Florida is poised to ban fluoride from its drinking water under new legislation passed by state lawmakers.

The bill now heads to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk for a signature. If signed, Florida would become the second state after Utah to ban fluoride from its public water supply.

DeSantis has called water fluoridation “forced medication.” His office did not comment on whether DeSantis would sign the measure.

Water authorities in states across the U.S. have added a small amount of fluoride to water supplies for decades, and experts say it has prevented millions of cavities.

Florida’s Republican-led House of Representatives passed the measure on Tuesday as part of a broader farm bill. The Senate passed the ban earlier in April. Without mentioning fluoride specifically, the legislation would prohibit municipal authorities from adding “water quality additives” to the water supply.

DeSantis’ administration has already recommended the prohibition of fluoride, with the state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo calling water fluoridation “public health malpractice,” as WUSF has reported.

Before Trump won the election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Health and Human Services secretary, erroneously described fluoride as an “industrial waste” and said the White House would recommend banning the mineral from drinking water.

Kennedy — who subscribes to a number of debunked conspiracies surrounding health and wellness — also blamed the fluoridation of water for a myriad of health problems, including arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders and thyroid disease.

But dentists and other health experts agree that controlled exposure to the mineral is key to preventing tooth decay and holds minimal risks for negative side effects.

In addition to breakthroughs like vaccines and seatbelts, public water fluoridation is considered one of the greatest public health innovations of the 20th century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Earlier in April, the HHS, under Kennedy’s guidance, announced that it had directed the CDC to reconvene an independent panel of 15 health experts to examine the role fluoride plays in water sources and whether it can be detrimental to public health.

The use of fluoride in water has been debated elsewhere.

Calgary, Canada, voted in 2011 to ban the mineral from its water supply, but after a notable spike in dental cavities in the city’s children, the legislature last year reversed its decision.

The Florida ban, if signed into law, would go into effect on July 1.

NPR marks the first 100 days of President Trump’s second term with a live two-hour special on Wednesday night starting at 8 p.m. ET.

Tune in for a look back on what’s changed since Trump was inaugurated in January. From immigration to the changing shape of the government, how has he made good on his campaign promises? Host Michel Martin, NPR correspondents and guests will also look at how shifting alliances, trade agreements and changes at the U.S. border have altered international relations.

Click on the audio button above to listen — or tune in on many public radio stations or in the NPR app. You can also tell your Alexa device to “Ask NPR to play Special Coverage.”

More coverage from NPR :

If Trump has adopted the Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things” for his second term, then “move slow and get out of the way” could be the corresponding marching orders on Capitol Hill.

President Trump has taken about executive actions in his first 100 days in office — a rapid pace that rivals the 162 actions President Biden took in his entire time in office.

Consider in the same period of time, Congress has enacted just five laws, a low watermark in modern congressional history for this time period.

To a large extent, Trump is enjoying the spoils of unilateral party control of Washington, where there has been no significant push back as he legislates through executive actions on everything from immigration to election law, ignores statutes that require the White House to inform the Senate on certain actions before taking them, upends the economy with tariffs that Congress could technically block and, most notably, allowed billionaire Elon Musk to lead a government “department” — without confirmation hearings before the Senate — that has unilaterally slashed and cut agencies and programs funded by Congress through its constitutional authority to determine how taxpayer dollars get spent.

In a testament to the strength of Trump’s party loyalty, GOP leaders have taken little issue with it.

“I think there’s a gross overreaction in the media to what is happening,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters earlier this year when asked whether Musk’s government slashing efforts were trampling on congressional turf.

Johnson has said the president has the authority to make sure dollars in the executive agencies are well spent. “It looks radical, it’s not. I call it stewardship.”

But there are signals that all is not well with some in Congress.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, made a stunning admission at an event in Anchorage during the last congressional recess.

“We are all afraid,” she told constituents. “It’s quite a statement, but we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been before, and I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Meet The New Congress, Same As The Old Congress

Trump didn’t start this, said Professor Joseph Postell, an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College, but he is benefitting from it.

“Congress has for decades kind of ceded its authority, including authority over fiscal matters, appropriations, budgets, things like that,” he told NPR, “I think it’s a huge concern in this Congress, the extent to which Trump has been able to lead the Congress on fiscal questions, but I also don’t think that’s out of keeping with the way Congress has performed or conducted itself over the last few decades.”

Congress is designed to be a co-equal branch of government and a check on executive power, but in practice when the same party controls the White House, lawmakers in the modern era have proven willing to go along with the usurpation of their legislative power.

The dynamic applies to both parties — like when Democrats cheered President Biden’s executive actions to create a student loan forgiveness program, which the Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional.

It was this fertile ground that has allowed Musk’s team to institute cuts across departments, agencies, and programs with little pushback from the GOP-led Congress.

Congressional scholars like Postell say a government that functions like this is a cause for concern. “I see the decline of a Congress that legislates as a serious constitutional crisis that anybody who believes in republican government should be concerned about. So I tend not to see this as just a neutral change. I see it as a serious constitutional concern.”

Show Them The Money

Lawmakers also need to decide how they are going to approve the spending bills for fiscal year 2026 — which starts Oct. 1 — after punting on this year’s bills.

Kevin Kosar, a congressional scholar with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said it was understandable for Congress to want to clear the decks at the start of this Congress, but the real test of congressional muscle under Trump will be how they handle next year’s spending bills.

“The patient we know as Congress, I do not think is wholly dead,” Kosar said, adding that House and Senate lawmakers will want some assurances that the money is actually going to be spent because otherwise it’s a futile process. “I would think, ultimately, the appropriators’ desire for power would kick in. I mean, it’s going to have to kick in at some point. Otherwise what’s the point of being an appropriator?” Kosar said.

Sarah Binder, a congressional scholar with the centrist Brookings Institution, agrees. “You don’t want to overuse the word, but it is kind of existential for Congress,” she said, “It’s really hard to get around the single most important power that Congress has as the power of the purse, and if the parties can’t be sure that the administration is going to abide by those pots of money that they set in to statute, that they put into law, then the jig is up, right?”

Kosar also nodded to the political reality of the moment, where the House GOP majority is on the line in 2026. Historically, the party in power in the White House tends to lose seats in the midterms. Republicans hold a slim two-seat majority.

“I do feel like the administration and congressional Republicans, to a degree, really are operating within a two year window, and so the amount of deference that legislators are showing is to some degree, like, ‘we just have to do this to see if we can rack up as many wins as possible, because those midterms are probably not going to go our way.'”

To that end, Speaker Johnson has gone so far as to use parliamentary rules to effectively block the House’s ability to vote to repeal Trump’s tariffs, as well as any effort to vote on a resolution calling for an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to discuss sensitive military operations. “I think it’s an overreach here,” said Rep. Mary Scanlon, D-Pa., on Monday, “I think it’s simply for the purpose of having to avoid tough votes.”

For his part, Thune told reporters on Tuesday that Republicans want to be “good partners” to a president who Thune reiterated has a mandate — “It was clear, it was decisive” — to enact his policy goals.

A near-term policy fight that could upend the Senate indefinitely

Newly minted Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been working judiciously with Senate Republicans to make those policy goals a reality in the one “big, beautiful bill” Trump has demanded.

That massive undertaking is intended to make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent as well as include border security and energy provision using a budget process called reconciliation that allows the majority party to skirt the filibuster, the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to pass most legislation, and advance the package without Democratic votes.

Thune has already described it as an “arduous” process that typically involves relying on the Senate parliamentarian to referee what can and what fits the strict rules for a reconciliation bill.

The parliamentarian is a non-partisan Senate staffer tasked with safeguarding Senate rules. In the past, reconciliation has been guided by that person’s judgment. For instance, Democrats wanted to include a $15 federal minimum wage hike in a 2021 pandemic relief package that advanced under reconciliation rules. But the parliamentarian nixed the policy because it did not comply with the complicated rules for what is allowed in such a bill.

For instance, in order for a bill to qualify for reconciliation and the lower, 50-vote threshold for passage, it generally cannot increase the federal deficit over the next decade.

But Republicans, backed by Majority Leader Thune, are already looking to bypass that rule–and the parliamentarian–in order to use a favorable analysis for the deficit impact of the tax cuts. In reality, trillions will be added to the U.S. national debt over the next decade if Trump’s tax cuts are extended without ways to pay for them.

Binder says ignoring the parliamentarian can be consequential. “If you just ignore parliamentary history, it’s really for a lack of a better term, it’s really ‘Calvin ball‘ where you choose your rules solely for the purpose of getting the outcome that you want, and that’s quite destabilizing to the U.S. Congress.”

Thune will also likely face pressure to overrule the parliamentarian if the official rules that provisions on immigration or energy policy do not comply with budget rules. Thune has said publicly he does not wish to overrule the parliamentarian, but he could face a pressure campaign from Trump to get what the president wants in that bill.

Democrats warn that doing so would amount to going “nuclear” and threaten the foundational pillar of minority rule in the Senate: the filibuster. “They are tramping all over the rules that have governed the Senate for decades in order to give massive tax cuts for their billionaire friends,” said Schumer on the Senate floor earlier this month.

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has blocked an inquiry into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Hegseth shared sensitive details about military operations conducted against Houthis in Yemen in March in two different group chats – including one that involved his wife, brother and personal lawyer.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told Morning Edition that Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans blocked any inquiry resolutions into the matter because they know Hegseth and his actions are “indefensible.” Smith filed a resolution of inquiry, which allows a member of the House to force an investigation even when they’re in the minority.

“They are so afraid of this issue, they can’t defend it, that they don’t want to talk about it,” Smith said. “And they will go to extraordinary process lengths to try to prevent Congress from doing its job of exercising oversight over the Pentagon.”

Speaker Johnson said before the Tuesday vote that it was meant to prevent “nonsensical waste of our time,” and that the majority was using House rules “to prevent political hijinks and political stunts.”

Smith spoke to NPR’s Steve Inskeep about his blocked resolution and current limits on congressional oversight.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Interview highlights

Steve Inskeep: What did House Republicans do yesterday when you tried to use your power to force an investigation?

Rep. Adam Smith: They passed a rule basically to shut off resolutions of inquiry to not allow them, which basically frustrates the democratic process. And there’s a theme there in terms of what the Trump administration has been doing all over the place, changing the rules, not allowing open public discussion in the normal democratic process to take place. And I guess there’s substance and there is this process here. And the substance is they are so afraid of this issue, they can’t defend it, that they don’t want to talk about it. And they will go to extraordinary process lengths to try to prevent Congress from doing its job of exercising oversight over the Pentagon. And as you know from the signal story, Secretary Hegseth really needs oversight, given his use of sensitive information in a way that is incredibly dangerous.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the House Armed Services ranking member, challenges Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., on his request to remove “the woke” from the bill text as the House Rules Committee prepares to advance the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 11, 2024.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Inskeep: Now, there are two ways to look at this, I suppose, and one is in an institutional sense, there is Congress. You’re separate from the executive branch. You’re supposed to give oversight. You’re supposed to defend your institution. And I think that’s what you’re saying you’re trying to do. But let me ask about another thing. There’s also the House majority, and they try to run things as much as possible. You’ve been in Congress a long time, including when Democrats were in the majority. Have Democrats welcomed Republican demands for investigations in the past?

Smith: We’ve never welcomed them. But there are rules put in place so that the minority can be heard. That’s part of a representative democracy – not to get in the whole Founding Fathers Constitution thing. But that was one thing they really wanted to make sure. The majority controls and in the end they will probably win if they have the votes. But you want to make sure that minority voices are heard. That’s part of having a representative democracy. It’s part of having people have a voice in their government. You want to allow for those debates, even if in the end you lose the vote.

And what Republicans are doing now is they’re trying to shut off even the discussion and the debate. And actually the reconciliation process was interesting. We marked up in the Armed Services Committee yesterday to your previous story. Now in the Armed Services Committee, they gave us an extra $150 billion. So we’re spending money not cutting it. But we on the minority side raised a whole series of amendments about what happened with signal gate and what takes out this doing. Republicans just didn’t say anything. They just voted them all down. They refused to even speak one time to defend the secretary, I guess, because they know he’s indefensible. So they want to shut down the debate and not have the conversation. And that is really important because forget how you feel about the issue. We’re America. We’re a representative government. We’re supposed to have the opportunity to have debate, discussion, and they are trying to shut that down.

Inskeep: I just want to remember again, the majority tries to run things and the majority that is connected with the president is going to try to protect the president to some extent. But would you make the argument that, in this case, in this year, Congress is effectively neutering itself, going farther than a majority normally would to shut down debate and avoid their own institutional job to be a check on the president?

Smith: A hundred percent. This is unprecedented. At the end of the day, we’ll have the vote if they want to vote the way they vote. They win, that’s great. But what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to shut down the debate. They don’t want to have the conversation. And again, I will submit it’s like they know that they cannot defend Pete Hegseth. So they just want to make the entire issue go away and not allow people to talk about it. And everybody ought to be concerned about that.

NPR disclosure: Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, chairs the board of the Signal Foundation.

Julie Depenbrock and Nia Dumas produced the radio version of this story.

The Trump administration has fired at least some of former President Joe Biden’s appointees to the board that oversees the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, including former second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

Emhoff, who is married to former Vice President Kamala Harris, led the Biden administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism from his history-making vantage point as the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president.

He was one of 12 people Biden appointed in January to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the board of trustees of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Presidential appointees typically serve a five-year term, according to the museum’s website.

On Tuesday, however, several Biden appointees were notified of their abrupt termination from the board. The New York Times, which first reported the firings, said notices came via email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office. Tuesday was the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi Germany’s Dachau concentration camp.

Emhoff confirmed and criticized his termination in a statement on social media, in which he wrote that “Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized.”

“To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue is dangerous — and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve,” wrote Emhoff, whose great-grandparents fled persecution from modern-day Poland in the early 19th century.

The White House did not respond to questions about why — and how many — board members were terminated, but said Trump plans to appoint new members.

In a statement emailed to NPR, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “looks forward to appointing new individuals who will not only continue to honor the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, but who are also steadfast supporters of the State of Israel.”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which meets twice a year, consists of 55 members appointed by the president, as well as five members each from the Senate and House of Representatives and three ex-officio members from the Departments of Education, Interior and State.

It is not clear how many board members were terminated on Tuesday. The New York Times and Associated Press report that other officials dismissed include Ron Klain, Biden’s first chief of staff; Anthony Bernal, a senior advisor to former first lady Jill Biden; and Susan Rice, Biden’s former domestic policy adviser and an architect of his national strategy for combating antisemitism.

Former Rep. David Cicilline, D-Rhode Island, whom Biden appointed to the board in 2024, confirmed to NPR that his position was also terminated. Cicilline — who left Congress in 2023 to run the Rhode Island Foundation — called firings “deeply disappointing” in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

“The Museum’s work has always been nonpartisan and should remain so,” he said. “It is meant to challenge us all to think critically and clearly about our role in society, to confront antisemitism, and all other forms of hate.”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which was established by Congress in 1980 and opened in 1993, is the country’s official memorial to the Holocaust, dedicated to the documentation, study and interpretation of the genocide of European Jews during World War II.

It describes itself as an “independent establishment of the United States government operating as a public-private partnership that receives some federal funding to support operations of the Museum building.”

When asked about the terminations, Andrew Hollinger, the museum’s communication director, told NPR over email that the museum “is gratified that our visitation is robust and demand for Holocaust education is increasing,” especially given the rise in antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.

“We look forward to continuing to advance our vitally important mission as we work with the Trump Administration,” Hollinger wrote.

But some current and former board members, as well as prominent Jewish community leaders, say Trump’s terminations will threaten the institution’s ability to carry out that mission.

“Donald Trump’s action to prematurely remove members of the board before the end of their terms is an attempt to politicize an institution dedicated to remembering one of the worst atrocities in our history and hurts our efforts to educate future generations,” Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat who was appointed to the board in 2021, said in a statement shared with NPR.

Andrew Weinstein, who was appointed to the board by former President Barack Obama and served during the first Trump administration, said on social media that “removing Biden appointees is petty and vindictive and distracts from this important work.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, asked for a “fulsome explanation for this decision and even a reconsideration.”

“While it’s true that the White House has the privilege to appoint and dismiss members to such bodies, the latter prerogative should be used with caution and only in the most egregious situations,” he wrote.

The Trump administration has targeted several prominent cultural institutions and their boards during his first few months in office.

In February, he purged the Biden-appointed members of the Kennedy Center board and installed himself as its chair. In March, he issued a sweeping executive order aimed to eliminate “woke ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, singling out the American Art Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the forthcoming American Women’s History Museum as examples.

On Monday, Trump attempted to fire three of the five board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which quickly sued him in response, arguing he does not have the authority to do so.

Disclosure: NPR receives about 1% of its funds directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as explained here.