DeSantis Rejects Federal Money For “Woke Roads”

Florida Politics reports:

Speaking in Tampa, DeSantis complained about benchmarks that can qualify states for federal dollars, explaining that to “change your behavior to get crumbs from the federal government” is not “something that you want to do.”

“They did this infrastructure bill, and you get the bill and they try to give you money. But then you’ve got to jump through all these hoops,” DeSantis said. “I have to monitor tailpipe emissions for Florida drivers. I am not doing that. I’m not doing the woke roads. I’m not doing any of that.”

He previously pledged to Floridians that he didn’t want to “police your tailpipe” during another soliloquy about federal funding conditions after the state rejected $320 million of conditional federal money requiring emissions testing in 2023.

Read the full article. As previously reported here, Trump’s EPA has already scurried to gut tailpipe emission rules so DeSantis is flailing to the choir.

.@RonDeSantis rips @JoeBiden administration for federal tailpipe emission monitoring, ‘woke roads’

Reporting by @AGGancarskihttps://t.co/u08kYDe8Si#FlaPol pic.twitter.com/c3cc3VrNwT

— Phil Ammann (@PhilAmmann) May 20, 2025