BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

CS/CS/SB 1954 (Rodrigues) and CS/HB 7019 (Environment, Agriculture & Flooding Subcommittee) establish the Resilient Florida Grant Program within the Department of Environmental Protection, subject to appropriation, to provide grants to local governments to fund the costs of community resilience planning and vulnerability assessments. The bills specify criteria and qualifications for grant applications under the program. The bills require a 50% match for grant funding, but CS/HB 7019 provides exceptions for certain fiscally constrained cities and counties.  The bills direct the Department to develop, by July 2022, a comprehensive statewide flood vulnerability and sea level rise dataset sufficient to conduct a statewide flood vulnerability and sea level rise assessment. The bills direct the Department to complete the statewide vulnerability assessment by July 2023 and use the state data set and incorporating local and regional analyses of vulnerabilities and risks. The Department must update the data set and assessment every three years. The bills direct the Department to develop, by December 2021, a Statewide Flooding and Sea-Level Rise Resilience Plan on a three-year planning horizon. The Plan must consist of ranked projects that address risks to coastal and inland communities and the total amount of funding proposed in the Plan may not exceed $100 million. The bills specify information and eligibility requirements for projects listed in the Plan. The bills require water management districts, by September 2021, to submit a list of proposed projects that address risks of flooding and sea level rise for inclusion in the Department’s Plan, which may include projects submitted by local governments. Projects in the water management districts’ submissions must have a minimum 50% cost share and be ranked according to a scoring system. The bills encourage local governments to participate in regional resilience coalitions for planning and coordinating intergovernmental solutions to address flooding and sea-level rise and authorize the Department to provide funding to such coalitions when funds are specifically appropriated. The bills establish the Florida Flood Hub for Applied Research and Innovation within the University of South Florida to coordinate efforts between academic and research institutions in the state. The bills also require the Office of Economic and Demographic Research to include information relating to inland and coastal flood control in its annual assessment of expenditures and funding needs including an analysis of any gap between estimated revenues and projected expenditures. CS/CS/SB 1954 was substituted for CS/HB 7019. CS/CS/SB 1954 passed the House and Senate and is awaiting action by the governor.   (O’Hara)

HB 283 (Eskamani) and SB 720 (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 2060. The bills create the Renewable Energy Workforce Development Advisory Committee within the Department. (O’Hara)

SB 1008 (Hutson) and HB 761 (Overdorf) provide that solar facilities (including solar farms and related buildings, transmission lines and substations) are a permitted (as-of-right) use in local government comprehensive agricultural land use categories and certain agricultural zoning districts within unincorporated areas. The bills require solar facilities to comply with minimal criteria such as setbacks and buffering applicable to similar uses within the agricultural district. The bills authorize counties to adopt ordinances specifying buffer and landscaping requirements for solar facilities if the requirements do not exceed requirements for other permitted uses within an agricultural district. The bills also include solar facilities with capacities of less than 150 megawatts within the current definition of “electrical power plant” in the Power Plant Siting Act and allow such solar facilities the option of whether to use the Act’s certification process for siting the facilities. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 1054 (Broxson) and HB 705 (Andrade) address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). CS/SB 1054 prohibits the Department of Environmental Protection from taking enforcement action against any property owner to require PFAS remediation until the Department adopts rules establishing a “maximum contaminant level” for the specific contaminant. HB 705 provides airports are not liable for costs, damages or penalties relating to contamination, discharge, evaluation, assessment, or remediation of PFAS. Both bills direct the Office of Program Policy Accountability and Analysis (OPPAGA) to conduct a study of assessment and cleanup of soil and groundwater contamination in other states and submit a report on its findings to the governor and legislature. (O’Hara)

CS/SB 1058 (Burgess) and CS/HB 773 (McClure) amend current law that authorizes municipalities and counties to create an evaluation and rehabilitation program for sanitary sewer laterals on private property for the purpose of reducing leaks. The bills authorize a local government to access any sanitary sewer lateral within its jurisdiction for the purpose of investigating, cleaning, repairing or replacing the lateral. The bills establish procedures for implementing the lateral program. The bills require the local government to notify the property owner that it intends to access the owner’s property to address the problem and that the owner will not be held liable for the repair. The bills provide that under a locally established program the local government is responsible for repair and cleanup and also must specify requirements for repair work. (O’Hara)

SB 514 (Rodrigues) and HB 315 (LaMarca) establish the Statewide Office of Resiliency within the Executive Office of the governor, to be headed by a chief resilience officer appointed by the governor. The bills create the Statewide Sea-Level Rise Task Force to recommend consensus projections of anticipated sea-level rise and flooding impacts along the state’s coastline. They establish a process for appointments to the Task Force and directs the Task Force to convene no later than October 2021. The bills direct the Task Force to submit its recommended consensus baseline projections to the Environmental Regulation Commission by January 2022 and authorize the ERC to adopt or reject the recommendations. If adopted by the ERC, the projections will serve as the state’s official estimate of sea-level rise and flooding impacts along the coast and must be used for the purpose of developing future state projects, plans and programs. (O’Hara)

SB 916 (Brodeur) amends current law provisions that prohibit local governments from requiring permits for the removal of “dangerous” trees on residential property. The bill clarifies what constitutes residential property and clarifies the level of assessment and type of documentation that must be provided by an arborist or landscape architect under the law. (O’Hara)

CS/CS/SB 896 (Brodeur) and CS/CS/HB 539 (Byrd) create definitions for “biogas” and “renewable gas” within existing law provisions for renewable energy. Biogas means a mixture of gases produced by the biological decomposition of organic materials. Renewable natural gas means anaerobically generated biogas, landfill gas or wastewater treatment gas that may be used as a transportation fuel or for electric generation or is capable of being injected into a natural gas pipeline. The bills authorize the Public Service Commission to approve cost recovery by a gas public utility for certain contracts for the purchase of renewable natural gas. CS/CS/SB 896 was amended to require that solar arrays (“solar farms”) be a permissible use in any local government comprehensive plan agricultural land use category and in any agricultural zoning district within an unincorporated area. (O’Hara)

SB 1718 (Berman) and HB 1611 (Hardy) authorize a public educational customer to enter a contract for the installation, maintenance or operation of a renewable energy source device located on property owned or controlled by the educational customer and provides that financing arrangements for such contracts are not considered retail sales of electricity. The bills require electric utilities to provide meter aggregation to public educational customers under specified circumstances. The bills authorize business entities or third parties contracted by business entities to install, maintain and operate a renewable energy source device on or about the structure in which the business entity operates or on a property owned or leased by the business entity and authorize the business entity to sell electricity generated by the device to another business entity located immediately adjacent to the structure. The capacity of such renewable energy source device may not exceed 150% of the business entity’s usage in the prior calendar year. The bills provide that such sales of electricity are not considered retail sales of electricity. Finally, the bills authorize a public customer (including a local government) to install, maintain or operate one or more renewable energy operating systems to offset the public customer’s electricity requirements, but the capacity of such system may not exceed 150% of the public customer’s usage in the prior calendar year. The electricity may be sold to another public customer and such sale is not considered retail sales of electricity. The bills require electric utilities to provide meter aggregation to public customers consistent with a net metering program. (O’Hara)

SB 1960 (Bean) provides a process for siting solar facilities and restricts local governments’ authority to prohibit or impose requirements on such facilities. It defines “solar facilities” to mean a production facility that converts solar energy to electricity that is consumed primarily off-site via a transmission system. The term includes modules, mounting systems, collection systems and associated components as well as accessory buildings, grid interconnection equipment and energy storage equipment. The bill provides that solar facilities shall be a permitted use by right in all agricultural land use categories of the applicable local government comprehensive plan and all agricultural zoning districts within unincorporated areas. It provides that solar facilities must comply with the same setback, landscaping, buffering, fencing or berm requirements applicable to other uses that do not produce food or fiber in that comprehensive plan category or zoning district. The bill specifies that agricultural land leased for a solar facility shall maintain its agricultural tax exemptions. For solar facilities greater than 75 megawatts in capacity, the bill allows an applicant the option to apply for certification under the state’s Power Plant Siting Act. (O’Hara)

SB 208 (Brandes) and HB 775 (Omphroy) 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 the business owner or 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 that 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)

SB 1348 (Polsky) and HB 1563 (Mooney) require the Department of Environmental Protection to review and update its 2010 Retail Bags Report on the regulation of auxiliary containers, wrappings and disposable plastic bags and to submit a report to the Legislature by December 2021. In addition, SB 1348 modifies the current law preemption of local government regulation of these materials by specifying that local governments shall not regulate the use of auxiliary containers, plastic bags and wrappings until the Legislature adopts the recommendations of the Department contained in the report or until July 2022, whichever is earlier. (O’Hara)

HB 1309 (Payne) and CS/CS/SB 7060 (Environment and Natural Resources Committee) provide legislative ratification of administrative rules promulgated by the Department of Environmental Protection relating to biosolids. The bills exempt such rules from review and approval by the Environmental Regulation Commission. HB 1309 passed the House (114-0) and is awaiting action by the Senate. (O’Hara)

SB 1550 (Rodriguez) modifies provisions of current law adopted in 2020 regarding public financing of construction projects in coastal building zones to include certain inland areas. The bill provides that coastal building zones are at risk due to sea level rise and coastal structures within these areas are potentially at-risk structures. The bill requires state-financed constructors to include certain flood mitigation strategies in sea level impact projection studies. (O’Hara)

CS/HB 387 (Fine) and CS/SB 1208 (Rodriguez, A.) substantially amend current law provisions relating to Property Assessed Clean Energy programs. The bills define terms relevant to PACE programs including commercial and residential property. Under the bills, commercial property with qualifying improvements would be eligible for PACE programs. The bills impose various requirements on a PACE administrator to reasonably determine a property owner has an ability to pay the estimated annual PACE assessment. The bills impose obligations on a PACE administrator before it may enter a PACE contract for a residential property, such as providing a financing estimate and specified disclosures to the owner and conducting a recorded telephone call with the property owner to confirm the owner’s understanding of costs, payments, lien status and other implications associated with entering the contract. The bills authorize a residential property owner to cancel a PACE contract within three days of signing without penalty and provide the term of a contract shall not exceed the useful life of the qualifying improvement. The bills prohibit PACE financing for certain residential properties. In addition, they prohibit a PACE administrator from enrolling a PACE contractor that fails to meet specified requirements and require the administrator to make reasonable background checks prior to enrolling a new PACE contractor. They require the PACE administrator to confirm the contractor has performed the applicable work or service before disbursing funds to the contractor, and they impose specified marketing and communications guidelines on PACE administrators and contractors. (O’Hara)

SB 994 (Brodeur) modifies current law provisions relating to the permitting of private docks by the Department of Environmental Protection and permit exemptions. It clarifies that a private residential multifamily dock or pier is included within existing provisions relating to permit exemptions and the issuance of general permits. (O’Hara)

CS/CS/CS/SB 1128 (Hutson) and CS/CS/HB 919 (Tomkow) prohibit a local government from taking any action that would restrict or prohibit the types or the fuel sources of energy production which may be used, delivered, converted or supplied by an electric or natural gas utility, petroleum dealer or transmission company. The preemption applies retroactively to existing ordinances. (O’Hara)

HB 6023 (Eskamani) and SB 596 (Stewart) repeal current law provisions preempting specified local government regulations relating to tree pruning, trimming and removal on residential property. (O’Hara)

HB 6027 (Grieco) and SB 594 (Stewart) remove the current law prohibition of local laws relating to regulation of auxiliary containers, wrappings and disposable plastic bags. The bills also repeal the current law preemption of local laws relating to the use or sale of polystyrene products. (O’Hara)

HB 6041 (Eskamani) and SB 1174 (Stewart) repeal current law provisions preempting the regulation of over-the-counter proprietary drugs and cosmetics to the state. (O’Hara)