b'Meaningful change usually takes sev-eral years in the legislature, and thePet Retail Sales bill will be back. Thebilltitled,AlliesLaw,sponsored by Senator Jason Pizzo, D-MiamiandRep.DanDaley,D-Sunrise, would require veterinariansto report suspected animal cruelty orabuse. It did not get a hearing thissession.Another bill that was intro-duced, but was not heard in commit-tee,istheCourtroomAnimalAdvocateProgram,orCAAP.Thisbill, led by Senator Jason Pizzo, D-Miami and Rep. Sam Killebrew, R-WinterHaven,wouldallowforaprogram to be established where probono lawyers are asked to representtheinterestsoftheanimals.Therequest for their assistance would comeat the sole discretion of the judge.TheCareforRetiredLawEnforcementDogs billdidnotgettractionthisyearandthetetheringbill had a hearing in the senate butultimately died as well.SomeadditionalgoodnewsabouttheM-CORESdebacle(Multi-useCorridorsofRegionalEconomic Significance). As you mayremember,aleadership-ledbillpassed in 2019 that required the con-structionofthreenewtollroadsthroughruralcountieswithantici-pated paths cutting through criticalwildlifehabitats.Thisyearsbill,championedbySenatorGayleHarrell, R-Stuart, does repeal the M-CORESstatutebutkeepstheNorthern Turnpike extension on thebooks,althoughwithadifferenttimeline. It eliminates the Southwest-CentralFloridaConnectorinitsentirety, but does not eliminate thethreat previously presented by the M-CORES Suncoast Connector.Alsoincluded in this bill is the M-COREStask force recommendation to avoidconservationlandstothegreatestextentpracticable.Formoreinfor-mation on M-CORES, please followwww.NoRoadsToRuin.org Uwww.TheNewBarker.com THE NEW BARKER 53'