Bill awaiting DeSantis’ OK would end years of renewable energy policies

A invoice sitting on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk would finish the state’s help of renewable and clear vitality and preserve Florida reliant on fossil fuels, critics say.

If signed, the legislation would reverse 16 years of state coverage, ending the work began by former Gov. Rick Scott and undoing Gov. Charlie Crist’s signature piece of environmental laws.

Most troubling to environmentalists, it might remove any point out of local weather change, despite the fact that largely flat Florida is extraordinarily weak to global warmingas already seen with rising waters within the Keys, Miami Seaside and Tampa Bay.

The bill (HB 1645) would ban offshore wind energy whereas encouraging exploring rising applied sciences in nuclear energya daunting prospect to those that bear in mind nuclear vegetation at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Crystal River.

“I think it really forces us to back away from the progress we’ve been trying to make,” mentioned state Rep. Lindsay Cross, D-St. Petersburg, an environmental scientist.

For instance, she mentioned, the state has invested greater than $1.6 billion in Florida local weather resiliency grants, encouraging “local governments to be extra ready, however in the identical breath saying they do not consider in local weather change.”

And it alerts that state officers will not encourage utilizing various and renewable vitality sources, she mentioned.

The measure would repeal a legislation Crist enacted in 2008 as a Republican that launched efforts to battle local weather change and again renewable vitality. It had the help of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California.

After coming into workplace in 2011, Scott, now a U.S. senator, gutted a lot of what Crist bought enacted. This 12 months’s invoice repeals what’s left of it. It handed the Legislature earlier this 12 months with Republican help and Democratic opposition.

The invoice was despatched to DeSantis on Friday, and he has till Could 15 to take motion.

DeSantis “will review the legislation in the coming days,” spokeswoman Julia Friedland mentioned in an e mail when requested if he had a place on the measure.

Cross mentioned it was commendable that the administration has invested billions of {dollars} in Everglades restoration and to battle crimson tide, however she mentioned these actions have been in response to issues which were round for many years.

“They do a poor job coming up with strategies now and to plan for … pressing issues,” she mentioned.

Florida will not be an vitality producer. The state depends on oil, pure gasoline and gasoline coming in by rail, pipeline, ships and tankers.

Invoice sponsor Rep. Bobby Payne, a former utility government and Republican from Palatka, mentioned the invoice protects Florida’s vitality customers and lowers costs.

“We’re protecting them with great reliability and we’re protecting them to make sure we don’t have a lack of energy security in our state,” Payne mentioned.

The Crist-era legislation made it much less versatile for the state to fulfill its vitality wants, he mentioned.

David Cullen, a lobbyist for the Sierra Membership Florida, mentioned throughout a committee listening to that “the invoice is designed to remove any competitors to fossil fuels and to keep up Florida’s dependence on fossil fuels for its vitality.”

Payne’s invoice goes past eliminating mentions of local weather change and banning offshore wind generators, which critics fear may break seaside views for vacationers.

It could finish a number of packages selling inexperienced or renewable vitality, together with the Florida Vitality and Local weather Safety Act, the Renewable Vitality and Vitality-Environment friendly Applied sciences Grants Program, the Florida Inexperienced Authorities Grants Act and the Vitality Financial Zone.

It additionally would ban governments from reserving conferences at inns and buildings licensed as “green lodging.” And it might remove a requirement that state businesses, public universities and native governments lease hybrid and electrical automobiles.

Native governments could be prohibited from blocking the development of “resiliency centers,” that are large gasoline reservoirs established for emergency use.

The majority of the invoice appears focused towards DeSantis’ ongoing tradition wars and battles with “the global elite,” Cross mentioned.

Cross famous that DeSantis signed one other invoice that preempts native governments from regulating charging stations, and the state Division of Environmental Safety has granted permission to probe for oil within the Apalachicola River basin within the Panhandle.

She mentioned the state has little interest in vitality alternate options.

“Don’t we know better than this?” she requested. “We are constantly fighting technology we don’t like. It’s the same story over and over.”

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