels no such hatred in Spain, a country that's being extra welcoming to immigrants. But Meliana points out Spain is being more immigrant tolerant in order to solve a problem the U.S. itself is facing, that is, a declining worker age population and a shortage of professionals

like teachers. Meliana, who was a lawyer in Venezuela, was teaching Spanish to U.S. kids at a bilingual private school here before she lost her work permit and self-deported. It's a lamentable and devastating situation, Meliana said, not only for us personally, but for the U.S., which seems to have decided that immigrants. is criminal. It's not certain how many undocumented migrants in the U.S. have self-deported this year. The Trump administration, which insists that any migrant in the country illegally, is technically a criminal, has offered $1,000 each and airfair to those who do self-deport. But both Tino and Meliana said they had no intention of taking Trump up on it. I'm Tim Padgett in Miami.

And finally on the round up this week, we always like to bring you some Florida wildlife stories when we can. And this week, it's marine mammal versus a once Florida native big cat. All right. It's the Miami Dolphins and the Jacksonville Jaguars facing each other on the football field Saturday night. Sure, it's just an NFL preseason game, so it doesn't count, right? The two teams even practiced together earlier this week. Still, the teams have played each other a dozen times, including perhaps their highest stakes match up in January 2000. They were playing in a divisional playoff game and the winner would be just one win away from the Super Bowl. It was a blowout.

627 is the final. In excess of 500 yards of offense for the Jacksonville Jaguars, seven turnovers for the Miami Dolphins. And it would also turn out to be Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino's last game. That is our program for today. produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's vice president of radio is Peter Merritts. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith, engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Ernesto J. and Jackson Harb. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at Aaron Leibos.com.

Thanks for calling, listening, emailing, and above all, supporting public radio in your community. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend. The Florida Roundup is sponsored by Covering Florida Navigator Program, providing confidential assistance with health insurance enrollment through the health insurance marketplace. Assistance is available at 877-813-913 or coveringflora.org.