BILL SUMMARY DETAILS

SB 1878 (Bradley) requires a minimum annual appropriation for Everglades restoration and the protection of water resources in the state and provides requirements for the allocation of such funding. Beginning fiscal year 2020-21 and every year thereafter, the bill specifies a minimum of $625 million for such purposes. The bill allocates this funding as follows: $300 million for Everglades restoration and the Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir project; $50 million to the South Florida Water Management District for aquifer storage and recovery wells; funding for springs restoration as provided in law; $40 million for alternative water supplies or water conservation; $15 million for watersheds of the St. Johns River, Suwannee River, and the Apalachicola River; $15 million for Indian River Lagoon projects; $10 million for coral reefs; $4 million for red tide research; and any remaining balance for water quality programs, alternative water supplies, algal bloom prevention and land acquisition pursuant to the Florida Forever program or Rural and Family Lands program. (O’Hara)

SB 144 (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 2022. (O’Hara)

HB 147 (Jacobs) and SB 690 (Albritton) direct the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to develop a comprehensive and quantitative needs-based overview of the state’s water resources. To determine the level of need, the overview must include an assessment of funds necessary for current and future demands with respect to infrastructure, including amounts necessary to address hazard mitigation, infrastructure replacement costs, future capacity costs, natural resources protection and restoration, and flood protection. The overview must cover short-term (five-year) and long-term (20-year) planning timeframes. In addition, the overview must identify potential funding options to meet anticipated demands. The initial overview must be submitted to the governor and Legislature by January 1, 2022, with subsequent reports due every five years thereafter. (O’Hara)

SB 1152 (Broxson) would increase from $10 million to $12 million the total amount of tax credits that may be granted for certain site rehabilitations each year. The bill provides that potential brownfield sites owned by the state or a local government that are impacted by certain substances used in fire suppressants and firefighting foams (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or “PFAS”) are eligible to participate in a brownfield site rehabilitation agreement regardless of whether such contamination was caused by or contributed by the state or local government after July 1997. (O’Hara)

SB 1572 (Stewart) is a resolution of the Legislature expressing its recognition of the state’s susceptibility to climate change and its intention to adopt policies to combat climate change and sea-level rise. (O’Hara)

HB 1407 (Webb) and SB 1378 (Rouson) prohibit the operation of vessels faster than slow speed, minimum wake upon approaching within 300 feet of any emergency vessel with its emergency lights activated or upon approaching within 300 feet of any construction vessel or barge when the vessel is displaying an orange flag in a specified manner. The bills prohibit the anchoring or mooring of vessels as follows: to mangroves, to upland vegetation upon public lands, within 20 feet of a mangrove or within 20 feet of public lands. The bills provide exceptions to such anchoring and mooring prohibitions under specified conditions and circumstances. The bills provide for increased penalties for violation of these provisions. (O’Hara)

SB 1710 (Torres) prohibits investor-owned utilities and municipal electric utilities or an affiliate of such utility from engaging in construction contracting as defined in Chapter 489, Florida Statutes, and prohibits such utility or affiliate from providing bookkeeping, billing, financial, legal or insurance products or services that are related to construction contracting, including warranty products or construction liens. The bill prohibits such utilities or affiliates from engaging in construction contracting services in a manner that subsidizes the activities of the utility to the extent of changing rates or service charges. Affiliates or contractors are prohibited from using any utility asset, the cost of which is recoverable in the utility’s regulated rates, to engage in construction contracting services unless the utility is compensated for use of the asset. (O’Hara)

HB 653 (Caruso) prohibits municipal electric utilities from using revenues generated from the electric utility to finance general government functions and provides that electric utility revenues must be used exclusively for electric utility functions or improving infrastructure of the electric utility. (O’Hara)

SB 996 (Albritton) and HB 639 (McClure) – HB 639 requires a local government that displaces an existing solid waste provider to, in addition to the procedural and three-year notice requirements in current law, pay the provider an amount equal to the company’s preceding 18 months’ gross receipts for the service in the displaced area. SB 996 substantially revises the process by which a local government may displace a private waste collection company within the local government by requiring additional notice, public hearings and specified findings by local government prior to displacement. In addition, SB 996 prohibits a local government from commencing organized collection service within the displaced service area for five years after adoption of an ordinance or resolution establishing the service. (O’Hara)

SB 1382 (Albritton) is a comprehensive bill that prohibits local governments from recognizing or granting certain legal rights to the natural environment (e.g., granting legal standing to waterbodies) or granting enforcement of such rights to persons or political subdivision. The bill also authorizes basin management action plans to include a cooperative agricultural regional water quality management element or a cooperative urban, suburban, commercial or institutional regional water quality improvement element. The agricultural element shall be adopted by the Department of Environmental Protection and may include cost-effective and financially feasible cooperative agricultural nutrient reduction projects intended to reduce nutrient impacts from agricultural operations. Participants in the plan must have already implemented interim measures, best management practices or other measures adopted by DEP. The cooperative urban, et al. element shall be developed by DEP and may include cost- effective, financially practical regional nutrient reduction projects that may be implemented to reduce nutrient impacts from urban, suburban, commercial or institutional operations. The bills direct DEP to work with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to improve the accuracy of data in BMAPs and shall work with producers to identify technologies for implementation. The bills establish a nutrient reduction cost-share program within DEP that authorizes the agency to fund projects that may reduce nutrient pollution, including projects identified in the new plan elements authorized by the bills. The bills specify funding priority for certain projects and require projects to have a 50% match of local funds. (O’Hara)

HB 1419 (Good) authorizes a local government, college or university to install and operate renewable energy systems on any property owned by the entity to offset the entity’s electricity requirements. Electricity generated by such devices is deemed customer-owned generation without regard to ownership of the device by a contracted third-party. The bill authorizes a contracted third-party to sell the electricity generated by a renewable energy generating system to a local government, college or university and provide that such sales shall not be deemed retail sales of electricity. The bill authorizes a local government, college or university with multiple meters to aggregate its electricity consumption by totaling the consumption on all meters and offset such aggregated consumption requirements with customer-owned renewable energy generation under the electric utility’s net metering program. The bill requires electric utilities to offer all public customers a method to aggregate meters consistent with its net metering program and its standard interconnection agreement for customer-owned renewable energy generation. The bill requires each public utility to file with the Public Service Commission a program that offers a renewable energy tariff for all nonresidential customers to purchase renewable energy from the utility to meet up to 100% of the customer’s electricity requirements. The bill requires municipal electric utilities to offer a renewable energy tariff for all nonresidential customers as well. If a utility does not have sufficient renewable energy available to meet a customer’s requirements within a specified time period, the bill authorizes the customer to contract with a third party to purchase renewable energy from generating systems interconnected with the utility’s grid or transmission lines. (O’Hara)

SB 446 (Brandes) allows the owner of a business or 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 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)

HB 715 (Maggard) and SB 1656 (Albritton) prohibit domestic wastewater utilities from disposing of effluent, reclaimed water or reuse water by surface water discharge beginning January 2026. The bills exempt the following discharges from this prohibition: indirect potable reuse projects; permitted wet weather discharges; discharges into stormwater management systems that are subsequently withdrawn for irrigation; projects where reclaimed water is recovered from an aquifer recharge system and subsequently discharged for potable reuse; wetlands creation, restoration and enhancement projects; surface water minimum flows and levels recovery and prevention projects; and domestic water utilities in fiscally constrained counties or municipalities in rural areas of opportunity. The bills recognize potable reuse as an alternative water supply and provide that potable reuse projects are eligible for alternative water supply funding and that such projects may not be excluded from regional water supply plans. The bills direct the Department of Environmental Protection to develop rules relating to the beneficial reuse of water for public water supply purposes that are protective of the environment and public health, building on the guiding principles and goals set forth in the Potable Reuse Commission’s 2019 report on advancing potable reuse in Florida. The bills specify the rules should require the treatment of reclaimed water to drinking water standards. The bills include provisions to ensure that projects do not cause harm to the state’s aquifer and surface waters by requiring such projects do not cause or contribute to violations of water quality standards and that when such water is released into surface or groundwater, consideration of emerging constituents may be required. The bills direct DEP to adopt rules for implementation of potable water reuse projects and specify minimum requirements for the rules, authorize DEP to revise existing drinking water and reclaimed water rules, and authorize DEP to convene technical advisory committees to coordinate the rule review and rulemaking required in the bills. The bills direct DEP and the water management districts to execute a memorandum of agreement providing optional processes for coordinated review of any permits associated with indirect potable reuse projects. The bills authorize potential incentives for public-private partnerships for water recycling projects including expedited permitting and tax credits. (O’Hara)

SB 454 (Rodriguez) prohibits the construction of new deep injection wells for domestic wastewater discharge or the expansion of existing wells. It limits the discharge capacity of domestic wastewater deep well injection and required current ocean outfall and deep well injection permitholders to install a functioning reuse system by specified dates. The bill prohibits the discharge of domestic wastewater through ocean outfalls and deep injection wells after specified dates and requires current deep injection well permitholders to submit a plan with specified requirements and annual progress reports to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. (O’Hara)

HB 225 (Zika) and SB 824 (Hooper) amend current law relating to “Property Assessed Clean Energy” (PACE) programs and requirements. The bill provides definitions for PACE administrator, PACE contractor, PACE loan, PACE loan contract, qualifying commercial real property and qualifying residential property. It provides that a local government may enter an agreement with a PACE administrator to administer the program and specifies that local government or PACE administrator may enter into a PACE loan contract only with the record owner of the property. It eliminates current language in law stating that a recorded PACE loan contract provides constructive notice that the assessment to be levied constitutes a lien of equal dignity to county taxes and assessments. The bill includes new provisions regarding a PACE loan’s lien position. It provides that a PACE loan is: subordinate to all liens on the property recorded before the PACE lien notice is recorded; subordinate to a first mortgage on the property recorded after the PACE notice is recorded; and superior to any lien recorded after the PACE notice is recorded. The bill imposes substantial new requirements on local governments financing for qualifying residential property (maturity date of PACE loan, limits on loan amount, total combined debt may not exceed 75 percent of assessed value). The bill specifies required contents for PACE loan contracts for residential real property and prohibits such contracts from resulting in negative amortization, charging any interest upon interest or fees or containing any provision requiring forced arbitration or restricting class action. The bill prohibits a residential PACE contract from being entered until it has been verified the property owner has the ability to repay the loan: owner’s monthly debt to income ratio does not exceed 43 percent and must have sufficient residual income to meet basic living expenses. The bill specifies methodology and sources for verification of property owner’s income, debt and expenses. The bill requires the local government or PACE administrator, prior to execution of a contract, to confirm the key terms of the PACE agreement and scope of energy improvement work with the property owner in a live, recorded telephone conversation. The bill requires specific disclosures be made to the owner during the telephone call. The bill requires that prior to entering a PACE loan on residential property, the household be screened for eligibility for low-or no-cost programs that may be provided by government or utility service providers. The bill prohibits a local government from permitting a property owner from entering a contract unless the owner is given a right to cancel the contract within a specified timeframe. It requires the use of a specified financing estimate and disclosure form and that such form be provided to an owner at least three business days before a contract is signed. The bill delineates prohibited practices by PACE administrators or PACE contractors. The bill prohibits a local government or PACE administrator from entering into a PACE contract unless written notice has been provided to, and written consent obtained from, each of the holders of any mortgage on the qualifying residential or commercial property. It provides that a PACE loan shall not be made unless the holder of any mortgage on the qualifying property provides signed confirmation that entering into the loan contract does not constitute an event of default or give rise to any remedies under the terms of the mortgage loan. The bill provides for preservation of claims and defenses for successors in interest to property owners and provides for attorney fees and costs for aggrieved residential property owners. (O’Hara)

HB 1199 (Ingoglia) and SB 1382 (Albritton) prohibit local governments from recognizing or granting certain legal rights to the natural environment (e.g., granting legal standing to waterbodies) or granting enforcement of such rights to persons or political subdivision. (O’Hara)

SB 368 (Rouson) and HB 503 (Diamond) – Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority

SB 1172 (Albritton) HB 395 (Andrade) – Transportation

SB 636 (Stargel) and HB 435 (Valdes) – Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles

HB 1315 (Fetterhoff) – Transportation

SB 1352 (Brandes) and HB 1039 (Rommel) – Transportation Network Companies

SB 7020 (Infrastructure and Security) authorizes the Florida Department of Transportation to plan, design and construct staging areas for emergencies as part of the turnpike system. These sites are intended to be designated staging areas for emergency supplies to facilitate the prompt provision of emergency assistance to the public in response to a declared state of emergency. (Branch)

SB 7018 (Infrastructure and Security) and HB 1239 (Diamond) require the Public Service Commission (PSC), in coordination with the Department of Transportation and the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, to develop and recommend a plan for the development of electric vehicle charging station infrastructure along the State Highway System. The plan must include recommendations for legislation and may include other recommendations as determined by the PSC. The bills require the recommended plan to be developed and submitted to the Governor, the Senate President, and the House Speaker by July 1, 2021. (Branch)

SB 676 (Mayfield) and HB 465 (Sirois) provide guidelines for the creation of safe and cost-effective transportation options for residents and visitors of this state, including a high-speed rail system. The bills enhance the safety requirements of high-speed passenger rail in order to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public. The bills also require the Florida Division of Emergency Management to offer training to local emergency officials on responding to an accident involving rail passengers or hazardous materials. (Branch)