February 22, 2012 Legislative Update

While the Oil Drilling on State Lands bill appeared to die, the fertilizer pre-emption bill came to life again, showing it is important to remain constantly vigilant. Your calls are needed to support the growth management glitch bill HB 7081 and urge reform to the DRI bill HB 979. Important issues are still up in the air on water management, the Everglades and Florida Forever, so please keep your calls coming on those issues too.

1000 Friends is closely monitoring the following bills:

Growth Management Glitch Bills -- HB 7081 is the House version of this year’s “glitch bill” to the 2011 Community Planning Act to correct wrong or inappropriate legal citations.  SB 842 is the companion bill to HB 7081. 1000 Friends is monitoring this bill closely. Among other things it limits regional planning council grant acceptance to programs that support its statutory functions and prohibits regional planning councils from providing consulting services for projects in which the council serves in a review capacity. February 22 Update: HB 7081bill passed the House and has been sent to the Senate. ACTION IS NEEDED: HB 7081 can be voted on at any time now. Please ask your Senator to adopt HB 7081 as a substitute for SB 842, which still has problematic provisions.

DRI Bill -- HB 979 (Diaz) --February 22 Update: HB 979 by Rep. Diaz was passed by the House Economic Affairs Committee today and will go to the floor next. While Rep. Diaz put forward an amendment that improved the bill's language, Charles Pattison spoke in opposition, noting that the bill as amended has no basis for addessing impacts to adjacent communities. Rep. Diaz has agreed to meet with 1000 Friends to consider additional language at this point. ACTION IS NEEDED: Please contact Rep. Diaz (850-488-3616 or 305-442-6800) and urge him to add language that includes a process for fairly addressing DRI impacts on neighboring local governments.

Fertilizer Bill -- CS/HB 1021 -- Not surprisingly, an attempt is being made to attach an amendment to this bill that brings back the failed pre-emption language of local government fertilizer ordinances under SB 604/HB 421. This would give away local government authority to regulate fertilizer application. February 22 Update: Right now, CS/HB 1021 is "clean" but we anticipate an effort to attach a damaging fertilizer pre-emption amendment. CS/HB 1021 is now on second reading on the House Floor. ACTION IS NEEDED: Please contact your Representative and Senator, espcially if you are in an area with impaired waters, and tell them to oppose any effort to amend fertilizer pre-emption provisions onto CS/HB 1021.

Oil Drilling on State Lands -- HB 695 and SB 1158– These bills would allow oil and gas drilling on state lands. February 22 Update: Thanks to the public outcry, SB 1158 is not moving forward and is likely dead, according to sponsor Senator Greg Evers. We continue to keep an eye on this issue in case it pops up again. For more information, please see this article in the Florida Current. ACTION IS NEEDED: As we saw with the fertilizer pre-emption bill, don't believe it's dead until the session is over. Please send your Representative and Senator a note asking that this issue not be resurrected.

Water Management District Governance -- SB 1986 – We understand the Governor’s Office is interested in and needs support for either repealing or substantially improving last year’s SB 2142 that did so much damage to the water management district.  February 22 Update: SB 1834 morphed into SPB 7092 which has now become SB 1986, which continues to have the same issues as the original bill. ACTION IS NEEDED: Visit the Florida Conservation Coalition which has a link to a message to the Governor, Speaker, Senate President and Chair and Subcommittee Chair of the House Appropriations Committee urging them to keep regional water management. Urge them to (1) remove the current revenue caps and restore maximum millage rates; (2) restore oversight of district budgets exclusively to the Governor’s Office; and (3) avoid legislative involvement in the "core missions", regulatory functions, administration outreach and management of the water management districts. In other words restore the districts to their status in 2010.

Everglades Restoration -- A commitment to permanent funding for Everglades restoration is our goal along with our many conservation colleagues.  Legislators were presented with compelling information documenting the importance of this effort, especially for the almost 7 million citizens that rely on the Everglades for clean drinking water.  The attached talking points and recent poll information will be a significant help in keeping the Governor and Legislature moving the ball forward on Everglades restoration.  We urge you to use this information when contacting your legislators about Everglades issues. February 22 Update: The Governor has $40 million, the House $35 million and the Senate $0 in the budget for Everglades restoration. ACTION IS NEEDED: Continue to urge your Representative and Senator to support the Governor’s budget request of $40 Million for Everglades restoration.

Florida Forever -- The Governor has $15 million in his budget while the House and Senate have $0. ACTION IS NEEDED: Please call your Representative and Senator and urge them to include $15 million for Florida Forever in the budget. See what the military base task force is saying about the importance of Florida Forever: Military base task force urges support for land-buying program.

Sadowski Affordabale Housing Trust Fund -- The Trust Fund is expected to have about $100 million this year, but it needs to be included in the budget in order for it to be allocated. February 14 Update: The STED (Senate Transportation and Economic Development) budget neither swept housing trust fund money or used it for other purposes. This means that so far no decisions have been made about the housing trust fund money (which Senate staff estimates at approximately $100 million). The decision will be made by the full budget committee which is meeting the week of February 13. ACTION IS NEEDED -- Please call your Senator with the message: Please use the housing trust fund money for housing and support SHIP, in particular. The legislature has swept the SHIP funds into general revenue for the past three years. The SHIP program  is in every area of the state and can be used to help move the existing inventory, put people to work, and help Florida's most vulnerable populations. SHIP lifts up the economy, families, and neighborhoods.

Septic Tank Pre-Emption -- SB 820  This legislation pre-empts the ability of local government to establish local criteria for septic tanks. February 14 update: The conservation community is working with legislators on compromise language, but there are still problems. It continues to require septic tank inspections in areas with first magnitude springs. It allows local governments to exempt themselves from state inspection programs but allows only a set of limited state standards.

Billboards on Greenways -- SB 268 and HB 181 – These bills would allow for billboard advertisements at trail heads on Office of Greenways and Trails facilities. February 22 Update: The bill was amended last week and provides limitations that address the concerns. ACTION IS NEEDED: Contact your Representative and Senator to let them know you support the amended version of the bills.

DRIs -- SB 1180 Bennett (R-Manatee) – This provides local government with the option of having a DRI project be reviewed instead under the “state coordinated review “ process created last year; limits all state and regional DRI review agencies comments to subjects only covered by local statutes, rules or ordinances that apply to all development – further limits all DRI review comments only to issues covered by local ordinances. 1000 Friends will not support this legislation.

Your calls have made a difference:

Public Lands -- HB 1103: This bill proposes to remove half a million acres of public land and put it in private ownership by changing the definition of ordinary high water line to the low water line. This in essence will make it illegal for you to hunt, fish, camp or picnic along Florida’s freshwater bodies where these activities have traditionally taken place. February 14 update: Thanks to your calls, this bill appears dead. We continue to monitor in case it is brought back to life!

Reclaimed Water -- HB 639: Even though all the waters in Florida are a public resource, HB 639 would put reclaimed waters under the exclusive control of utilities with no oversight by the water management districts. The City of Tampa is the prime mover behind this bill.  February 14 update: Conservation groups worked with Rep. Young to clarify the language in the bill to remove damaging statewide precedents. Thanks for your calls on this!

1000 Friends is also keeping an eye on the following bills:

Growth Management

HB 603 Weinstein (R-Jacksonville) – prevents a local government from collecting proportionate share impact payments for transportation and school concurrency through July 1, 2015, unless authorized by a 2/3 vote of the elected body - 1000 Friends will not support this legislation.

SB 188 Flores (R-Miami ) – repeals an unfunded provision of Chapter 163 that provided for the Urban Infill and Redevelopment Assistance Grant Program – 1000 Friends will not oppose this legislation.

SB 440 Bennett (R-Manatee) – provides that any local government with an established land use referendum process in effect as of June 1, 2011, will be allowed to retain such provision – 1000 Friends will not oppose this legislation.

Other Bills

Septic Tanks -- HB 115 (Drake(R) eliminates the prohibition on spreading septic tank sludge on the ground and HB 989 (Gonzalez (R) postpones the deadline for ocean outfalls that discharge of domestic wastewater facilities to meet more stringent treatment requirements. The Ocean Outfall bill is particularly unfortunate from the standpoint of freshwater conservation. Both bills exemplify the disregard for protection Florida’s natural resources by many members of the Florida Legislature.

Consumptive Use Permits -- PCB SCWP 12-01: This committee bill increases the consumptive use permit length for alternative water sources to 30 years in order to coincide with bond expiration of a utility. The problem is that the length of consumptive permits keeps getting longer. This can be good for the applicant, but in water scarce areas it reduces the flexibility of the water management districts to meet the needs of all users. If harm occurs to the natural systems it is very difficult to revoke a permit and thirty years is a long time to wait for the permit to expire. Currently a utility could get a permit for up to 20 years. The good news is that this is only for permits for alternative water supplies. This means salt water; brackish surface and groundwater, reclaimed water and any water that is designated nontraditional. If HB 639 passes, the effects on permitting of reclaimed water would not be there. This is a proposed committee bill. The chair of the Select committee on Water Policy is Representative Trudi Williams (R) a civil engineer from Fort Myers and a governing board member from the South Florida Water Management District. Her phone number is 488-2047.

HB 503 Patronis (R-Panama City) – streamlining permit provisions are problematic – will attempt to work with the sponsor to improve the language.

HB 7003 – permitting bill for DEP and the water management districts that would combine stormwater and wetland permits into one and make its application consistent statewide.