BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

CS/CS/SB 1426 (Burgess) and CS/CS/HB 965 (Truenow) provide for the construction, operation, maintenance, and long-term management of offsite, regional, compensatory water treatment areas called “water quality enhancement areas.” These areas will be used to offset impacts to water quality caused by increases in nutrient loading from development projects. Under the bills, water quality enhancement credits could be purchased from a water quality enhancement area to offset such development impacts. An “enhancement credit” is defined in the bills as a standard unit of measure which represents a quantity of pollutant removed. The bills specify that water quality enhancement areas must be regulated through permits issued by the Department of Environmental Regulation. While the bills allow governmental entities to use water quality enhancement areas to address their water quality needs, the bills specify that governmental entities may not act as sponsors to construct, operate, manage, maintain, or market enhancement credits to third parties. In addition, the bills provide that local governments may not require a permit or impose regulations governing the operation of an enhancement area. A water quality enhancement area permit applicant must provide reasonable assurances that an enhancement area will achieve defined performance criteria, benefit water quality, and assure long-term pollutant reduction. The bills specify requirements for an enhancement area and require that such areas correspond to the appropriate basin management action plan boundary. The bills specify requirements for the generation of enhancement credits and provide that a local government may not deny the use of credits due to the location of the enhancement area being outside the jurisdiction of the local government. Lastly, the bills specify that whether a dwelling is owner occupied is not an eligibility criterion for a developer or homebuilder to receive density or intensity bonuses for implementing graywater technologies. (O’Hara)

CS/HB 323 (Sirois) and CS/CS/SB 494 (Hutson) revise the vessel conditions that an officer of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (Commission) or law enforcement agency may use to determine that a vessel is at risk of becoming derelict to include vessels that are tied to an unlawful or unpermitted mooring or other structure. The bills prohibit local governments from designating public bathing beach areas or swim areas within the marked channel portion of the Florida Intracoastal Waterway or within 100 feet of the marked channel. The bills repeal Section 376.15, Florida Statutes, relating to derelict vessels and the relocation and removal of such vessels. The bills amend the definition of "abandoned property" to include vessels declared to be a public nuisance and clarify the notice requirements and procedure for vessels declared to be public nuisances. The bills authorize the Commission to establish a grant program for local governments regarding derelict vessels and vessels declared a public nuisance. (Branch)

CS/HB 481 (Duggan) and CS/CS/SB 1332 (Wright) prohibit counties and municipalities from enacting regulations that prevent electric utilities from installing temporary underground power panels that meet the requirements of the National Electrical Code, and prevent counties and municipalities from requiring permanent inspections if the local government has already performed a temporary inspection. (O'Hara)

CS/SB 1156 (Stewart) and HB 935 (Morales) require the Department of Environmental Protection to conduct a study on the establishment of a new long-term, statewide recycling goal. The bills specify the requirements for the study and require DEP to submit a report and any policy recommendations to the Governor and Legislature upon completion of the study. (O'Hara)

CS/SB 1940 (Brodeur) and HB 7053 (Environment, Agriculture & Flooding Subcommittee) establish the Office of Resiliency within the Executive Office of the Governor and provide for the appointment of a Chief Resilience Officer. The bills require the Department of Transportation to develop a resilience action plan for the State Highway System. The bills make 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; and revising the $100 million cap on funding proposed for each year to a minimum threshold of $100 million. (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)

SB 1418 (Albritton), CS/SB 7012 (Brodeur) and HB 1475 (McClure) require the Department of Environmental Protection to adopt rules for statewide cleanup target levels for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in soil and groundwater. Such rules may not take effect until ratified by the Legislature. Until the rules for a particular PFAS constituent have been ratified by the Legislature, a person may not be subject to enforcement action by any state or local government entity to compel or enjoin site rehabilitation for that PFAS constituent. In addition, SB 1418 requires the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability to conduct an analysis of assessment and cleanup programs used in other states and submit a report to the Governor and Legislature by a specified date. (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) and HB 1555 (McClain) amend current law provisions that prohibit local governments from requiring permits for the removal of "dangerous" trees on residential property. The bills clarify what constitutes residential property and clarify the level of assessment and type of documentation that must be provided by an arborist or landscape architect under the law. (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 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)