BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

CS/HB 7053 (Environment, Agriculture & Flooding Subcommittee) establishes the Office of Resiliency within the Executive Office of the Governor and provides for the appointment of a Chief Resilience Officer. The bill requires the Department of Transportation to develop a resilience action plan for the State Highway System. The bill makes various revisions to current law relating to statewide resiliency funding and planning, including: authorizing the use of Resilient Florida Grant Program funds for preconstruction activities for projects in municipalities and counties meeting certain population thresholds, but not for projects that adapt critical assets to flooding and sea-level rise; extending by one year the dates by which the Comprehensive Statewide Flood Vulnerability and Sea-Level Rise Data Set and the Assessment must be completed; requiring the Florida Flood Hub to provide tidal and storm surge flooding data to cities and counties for vulnerability assessments; and requires DEP to rank and include in its annual Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience Plan all eligible projects that were submitted and to include a detailed overview describing how the plan was developed; specifying that the DEP plan submitted in 2023 must be an update to the preliminary plan submitted in 2021; and authorizes drainage districts, erosion control districts, regional water supply authorities, and certain special districts to submit proposed projects for the plan under certain circumstances. HB 7053 passed the House (114-1) and the Senate (37-0) and is awaiting action by the Governor. (O’Hara)

HB 81 (Eskamani) and SB 366 (Berman) prohibit the drilling, exploration or production of petroleum products in the state. In addition, the bills direct the Office of Energy within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to develop a statewide plan to generate 100% of the electricity used in the state from renewable energy by 2040 and for the state to have net-zero carbon emissions statewide by 2050. (O'Hara)

HB 745 (Alexander) and SB 1562 (Ausley) direct the Department of Environmental Protection, in coordination with the Office of Energy within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, to conduct a study of brownfield sites and closed landfill sites to determine viable locations for redevelopment as solar photovoltaic facilities. The bills specify requirements for the study and directs DEP to submit a report to the Governor and Legislature by August 2023. (O'Hara)

CS/HB 1475 (McClure) provides that if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not finalized its standards for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in drinking water, groundwater and soil by January 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) must adopt by rule statewide cleanup target levels for PFAS in drinking water, soil and groundwater, with priority given to PFOA and PFOS. The DEP rules may not take effect until ratified by the Legislature. In addition, until the department’s rule for a particular PFAS constituent has been ratified by the Legislature, a governmental agency or private water supplier may not be subject to any administrative or judicial action under Chapter 376 brought by any state or local governmental entity to compel or enjoin site rehabilitation, to require payment for the cost of rehabilitation, or to require payment of any fines or penalties regarding rehabilitation based on the presence of that particular PFAS constituent. CS/HB 1475 passed the House (111-0) and the Senate (38-0) and is awaiting action by the Governor. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 198 (Rodriguez, A.) and CS/HB 349 (Overdorf, Sirois) authorize the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund to establish seagrass mitigation banks under certain conditions. (O’Hara)

HB 303 (Truenow) and CS/SB 608 (Brodeur) authorize counties and municipalities to access sanitary sewer laterals within their jurisdiction to investigate, repair or replace the lateral. A sanitary sewer lateral is a privately-owned pipeline connecting a property to the main sewer line. The bills require municipalities and counties to notify private property owners within a specified timeframe if the government intends to access the owner's sanitary sewer lateral and an anticipated timeframe for the work. The bills specify that local governments who establish sanitary sewer lateral programs are legally and financially responsible for all work that is performed and authorize such programs to use specified state or local funds to evaluate and rehabilitate impaired laterals. CS/SB 608 was amended to clarify that a municipality or county may elect to establish and implement an alternative evaluation and rehabilitation program to identify and reduce extraneous flow from leaking from sanitary sewer laterals. (O'Hara)

CS/SB 1238 (Polsky) and HB 1019 (Duggan) require coastal counties to conduct vulnerability assessments that analyze the effects of saltwater intrusion on their water supplies. The assessments must be conducted by September 2022. The bills require each coastal county to provide copies of its assessment to the Department of Environmental Protection and the respective water management districts. The bills require water management districts, in collaboration with coastal counties, to submit annually to DEP a list of proposed projects based on the assessments. (O'Hara)

CS/HB 101 (Fine) and CS/SB 228 (Rodriguez, A.) amend current law relating to Property Assessed Clean Energy programs (PACE), whereby local governments, alone or in partnership with a program administrator, may finance qualifying improvements on residential property relating to energy conservation and efficiency or renewable energy. The bills add several consumer protections to the current PACE program, including: capping the total of all non-ad valorem assessments, plus any mortgage debt on the property at 97% of a residential property’s fair market value, requiring a determination that a property owner meets certain creditworthiness requirements, and allowing property owners to cancel a financing agreement within three days of execution. The bills also require the local government to post an online annual report documenting certain PACE activities. (Hughes)

CS/SB 518 (Brodeur) clarifies current law section 163.045, F.S., which provides that a local government may not require a notice, application, permit, fee, or mitigation for pruning, trimming, or removing a tree on a residential property if the owner obtains documentation from an arborist or licensed landscape architect that the tree presents a danger to persons or property. The bill defines “documentation” as an onsite assessment performed in accordance with tree risk assessment procedures outlined in Best Management Practices – Tree Risk Assessment, Second Edition (2017) by an arborist certified by the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) or a Florida licensed landscape architect, and signed by the arborist or landscape architect. It defines “residential property” as a single-family, detached building located on a lot actively used for single-family residential purposes and that is either a conforming use or a legally recognized non-conforming use. The bill removes reference to the term “danger” and replaces it with the phrase “unacceptable risk”. It specifies a tree presents an unacceptable risk if removal is the only means of practically mitigating its risk before moderate, as determined by the tree risk assessment procedures outlined in the Best Management Practices – Tree Risk Assessment, Second Edition (2017). CS/SB 518 passed the Senate (38-0) and the House (116-1) and is awaiting action by the Governor. (O'Hara)

SB 182 (Brandes) allows the owner of a business or a contracted third party to install, maintain and operate a renewable energy source device on or about the structure in which the business operates or on any property the business leases. The bill provides that the business owner or the third party may sell the electricity that is generated from the device to another business immediately adjacent to or within the same parcel as the business, and such sales shall not be considered or regulated as retail sales of electricity. The bill provides that if the energy-producing business or its customers require additional related services from a utility, such as backup generation capacity or transmission services, the utility may recover the full cost of providing those services. The bill authorizes a utility to enter a contract with a business to install, maintain or operate any type of renewable energy source device on or about the structure from which the business operates and to sell the electricity to an adjacent business and the bill provides that such electricity sales shall not be considered or regulated as retail sales of electricity. The bill specifies that if the Public Service Commission determines the level of reduction in electricity purchases by customers using renewable energy source devices is significant enough to adversely impact the rates that other customers pay in the rate territory, the Commission may approve a utility's requests to recover its costs of providing the electricity needed by all customers, including customers using a renewable energy source device. The bill provides for methodology of such cost recovery, a process for customers to challenge the cost recovery and authorized rulemaking by the Commission. The bill may have a negative fiscal impact on municipal revenues, including potential impacts to municipal electric franchise revenues and municipal public service utility taxes. (O'Hara)

HB 1145 (Mooney) and SB 1580 (Rodriguez, A.) authorize certain coastal communities as defined in the bills to establish pilot programs to regulate single-use plastic products. The bills also require the Department of Environmental Protection to submit updated retail plastic bag reports with conclusions and recommendations to the Legislature by specified dates. (O'Hara)

CS/SB 1434 (Rodriguez) and CS/HB 1077 (Hunschofsky) revise current law provisions that require certain public-financed projects and infrastructure to undergo a Sea-Level Impact Projection Study prior to construction. The bills expand the types of projects and infrastructure subject to the requirement by including "potentially at-risk" projects within an area that is "at risk due to sea-level rise," as defined in the bills. The bills also add a requirement that a public-financed constructor provide a list of flood mitigation strategies evaluated as part of the design of the potentially at-risk structure or infrastructure and identify the flood mitigation strategies that have been implemented or are being considered as part of the structure or infrastructure design. (O'Hara)

HB 393 (Hinson) and SB 604 (Berman) require the Department of Health to adopt and enforce certain rules and issue health advisories for public bathing places if the results of bacteriological water sampling at the site fail to meet health standards. The bills require the Department to notify a municipality or county if a health advisory is issued against swimming in public bathing places and require the county or municipality to place signage around public bathing places warning of the bacterial contamination until such time the bacterial contamination is resolved. (O'Hara)

HB 6025 (Eskamani) and SB 316 (Stewart) repeal current law preempting specified local government regulations relating to tree pruning, trimming and removal on residential property. (O'Hara)

SB 320 (Stewart) and HB 6063 (Grieco) remove the current statutory preemption of local laws regarding the regulation of auxiliary containers, wrappings or disposable plastic bags. In addition, the bills remove the statutory preemption of local laws regarding the use or sale of polystyrene products to the Department of Agriculture. (O'Hara)

HB 6019 (Eskamani) repeals current law provisions preempting the regulation of over-the-counter proprietary drugs and cosmetics to the state. (O'Hara)

HB 1151 (Sirois) creates a 15-member task force within the Department of Environmental Protection and specifies its members, which include a representative from the League. The bill directs the Task Force to develop recommendations for enforceable regulatory standards, a mechanism for identification and cleanup of contaminated areas, methods to address liability for contamination and responsibility for cleanup, appropriate methods and technologies for cleanup, funding sources for cleanup and remediation, methods to manage PFAS waste, appropriate testing for PFAS, and methods to eliminate workforce exposure. The bill directs the Task Force to issue an annual report to the Governor and Legislature, beginning October 2023. (O’Hara)

HB 1125 (Caruso) directs the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to administer an onsite sewage treatment and disposal system periodic inspection program. It requires owners of certain systems to have periodic inspections of such systems every five years and to pay for the costs of such inspections, as well as any repairs or replacements. It authorizes local governments to create grant programs for homeowners' replacement costs. It directs DEP to submit program reports to the Governor, Legislature, Chief Science Officer and the Blue-Green Algae Task Force. (O'Hara)

SB 1454 (Ausley) and HB 1081 (Skidmore) establish the Office of the Blue Economy within the Department of Economic Opportunity and provides duties of the Office. The term "blue economy" means the economic uses of ocean and coastal resources with a focus on sustainable practices and the competitive positioning of the state in a global economy affected by climate change. It includes maritime industries as well as tourism and outdoor recreational activities. It also requires the Office of Economic and Demographic Research to conduct a biennial evaluation of the blue economy for inclusion in its annual state water resources assessment. (O'Hara)

CS/CS/HB 741 (McClure) revises current law relating to net metering by investor-owned utilities (IOUs). Net metering allows customers who own on-site renewable energy systems, typically solar systems, to interconnect with the electric grid and be compensated for excess electricity generated on-site that is subsequently transferred to the electric grid. Under Florida’s current net metering framework for IOU’s, the credit customers receive on their bill equals the value of the excess energy to the utility’s retail rate. The bill modifies the current net metering framework for IOUs, establishing a graduated schedule for crediting excess energy delivered to the electric grid by a customer. The schedule is based on the date a customer’s net metering application is approved. For applications approved between January 2024 and December 2025, the customer’s energy usage will be offset by 75% of the amount credited. For applications approved between January 2026 and December 2026, the customer’s energy usage shall be offset by 60% of the amount credited. For applications approved between January 2027 and December 2028, the customer’s energy usage shall be offset by 50% of the amount credited. Customers for which a net metering application is approved before January 2029 pursuant to a standard interconnection agreement will be given 20 years to continue to use the net metering rates that applied at the time the application was approved. The bill further provides that if customer-owned renewable generation in the state exceeds a certain threshold, the Public Service Commission must initiate rulemaking to adopt a new rule for net metering. The bill authorizes an IOU to petition the Public Service Commission after January 2024 for approval to impose any combination of charges to ensure that the IOU recovers the fixed costs of serving customers who own or lease renewable generation and that the general class of ratepayers does not subsidize customer-owned or leased generation. The bill directs the Public Service Commission to establish a new program to become effective January 2029 for customers for which a net metering application is approved after that date. The new program must ensure that: IOU customers who own renewable generation pay their full cost of electric service and are not cross-subsidized by the general class of ratepayers; all energy delivered by the IOU is purchased at its applicable retail rate; and all energy delivered by the customer-owned renewable generation to the IOU is credited to the customer at the IOU’s full avoided costs. CS/CS/HB 741 passed the House (83-31) and the Senate (24-15) and is awaiting action by the Governor. (O'Hara)