The author of the wide-ranging bill told NR that he expects it to pass this week.
The author of the wide-ranging bill told NR that he expects it to pass this week.
T he Florida legislature, in a bill that could pass this week, plans to target land purchases made by the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign authoritarian regimes.
“Our bill, S.B. 265, will be on the floor [on Tuesday]. Now it could be finalized, or it could be the next day, but this week will be the floor vote and the approval of this in the senate, and the next stop there is the governor’s desk,” Florida state senator Jay Collins, the bill’s author, told National Review yesterday. (He added that the measure will also be up for a vote in the Florida house this week.)
The proposed bill lists seven countries of concern: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Syria. It would prohibit state-government agencies from entering into contracts with those governments, ban people who obtain business licenses from the Florida state government from owning companies that work with or otherwise benefit those foreign governments, and heavily restrict property purchases in Florida by the countries on the list. “They don’t stand for what America believes and what our Founding Fathers envisioned, and it’s imperative that we shore up our security here at the state level as best as we can,” Collins said of the foreign regimes listed in his proposal.
The Collins proposal would also prohibit the governments of the countries on the list from owning, directly or via their principals, agricultural land in the state and from acquiring real estate within 20 miles of military installations and critical infrastructure in Florida.
But the bill is particularly noteworthy for the restrictions it would place on land purchases that can be made by the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Republic of China, “any official or member” of the CCP and PRC, businesses that are principally based in China, and China-based individuals who are not U.S. citizens. The bill, Collins said on Monday, was inspired by estimates that Chinese entities own well over 350,000 acres of land in the U.S. and that foreign investors own 5.7 percent of Florida’s privately held farmland.
If the measure passes and receives Governor Ron DeSantis’s signature, Florida will be among the first states to pass restrictions on land ownership by entities and individuals tied to certain foreign authoritarian regimes, and especially China. During its legislative session this year, the Utah state legislature passed a similar measure. Several other state governments are mulling similar restrictions, and several members of Congress are pushing their own land-purchase bills. DeSantis has previously expressed support for restricting land purchases by the CCP.
State-level efforts to ban certain land purchases by foreign entities have been fueled in significant part by recent incidents involving Chinese firms buying up land near sensitive military installations.
In one case that garnered national attention, the Air Force called the planned purchase of land in North Dakota for a corn-milling plant by Fufeng, a Chinese agricultural firm, a “significant threat to national security,” capping off a yearslong controversy about the deal that split public opinion in the city of Grand Forks and nationally. The plant would have been twelve miles away from the Grand Forks Air Force Base. While the Grand Forks local government subsequently blocked the project, Fufeng will still own the land.
In Texas, there were similar suspicions about plans by GH America Energy, a Chinese firm owned by Sun Guangxin (a Chinese billionaire and former People’s Liberation Army officer), to develop a wind-turbine farm near Laughlin Air Force Base. After the case received national attention, the company retreated from the project and sold the land to a Spanish firm.
Some opponents of restrictions on land purchases claim that these restrictions are unreasonably broad, in that they prohibit purchases by people who aren’t involved with authoritarian regimes, and are therefore racist. One proposed measure before the Texas senate attracted criticism because, as initially written, it would have banned purchases by all citizens of China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea, leading to a revision that exempts dual citizens and lawful U.S. residents from the land-purchase prohibition.
Collins said that while he’s “well aware” of the criticisms of broadly conceived proposals that have emerged in other states, “our bill is very specific in this.” He added that his proposal focuses on blocking property purchases by CCP members, Chinese-government and CCP officials, businesses which are principally based in China, and China-based individuals who are not U.S. citizens.
“We chose those words to make sure that there is no inadvertent effect on our citizenry,” he said. “This is to protect us from CCP and PRC.”
The Florida legislature’s expected votes on the bill come amid a recent series of state actions targeting China, including the enactment of a DeSantis-signed rule that prohibits state-government agencies from using drones made by DJI, a Chinese military company sanctioned by the U.S. government.