Local governments would be severely restricted from implementing measures to reduce the effects of climate change under a bill approved Thursday by a Florida House committee.
The measure (HB 1217) comes nearly two years Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation declaring that the state would no longer be required to consider climate change when crafting energy policy.
The bill says that it is state policy to prohibit the adoption or implementation of “net-zero policies” by government entities, including through comprehensive plans, land development regulations, transportation plans, or any other government policy or procedure.
It would ban government entities from paying dues to groups pushing net-zero policies and from implementing cap-and-trade systems to limit carbon emissions.
“We want to have uniformity from the Panhandle to the Keys and not having situations where one particular county or city has an overly burdensome situation that costs more,” said Seminole Republican Rep. Berny Jacques, a co-sponsor of the proposal.
At least 14 local governments in Florida have passed resolutions over the past 15 years committing to a 100% clean, renewable power energy portfolio in the future. They include Tallahassee, Gainesville, Orlando, Tampa, Cocoa, Satellite Beach, Dunedin, Largo, Safety Harbor, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, South Miami, and Pinellas County.
In addition, the Southeast Florida Climate Change Compact comprising Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties was formed in 2009 to work collaboratively to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions, implement adaptation strategies, and build climate resilience. That coalition issued a report in 2022 calling for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Brian Lee with ReThink Energy Florida said passage of the bill could have a chilling effect on policies that are cost effective and reduce pollution.
“Some examples of that are purchasing preference policies that strive to reduce carbon pollution by helping people and business make their buildings more energy efficient,” Lee told the House Intergovernmental Affairs Subcommittee.
“Some of these type of policies attract funding into the state in the forms of grants and incentives. If local governments had to get rid of them, the people in their jurisdictions would be harmed and the locality itself would have to turn down or give back funding.”
Jacques argued some of the climate change policies are taxes levied to reach their goals of clean energy portfolios. “When you have these type of new financial burdens it makes things more costly,” he said. “It can make services more costly. Products more costly, thereby making the consumer having a more costly situation, and that is what we’re trying to prevent.”
Rep. Ashley Gantt, D-Miami, asked Rep. Jacques if it was proven that local governments with policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions were excessively costing local taxpayers.
Jacques replied that while he didn’t have all of the evidence, it stood to reason that if a local government was considering purchasing electric vehicles that would require charging stations, “it’s going be more costly. We’re trying to prevent that from happening.”
The bill passed on a party-line vote, with all Republicans on the committee supporting it and all the Democrats opposed. It has one more committee stop before reaching the full House. A Senate companion measure (SB 1628) has two more committee stops in that chamber.
The committee hearing took place at the same time the Trump administration was announcing that it was revoking a 2009 rule by the Environmental Protection Agency known as the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
Sherry says
Maniac trump dismisses “Scientific Facts” on Climate Change. . . placing our nation and planet in greater peril! This from the AP:
President Donald Trump on Thursday revoked the 2009 endangerment finding, which has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.
But in making the announcement, Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin made false claims regarding the government declaration, climate change, and energy.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.___
TRUMP: “Known as the endangerment finding, this determination had no basis in fact, had none whatsoever, and it had no basis in law.”
THE FACTS: This is false. The endangerment finding was adopted in 2009 by the EPA after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants that can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
“The idea that the endangerment finding has no basis in law is ludicrous,” said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA specifically directed the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The endangerment finding is the result.”
Scientific evidence to support the endangerment finding was provided by the EPA at the time of its inception and is still available on the agency’s website today.
TRUMP: “We’ve basically stopped all windmills in this country. It’s the most expensive energy you can get.”
THE FACTS: Onshore wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation, with new wind farms expected to produce around $30 per megawatt hour, according to July estimates from the Energy Information Administration.
This compares to a new natural gas plant, around $65 per megawatt hour, or a new advanced nuclear reactor, which runs over $80. Offshore wind is among the sources of new power generation that will cost the most to build and operate, at $88 per megawatt hour, the EIA said in July.
TRUMP, asked about the cost to health and the environment: “It has nothing to do with public health. This is all a scam, a giant scam. This was a rip off of the country by Obama and Biden, and let’s say Obama started it and got it rolling and a terrible rip off.”
THE FACTS: Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies connect health harms to climate change. They find increasing deaths from heat waves, extreme weather such as hurricanes and floods and air pollution from worsening wildfires. A 2021 study in Nature Climate Change calculated that globally about 9,700 people die a year from heat-related deaths attributable to human-caused climate change, based on data from 732 cities, including more than 200 in the United States.
A separate study last year listed dozens of climate change health harms and concluded, using the EPA’s own calculation method, that the health costs are at least $10 billion a year, probably much more.
The science of climate change dates back nearly 170 years to studies done by American Eunice Foote showing that carbon dioxide heated cylinders with thermometers inside more than ambient air. The first national climate assessment, done in 2000, before Obama and Biden, “concluded that climate variability and change are likely to increase morbidity and mortality risks.”
ZELDIN: “The Obama and Biden administrations used the endangerment finding to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish, including electric vehicle mandates.”
THE FACTS: Trump has made this claim before. There was no federal mandate to force the purchase of EVs.
“If you looked at some of the tables that were in the Biden rules, you could see that there were a variety of different ways that companies could comply with the standards,” said Carrie Jenks, the executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental and energy law program. “The endangerment finding nor the regulations mandated a shift from one type of vehicle to another.”
Former President Joe Biden did set up a non-binding goal that EVs make up half of new cars sold by 2030. Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office revoking that goal.
Biden’s policies tightened restrictions on pollution from gas-powered cars and trucks in an effort to encourage Americans to buy EVs and car companies to shift from gas-powered vehicles to electric cars.
Atwp says
Just remember when Republicans are in charge, death, chaos, and waste follows. Look at the county, state and country.
Renee Smith says
The state is no better in protecting its citizens than the federal government. Now the Republicans are trying to make sure that local governments can’t protect citizens either. This is a sad state of affairs.
Laurel says
This is another jab at trying to rid the locals of Home Rule. They just keep coming at it from various directions.
Kim S says
This from Statista:
“As of June 2024, NextEra Energy was the leading company in terms of wind operating capacity owned worldwide. The company owned a wind operating capacity of around 19.2 gigawatts globally. In second position was EDF renewables, owning a wind operating capacity of some 9.1 gigawatts worldwide.”
So, NextEra leads by double the capacity of the next guy. FPL’s parent company? NEXTERA ENERGY. FPL doesn’t even acknowledge wind energy as one of their sources on their website. Maybe they’re selling it, not using it? Huh.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1370065/global-wind-farm-capacity-by-owner/
Deborah Coffey says
What deadly, disgusting governance! Even Republicans should now understand that the people they voted for are trying to kill them and their children…simply because they can make more money by reducing the population and by getting in bed, and staying there, with Big Business. It’s vomitous.
PaulT says
,Marco Rubio, who’s on his way to the Munich Secueity Summit, told reporters that Europrean nations need to realise that we’re in a ‘New Era’.
But in truth we’re not .This is just a re-run of the late 19th century though the United States,has acquired the position Great Britain and it’s Empire (9over which the sun never set) held, dominating world trade and unsurpassed in military power.
Then too, there was complete disregard for the environmental effects of unregulated expansion. The millionaire ‘Magnates’ of that era may have been replaced by ‘billionaire’oligarchs but nothing else has changed. They could and now can get away with murder because they had and have the ear and filled/fill the pockets of those in power.
Deregulation, both the Florida House efforts to ban ‘carbon neutral’ coalitions and Trump’s ending of environmental rules and cancelling the premise of reducing pollution to avoid the risk of ‘human endangerment’ is about one thing only.
It’s to provide more freedom to exploit, more profit, more wealth for the ‘Magnates’ and of course the politicians who scrabble for their favor and their cash.
We The People have no part in this bargaining and will never profit from these transactions, except for minor concessions every four years to buy your votes.
Though if you’re a Republican in this polarized age the government aligned media has already implanted a brain-worm that takes care of that.
So sit back, ignore the science, abandon the efforts and watch the world, your world, your children’s world deteriorate as it adapts. Watch the climate becomes more erratic and more extreme as the planet works to sheds the human parasites and their abuse.
Laurel says
Masked goons with guns and no IDs throwing around, and actually killing, U.S. citizens.
Concentration camps in the United States of America.
All green energies sacked, reintroducing deregulating pollution.
Protection of billionaire pedophiles while exposing the survivors.
A judicial hierarchy that ignores the law.
A President and Vice President who stomp on our Constitution.
A profound abundance of lies coming from an administration that is supposed to represent us.
Government officials enriching themselves while reducing our Constitutional rights.
It does seem evil, doesn’t it?
James says
https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/charging-stations.jpg
“One of the electric vehicle charging stations at Palm Coast City Hall.”
There’s more than one?
Just ask’n.
BillC says
Trump has never loved anybody or anything, hates himself, therefore only loves watching people being killed, destruction of natural resources on which life depends and won’t be satisfied until he eventually provokes a nuclear war.