Financial support from the corporations that can now sell their radioactive waste to the Florida government instead of paying for it to be properly disposed of.

This is going to kill so many road workers.

Apparently Tampa-based fertilizer giant Mosaic pushed the legislation and is also seeking federal approval to test phosphogypsum in a roadway at its New Wales facility

Edit: Incomplete hyperlink text

My guess is that his reasoning goes like this: "I'm a cartoon-evil piece of shit. Is there anything I can do to make things worse for real people? Cancer roads? Hey, that's great!"

DeSantis has not yet publicly commented on the signing of this bill

This is far more good faith than Florida Republicans deserve at this point, but I can at least imagine the possibility that there is a way to use phosphogypsum in a way such that the produced Radon is trapped or released in such small and limited quantities that it poses no significant risk to human health.

Now, do I think there's a chance in hell that's actually what's going to happen here? Not at all.

Probably that there's a lot of it and it's cheaper than asphalt. I don't know for sure though.

it's a common byproduct of certain industries like fertilizer production

basically you're turning a waste product into building material so it'd be pretty cheap. you can build cheaper roads, so the state government can in theory save money

in addition, it's more or less a handout to the companies that produce this waste product because they will now have a brand new product to sell whereas before they would be paying to get rid of it

obviously it's dangerous - the EPA only allows the use of it with approval. although the law states that the florida department of transportation needs to be a study to make sure it's safe and they have until april 1st, 2024

then after that it would need to be approved by the EPA, which includes all sorts of technical analysis and study that needs to be publicly released and there's also a period of public comment

personally? i'm a floridian and hate desantis and i don't think this bill is that big of a deal. it's not like they're gonna start using this stuff tomorrow. they're going to try and see if they can find a safe way to use it. in my opinion, if there's a waste product we can use as building material and we can determine it won't cause harm to people or the environment.. why shouldn't we use it?

it's cheaper for the taxpayers and we send less shit to the waste dump

of course, this is all assuming that the checks and balances of the FDOT study & EPA approval are all in good faith. if that's hijacked by corporate interest then I don't know anymore

Maybe Skynet watched War Games and learned from Joshua’s mistake - no one wins thermonuclear war. Instead Skynet’s new plan is to make power-generating, radioactive roads that’ll kill all the humans with cancer. It’s a win-win!

Yup the one who wants to either get rid of the IRS and the departments of Education, Energy and Commerce entirely or to use them to "push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life." See this thread

He's somehow worse than Trump. I didn't think that was possible. Trump is uncaring and wants to steal. DeSantis seems like he just wants to hurt people AND be corrupt.

The radiation issue with phosphogypsum is mostly the Thorium.

Which isn't much of an issue really.

The environmental issues really come from the chemical properties of the material. As the quote goes; radiation is fleeting, arsenic is forever.

Not that phosphogypsum has elevated levels of arsenic, but it does have phosphates that cause Eutrophication. Which kills lakes and waterways.

Then there's the Thorium and Uranium. Those are radioactive, but are also heavy metals and cause heavy metal poisoning. Thorium doesn't have a common water soluble oxide, but Uranium sure does. So that's two things that leech out of the phosphogypsum...

Basements don't see much action though. I imagine that a road is constantly under stress. Both from vehicles and temperature changes, all this causes cracking. I'm worried that this tasty dust will travel places (i.e. up peoples' lungs).

The poison is in the dose.

Because presumably not everyone who is exposed to it get cancer. Just because it causes it a lot of the time doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed.

Is it lawful evil because he's writing evil laws?