Latest news with #NaturalResources&DisastersSubcommittee
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida lawmakers eye changes after 2024 hurricane season
From holding down property taxes on homes rebuilt after hurricanes to new post-storm rules for elections supervisors, the Florida House on Tuesday started moving forward with a proposal to address issues whipped up during the damaging 2024 hurricane season. The House Natural Resources & Disasters Subcommittee unanimously approved a wide-ranging bill (HB 1535) that also seeks to look at shelter regulations, address debris cleanup in rural 'fiscally constrained' counties and direct how cranes are positioned when storms approach landfall. Bill sponsor Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota, said the proposal is the product of 'feedback from our local governments. It's feedback from the Realtors. It's feedback from homeowners associations, from builders, from environmentalists, emergency managers, and all of that is boiled into this bill.' Rep. Lindsay Cross, D-St. Petersburg, suggested more clarity for long-term local government plans. 'The time after a storm is maybe one of the only opportunities when communities can look at being more resilient or being more proactive, when residents finally understand what it means to be impacted and how this could not only happen in the future but be worse,' Cross said. The bill would prohibit counties under federal disaster declarations from Hurricane Debby, Hurricane Helene or Hurricane Milton from imposing moratoriums that affect rebuilding storm-damaged properties through Oct. 1, 2027. Local governments, school districts and special districts would also be prohibited from imposing impact fees when post-storm rebuilding doesn't change previous land-use designations. Also, residents would be allowed to rebuild homesteaded property up to 130 percent larger than the pre-hurricane 'footprint' without facing increases in their appraised property values. 'Many of our residents that are in the coastal area had to lift as they had to elevate as they rebuild,' McFarland said. 'And it's almost impossible to lift your home and not have the footprint increase, whether it's adding an external stairway or, you know, more provisions for your utilities. Almost everyone who is lifting their home to rebuild has to increase their footprint.' The proposal also calls for state agencies to work with local governments to streamline permitting to repair and rebuild damaged structures. Also under the proposal, if an emergency is declared by the governor within 60 days of an election, county elections supervisors could change locations of early voting sites, expand the early voting period to the day before an election and request approval from the secretary of state that early voting locations be used on election day. Supervisors could also take steps such as sending vote-by-mail ballots to displaced people. Contingency plans would need to be set in case elections are suspended, delayed or rescheduled due to an emergency. Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida, called the proposal a 'step in the right direction' for voters and a 'strong start' for elections supervisors. 'No disaster-affected voters should be forced to submit more paperwork or drive across the county just to cast their ballot,' Keith said. 'What they need is accessible voting options and easy access to information about those options.' The legislation also addresses a construction crane that wasn't taken down before Hurricane Milton slammed St. Petersburg last year. The crane collapsed into an office building. The bill would require that 24 hours before anticipated hurricane impacts, all hoisting equipment would have to be secured to comply with manufacturer recommendations, which could include removing advertising, laying down fixed booms where feasible and setting towers in a 'weathervane position.' The legislation also would require the Florida Division of Emergency Management to conduct a study on the statewide needs of emergency shelters, including accommodations for people with developmental disabilities and the availability of space for pets. The division would also be directed to coordinate debris removal with fiscally constrained counties in areas where emergencies have been declared. Hurricane Debby and Hurricane Helene made landfall last year in rural Taylor County, while Hurricane Milton made landfall in Sarasota County. Rep. Jason Shoaf, a Port St. Joe Republican whose district includes Taylor County, described the bill as 'much needed' for North Florida's Big Bend region. Shoaf added he looked forward to 'getting a grip on the fiscal' impacts. McFarland said she 'cherry picked' ideas from other bills in the House and Senate and intends to continue revising the bill. It needs to clear two more House panels before it could go to the full House. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
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
