Florida's House Bill 827 — which would make it easier for creationists and climate change deniers to smuggle instructional materials they favor into public school classrooms — was approved, with slight modifications, by the House Education Committee on a 19-0 vote on February 15, 2018.
If enacted, the bill would allow members of the public to recommend instructional materials for consideration by the state or their district school board, which would then be required to allow the publisher of those materials to submit a bid for evaluation.
Testifying in favor of the bill was a representative of the Florida Citizens Alliance, who cited a report prepared by his organization on the supposed flaws of textbooks currently in use in Florida's public schools.
As Brandon Haught of Florida Citizens for Science noted in a February 15, 2018, blog post, the report complains of the presentation of climate change and evolution (among other topics) in environmental science and history textbooks.
As NCSE previously reported, the chief sponsor of HB 827, Bryon Daniels (R-District 80), was the chief sponsor of a bill in 2017 that was intended to make it easier for creationist and climate change deniers to pester their school districts.
The Senate counterpart of the bill, Senate Bill 1644, was approved, with slight modifications, by the Senate Education Committee on February 12, 2018. As they currently stand, there are minor differences between the two bills. Neither is yet scheduled for consideration on the floor of its chamber of the legislature.