Facts
- Florida enacted the Environmental Land and Water Management Act of 1972 (ch. 380, Fla. Stat.), creating a process to designate “areas of critical state concern” and then regulate development within those areas through state-approved principles and land-development regulations.
- The Act assigned the Division of State Planning responsibility to study and recommend areas for designation to the Governor and Cabinet sitting as the Administration Commission.
- The Administration Commission had authority to approve, modify, or reject a recommended designation and to approve “principles for guiding development” in the designated area through rulemaking.
- Under § 380.05(2)(a)–(b), an area could be designated if it contained, or significantly affected, environmental, historical, natural, or archaeological resources of regional or statewide importance, or if it was significantly affected by, or had a significant effect on, an existing or proposed major public facility or other area of major public investment.
- The Act capped designations at no more than five percent of Florida’s total geographic area.
- After the Administration Commission designated the Green Swamp area and a large portion of the Florida Keys as areas of critical state concern, landowners and developers (including Cross Key Waterways) challenged the statutory designation authority.
- The challengers argued that § 380.05’s standards were too indefinite and that allowing an executive body to select the geographic areas subject to an intensive regulatory regime amounted to an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power under article II, section 3 of the Florida Constitution.
- The First District Court of Appeal agreed with the challengers and held § 380.05(1) and § 380.05(2)(a)–(b) unconstitutional as a delegation lacking adequate standards; the State appealed, and the Florida Supreme Court consolidated the cases for review.
Issues
- Whether § 380.05(1), together with the criteria in § 380.05(2)(a)–(b), supplied adequate standards and limitations to allow the Administration Commission to designate “areas of critical state concern” consistent with article II, section 3 of the Florida Constitution.
- Whether the Act improperly transferred fundamental legislative policy choices—especially the decision about which geographic areas would be subjected to heightened development controls—to an executive agency.
Decision
- The Florida Supreme Court reversed the First District Court of Appeal.
- The Court held that § 380.05(1) and § 380.05(2)(a)–(b) do not violate Florida’s separation-of-powers requirement and constitute a valid legislative delegation.
- The Court concluded that the Legislature made the primary policy decisions in the Act and that the Division of State Planning and Administration Commission were assigned implementation tasks within meaningful statutory limits.
Legal Principles
- Florida’s separation-of-powers clause (art. II, § 3) incorporates a nondelegation rule: fundamental policy decisions must be made by the Legislature, not transferred to the executive.
- The Legislature may authorize executive agencies to administer a statutory program and adopt rules to carry it out if the statute contains sufficient standards and guidelines to constrain administrative discretion.
- Adequacy of standards is evaluated by reading the delegation in context, including the statute’s stated objectives, substantive criteria, procedural requirements, and any express limits on scope.
- A delegation is more likely to be valid where the statute (i) identifies the kinds of conditions that trigger action (here, specified environmental/resource and public-investment impacts), (ii) requires reasoned findings and explanation for action, and (iii) limits the reach of the program (here, the five-percent geographic cap).
- The Legislature may set broad goals tied to Florida’s constitutional environmental policy (art. II, § 7) and leave to agencies the fact-bound work of applying those goals to specific locations through rulemaking, so long as the statutory framework provides workable direction.
Conclusion
Askew v. Cross Key Waterways held that chapter 380’s “critical state concern” designation process is constitutional because the Legislature set the governing policy, criteria, procedures, and limits, leaving the Administration Commission and planning officials to apply those statutory directions to particular areas rather than making open-ended law on their own.