Advocacy

The Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development (FSTED) Council met on September 5th in St. Petersburg to approve the allocation of over $25 million among the 11 ports who requested FSTED funding. These ports’ projects spanned the breadth of services including cargo capacity improvements, berth expansions, port master plans, cruise terminal expansion and environmental mitigation. This year’s requests from our seaports totaled $1,004,585,466.

The FSTED Council also approved the allocation of $1 million for seaport security projects at 10 seaports. These projects represented almost $2.5 million in requests from Florida seaports, and included security measures to provide access control, cameras, and vehicle mitigation barriers at several seaports.

The FSTED Council is a public entity created by statute (Chapter 311, Florida Statutes) and charged with carrying out the state’s economic development mission through implementation of seaport capital improvement projects at the local level.  The Council was created within the Department of Transportation and consists of the port directors of the 15 publicly owned seaports and a representative from the Department of Transportation and the Department of Economic Opportunity.  It is the responsibility of the Florida Ports Council to staff the Council and administer the FSTED program.