The bill amends section 373.4136 of the Florida Statutes to establish a revised credit release schedule for mitigation banks, effective July 1, 2025. It outlines specific percentages of mitigation credits to be released at various stages of the mitigation process, such as upon the issuance of a mitigation bank credit permit, the recordation of conservation easements, and the completion of construction activities. The bill also allows applicants to propose alternative credit release schedules and requires the Department of Environmental Protection or water management districts to modify existing schedules upon request under certain conditions. Additionally, it prohibits the release of mitigation credits for freshwater wetland creation until specific success criteria are met.

Furthermore, the bill introduces new requirements for mitigation banks, mandating annual accounting of available credits starting July 1, 2026, while ensuring that the identities of parties reserving credits and contract prices remain confidential. It also emphasizes the need for proximity factor multipliers for compensatory mitigation and requires timely accounting of credit availability from mitigation banks. The bill removes previous provisions that allowed certain projects to utilize mitigation banks regardless of their location within the designated service area, specifically deleting eligibility for projects with partial adverse impacts within the service area, linear projects, and those with total adverse impacts of less than one acre. The act is set to take effect on July 1, 2025.