Electric charging station. (Photo via Floridasturnpike.com)
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.