Oil drilling and proposed changes to state sexual predator laws will face lawmakers in the next few days as they enter the third week of the legislation session. With budget allocations released, House and Senate budget negotiators will also get ...

Environmentalists, coastal business and tourism-related enterprises have a formidable ally in the fight against offshore drilling in the Gulf that is not normally associated with wading birds and preserving the pristine. The U.S. military is emerging as a less vocal ...

Expect a lot of talk but possibly little action as lawmakers continue the debate on offshore drilling when they return Tuesday to begin the 2010 legislative session.

Opening days of the legislative session used to be largely floral affairs. Desks were so laden with ferns, fruit, cut flowers and other flora that it was often difficult to see the members through the trees, as it were. There ...

Prompted by agencies that don’t know what they own and lawmakers funneling millions for pet projects, leaders in the Republican-led state Legislature have been screaming for more transparency in the way government works. But with budget matters taking precedence and ...

Florida growers may soon see federal assistance for the recent freezes that devastated winter crops as far south as Immokalee and Homestead. Farmworkers, who have seen their paychecks temporarily frozen as well, are waiting for similar relief.

Affordable housing efforts and tobacco-funded health programs would take the biggest hit under a $69.2 billion spending request unveiled by Gov. Charlie Crist last week that has some legislative leaders scratching their heads.

The late Rep. Mike Davis spent the latter part of his legislative career championing efforts to put more Floridians in homes they could afford. Facing skyrocketing property values throughout Southwest Florida, the Naples Republican instinctively knew that providing affordable housing ...

This water fight is far from over. Combatants in the war over water quality in Florida took little time last week to express their accolades or angst on a set of tougher federal guidelines limiting nutrient levels in Florida’s inland ...

Following a bitterly cold weekend — by Florida standards, that is — things will heat up considerably this week as lawmakers return to Tallahassee for the first of two committee weeks in January. As lawmakers begin the 2010 push leading ...

The new decade is upon us (though some may bicker on when it actually begins) and all indications are that things are going to get better. Experts predict unemployment will lessen, commerce will pick up and Florida’s building industry may ...

Michael Peltier's column for Monday, Dec. 28. He is the Daily News’ Tallahassee correspondent.

The consolidation of the nation’s two largest voting machine companies is drawing the attention of Florida officials wary over the fact that the new entity now makes nearly all of the state’s voting machines.

When lawmakers successfully passed legislation last week that could bring more commuter and high speed rail to the state, 80 Republicans climbed aboard. Now conservative “Tea Party” activists who think the rail legislation amounts to a government-sponsored boondoggle say come ...

It’s been three years, but Florida economists have turned a corner and are predicting sunnier skies ahead as they boost revenue estimates for the state’s economy for the first time since the housing market crash sent the state into a ...