BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

HB 1561 (Roth) requires $100 million to be appropriated annually from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund to the Florida Forever Trust Fund. (O’Hara)

SB 1510 (Stewart) and HB 1211 (Altman) extend the date of retirement of bonds issued for the Florida Forever Program from December 2040 to December 2054. The bills provide for $100 million to be appropriated annually from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund to the Florida Forever Trust Fund. In addition, SB 1510 specifies that moneys distributed from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund may not be used for agency executive direction and support services or technology and information services. (O’Hara)

SB 1872 (Rouson) and HB 1623 (Diamond) direct the Commissioner of Insurance Regulation to convene a Climate and Resiliency Task Force to consider the impact of climate change on Florida’s insurance market. The bills direct the Task Force to identify protection gaps in Florida’s insurance market and recommend approaches for reducing, managing and mitigating climate-related risk. The bills direct the Task Force to issue a report to the governor and Legislature every three years, beginning January 2023. (O’Hara)

HB 901 (Bartleman) and SB 1252 (Berman) require the Office of Economic and Demographic Research to include within its annual assessment of Florida’s water resources an analysis of future expenditures by local, regional and state governments necessary to improve resilience to flooding. The analysis must identify gaps between projected and estimated revenues, expenditures and needs. (O’Hara)

SB 1190 (Farmer) is a Senate Joint Resolution expressing the Legislature’s support for investment in resilient infrastructure solutions, projects and policy proposals to support long-term climate resilience. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 1522 (Stewart) and HB 1225 (Goff-Marcil) require the Department of Environmental Protection to implement a stormwater inspection and monitoring program by January 2022 to identify improperly functioning or failing systems. The bills require owners of on-site sewage treatment and disposal systems to have the system inspected once every five years beginning July 2024 and direct the Department to adopt rules to administer and enforce the inspection program. HB 1225 requires basin management action plans to describe potential increases in pollutant loading due to population growth and agricultural growth and provide a comprehensive analysis of options to mitigate increases in pollutant loading. (O’Hara)

SB 1236 (Rodriguez, A.) and HB 617 (Melo) prohibit state agencies from adopting or enforcing state and regional programs to regulate greenhouse gas emissions without specific legislative authorization. (O’Hara)

HB 1173 (Roth) and SB 1480 (Brodeur) extend the retirement date of bonds issued to fund the Florida Forever Act from December 2040 to December 2054. (O’Hara)

CS/CS/CS/SB 88 (Brodeur) amends the Florida Right to Farm Act, which is intended to protect reasonable agricultural activities from nuisance lawsuits. The Right to Farm Act specifies that no farm operation that has been in operation for one year or more and that was not a nuisance at the time of its establishment shall be a public or private nuisance if the farm operation conforms to generally accepted agricultural and management practices. The bill expands the definition of “farm operations” in the Act to add “agritourism activities” to the list of farm operations that receive legal protections in nuisance suits, and it adds the generation of fumes and particle emissions to the list of conditions or activities that constitute farm operations under the Act. The “established date of operation” for an agritourism activity is the date the specific agritourism activity commenced, which may be different from the established date for the underlying farm operation. In addition, the bill provides limitations on liability from nuisance, trespass or tort actions that may be filed relating to farming or agritourism activities. It specifies that a farm may not be held liable for operations alleged to cause harm outside of the farm unless the plaintiff proves by clear and convincing evidence that the claim arises out of conduct that does not comply with state and federal environmental laws, regulations or best management practices. The bill further provides that a nuisance action may not be filed unless the property affected by the activity is located within one-half mile of the activity. The bill limits compensatory damages in a private nuisance action to the reduction in fair market value of the affected property. It prohibits the recovery of punitive damages for nuisance actions under specified conditions. Finally, the bill requires payment of attorney fees and costs by plaintiffs who fail to prevail in a nuisance action. (O'Hara)

CS/CS/HB 839 (Fabricio) prohibits a local government from banning (or taking action that results in a de facto ban) gas stations or related transportation infrastructure necessary to provide fuel to gas stations. In addition, the bill prohibits a local government from requiring gas stations to install particular types of fueling infrastructure such as electric vehicle charging stations. The bill clarifies that it does not preempt a local government from adopting and implementing requirements relating to the siting, development or redevelopment of gas stations or related transportation infrastructure as long as the requirements do not amount to a de facto prohibition within zoning or land use classifications where such infrastructure is consistent with other allowable uses. (O'Hara)

HB 333 (Aloupis) and SB 722 (Rodriguez) prohibit the drilling of wells or use of structures for the production of gas or petroleum products within the Everglades Protection Area. (O’Hara)

SB 136 (Brandes) creates the Energy 2040 Task Force within the Florida Public Service Commission to project the state’s electric energy needs over the next 20 years and determine how to best meet those needs while increasing competition and consumer choice. It directs the Task Force to recommend appropriate electric policies and statutory changes, including consideration of the effects of allowing nonutility retail sales of renewable energy; the use of microgrids; emerging electric technologies and concepts; the impacts of state and local government taxes on government revenues and the electric supply; and the environmental impact of electricity production, generation and transmission. The bill specifies Task Force members, authorizes the Task Force to establish any necessary advisory committees and directs the Task Force to submit its recommendations to the governor and Legislature by January 2023. (O’Hara)

HB 1105 (Goff-Marcil) and SB 1360 (Cruz) create a pilot program within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to provide for the energy needs of critical disaster resilience facilities and study the effectiveness of grants for distributed energy generation and energy storage technologies. The bills define “critical disaster resilience facilities” to include emergency operations centers owned by state and local governments, public health facilities, transportation facilities, law enforcement and public safety facilities and utility facilities. The bills direct the Department to establish a grant program for the purpose of offsetting costs for the purchase or lease and installation of on-site solar energy storage systems to serve critical disaster facilities. The bills direct the Department to conduct a study on the effectiveness of using solar energy storage technologies and other renewable energy generation and storage technologies and to publish the results of the study by December 2022. (O’Hara)

HB 993 (Skidmore) and SB 1362 (Polsky) require the Division of Emergency Management’s statewide emergency shelter plan to identify the capacity of backup power generation systems and fuel types available at each shelter. The bills require the Office of Energy within the Department of Agriculture to develop rules that meet certain requirements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by specified dates. In addition, the bills require the Department to develop and maintain a greenhouse gas registry and inventory and require state and local governmental entities to track and report greenhouse gas emissions data to the Department by specified dates. (O’Hara)

SB 2512 (Appropriations) revises distributions from the Documentary Stamp Tax. It adds distributions to the newly created Resilient Florida Trust Fund and to the Water Sustainability and Accountability Trust Fund (used for the wastewater grant program established in Section 403.0673, Florida Statutes). It reduces current distributions to the State Housing Trust Fund but also prevents funds distributed to the Housing Trust Fund from being transferred to General Revenue. Based on these modified distributions, in the upcoming fiscal year affordable housing programs will receive approximately $200 million, and programs established for resiliency and wastewater will receive approximately $111 million. (O'Hara)

HB 1369 (Driskell) and SB 1764 (Cruz) require a food outlet, a food service establishment or school to ensure that any food waste materials generated by the entity are recycled at an authorized composting facility, at an anaerobic digestion facility or by another recycling method if specified requirements are met. (O’Hara)

SB 1690 (Hutson) requires the Department of Environmental Protection to update its list and report on critically eroded beaches and the associated comprehensive long-term management plans to include certain beaches eroded by Hurricanes Matthew, Irma and Michael and identified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as critically eroded. (O’Hara)

HB 779 (Altman) and SB 1730 (Stewart) remove a provision in current law that requires income from conservation lands to be used in a specified way to retain its exemption from ad valorem taxes. In addition, the bills authorize conservation easement agreements to allow recreational activities. (O’Hara)

HB 1133 (Leek) and SB 1504 (Wright) define the terms “upland structure,” “vulnerable” and “wave runup” for purposes of the Dennis Jones Beach and Shore Preservation Act. The bills require, rather than authorize, the Department of Environmental Protection to issue permits for coastal armoring if it determines private structures or public infrastructure is vulnerable to damage from coastal storms or sea level rise. Similarly, the bills require, rather than authorize, the Department of Environmental Protection to issue permits for present installations of coastal armoring. (O’Hara)

SB 652 (Taddeo) and HB 1237 (Casello) impose an excise tax upon bottled water operators at a rate of 12.5 cents per gallon of water extracted from waters of the state. The bills direct proceeds of the tax to be deposited into the Wastewater Treatment and Stormwater Management Revolving Loan Trust Fund and direct that proceeds must be used to provide grants and loans to local governments, with priority given to projects that connect septic systems to central wastewater facilities. (O’Hara)