Latest news with #HB565
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legislature is back with another attempt at expanding control over regulating plastics
A newly hatched sea turtle is stuck in a plastic tab on a Florida beach. (Photo by Gumbo Limbo Nature Center) Due in part to an outpouring of opposition, a proposal that would have banned local governments from imposing regulations against single-use items like plastic bags, bottles, cups and cardboard died during the 2024 legislative session. But it's a new year and a new legislative session, and nearly the exact same proposal won approval in the Florida House Natural Resources & Disasters Subcommittee on Tuesday in its first committee stop of the 2025 legislative session on a party-line vote. The measure, sponsored by Miami-Dade Republican Omar Blanco (HB 565), is the latest move from Tallahassee to preempt cities and counties from enforcing local environmental laws. 'HB 565 ensures regulatory clarity, statewide uniformity, and consumer convenience,' Blanco told the committee. His measure would ban regulating any 'auxiliary container' made of cloth, paper, or plastic, including (but not limited to) foamed plastic; expanded plastic or polystyrene cardboard, corrugated materials, molded fiber, aluminum, glass, postconsumer recycled matter or similar material or substrates, including coated, laminated, or multilayer substrates. Since 2008, state law has barred local governments from reducing or eliminating many of the sources of plastic that clog sandy beaches, harm waterways, and impair the state's tourism economy. At least 16 states similarly forbid the banning of plastic bags, according to the Retail Industry Leaders Association. 'Local governments are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of plastic that we produce and generate,' said Katie Bauman, Florida policy director for the Surfrider Foundation. 'We're running out of space. This is due large part to differing governing bodies and municipalities that have been preempted and paralyzed in taking action for the greater part of the last decade. The result of this preemption is that it compounds local governments' difficulty in dealing with the mess that we make. We are burying trash. We are shipping it to other parts of the state. We're thinking about shipping it to other states … and yet the root problem will not go away unless we address it. Floridians and local governments want a solution.' Opponents of the proposal cite reports produced by the state's Department of Environmental Protection in 2010 and again in 2022 regarding the need for and efficacy of both statewide and local regulation of bags used by consumers from retail establishments. The 2022 report showed that 'a substantial majority of respondents support the need for regulation.' 'Nowhere did it show or suggest that further expanding or entrenching this preemption would be a positive benefit. That is what is being contemplated in this bill today,' Bauman said about that report. The bill also removes a provision requiring the DEP to update that reporting. Michele Drucker of the Florida PTA legislative committee discussed the harms that chemicals in plastics can cause to health. 'We have now learned that there are 100 times more microplastics in bottled products than previously understood, and it is affecting our reproductive capacity,' she said. 'It's affecting our endocrine system.' More than 16,000 chemicals are used in plastics manufacturing, and over 1,000 industrial chemicals used today are suspected endocrine disruptors, according to a 2024 report by an international team of scientists with the PlastChem Project. Representatives of the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce attended the committee meeting and indicated support. All five Democrats on the committee opposed the measure. 'We have very, very environmentally sensitive lands and the people who live there want to protect those areas and why wouldn't we let them?' said South Florida Rep. Kelly Skidmore. 'Why would we say we know best in Tallahassee — landlocked Tallahassee. That we're going to tell everybody else what to do?' All 19 Republicans on the committee voted yes, but Rep. Jim Mooney, who represents the Florida Keys in the House, said he was a 'soft yes' and urged Blanco to read a recent report published by Florida International University. That report says that the tourism and food service industries have been identified as major contributors to plastic waste and that the increase in those outlets has 'resulted in the proliferation of plastic litter.' It estimated the cost of plastic beach debris to Florida's tourism economy to be about $7 billion per year. Blanco's bill has two more stop in the House before getting to the floor. There is Senate companion bill filed by Lee County Republican Jonathan Martin (SB 1822) that has yet to be heard in that chamber. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Yahoo
Who's watching who? New bill aims to reduce red light violations with proposed pilot program
A new bill that would create a pilot program for red light cameras across the state was introduced in the House on Thursday. HB565 would created a pilot program to set up red light cameras across the state to capture the license plates of those who run red lights. Warnings would be sent out for violations and the program would be used to gather data on red light violations across the state. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jake Fitisemanu, D-West Valley, worked with agencies across the state such as Utah Department of Transportation, public safety, the UTA Highway Patrol, to come up with this pilot program to help deter drivers in Utah from running red lights. The program would use new technologies to operate as smoothly as possible. Last year at one intersection near Fitisemanu's home in West Valley, there were four people who died as a result of red light crashes. But, he said it's not just a problem in his neighborhood, this is happening all around the state. 'We're trying to change behavior, right? We're not just out here trying to hand out tickets and punish people. So I think we found a way that we can do this in a way that becomes a deterrent. This is going to be based on evidence and data.' Fitisemanu said. The Department of Transportation would identify up to 10 high-risk intersections to install these cameras at, with the necessary signage informing the public of the camera. The pilot program would last a year and people would be issued warnings through the mail for red light violations, the warnings would not include fines or citation and would not go on someone driving record. 'The registered owner of the vehicle would receive a warning that said, Hey, your car was captured going through this intersection illegally. We're letting you know that we're monitoring this and we're studying this situation,' the sponsor said. There is an option for fines for repeat offenders, which is up to the discretion of the person who would be issuing the fine. The maximum amount for the fines would be $130. Fitisemanu added that the purpose of this program is to help gather information to help the state move forward knowing better how to reduce red light incidents. He said there are many stories of people getting injured or killed in red light incidences but being able to back up these stories with hard data will be more powerful. 'If we can back that up with actual data of how many people are running these lights every day? That times of the day are peak violation times? Where are these major violation intersections? How fast are people flying through these? That's going to give us a lot of powerful information to make good decisions, and that's what I'm most excited about this,' Fitisemanu said. The pilot program would not be fully automated. After the photo of someone running a red light is captured, it would go to a police officer to review it and then decide whether or not to send out a warning. 'That allows people to then face an accuser, right? There's an actual human eyes, a human a person with human eyes were reviewing this. It's not an automated system,' Fitisemanu said. The cameras will be taking photos of the back of the vehicle, so it will not capture the faces of people in the car, they are just focusing on the license plate. Fitisemanu said he has worked with the state privacy officer to make sure they can keep all data safe that is gathered through this program. Technology has also improved over the years, which will help this program run more smoothly and accomplish its goals without causing unnecessary problems. 'I hope eventually, the outcome is a reduction or an elimination of people getting hurt and killed because of red light crashes,' Fitisemanu said. 'That's what I would love to see.'
