\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Letter:<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
April 30, 2020<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Honorable Ron DeSantis<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nPlaza Level, The Capitol<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n400 S. Monroe St.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nTallahassee, FL 32399<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
RE:\u00a0 Remedy the Legislature’s failures\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dear Governor DeSantis:<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sierra Club, the oldest, largest environmental advocacy organization in the nation with more than 240,000 members and supporters in Florida, is horrified by the Legislature’s unprecedented attack on both the state’s natural resources and the processes by which those resources can be protected by public participation.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
You will not get any traditional veto requests from the Sierra Club this year.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
We are unable to identify one “worst” bill, or narrow it down to a select few.\u00a0 The list is as long as your arm, and then some. This makes it impossible for us to follow the normal veto request ritual.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you are indeed a Teddy Roosevelt Republican as you have claimed, if you actually intend to stand up to Big Sugar, if you care at all about Floridians suffering from environmental damage, threats, and injustice, you will veto each and every one of the bills listed below.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Energy<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n- HB 839\/SB 856:\u00a0 Express Preemption of Fuel Retailers and Related Transportation Infrastructure<\/strong> will constrain municipal progress toward clean air and clean energy in the transportation sector. It prohibits local governments from eliminating polluting fossil fuels and leaves our energy future solely in the hands of an unresponsive state legislature.
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- HB 919\/SB 1128:\u00a0 Preemption Over Restriction of Utility Services<\/strong> locks in the status quo for fossil fuels and eliminates municipalities’ ability to move toward clean energy in residential and commercial building codes.\u00a0 Preempting regulation of a subject without providing any new regulation guarantees that nothing will change.\u00a0 Under this legislation, localities will no longer be able to require electric utility service (increasingly sourced from clean energy) instead of fracked gas for new construction.\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The policy choices in this bill deprive consumers of lower cost housing and utility bills.\u00a0 Bill proponents advocating for “consumer choice” willfully ignore the legitimacy of individuals’ choice to act collectively through their elected officials to address a common threat.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- SB 896\/HB 539:\u00a0 Renewable Energy <\/strong>attempts to greenwash methane (natural gas) by including it under the heading of “renewable energy.”\u00a0 Methane, whether created millions of years ago, or in the past decade, is the second biggest contributor to climate change after CO2.\u00a0 Incentivizing its production by permitting cost recovery for the higher cost of “renewable” natural gas gouges consumers and will lead to increased fugitive emissions from landfills and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Section 1 of SB 896 provides that “solar facilities” are a permitted use in all comprehensive plan agricultural land use categories and in agricultural zoning in unincorporated areas does an end-run around local comprehensive plans and their provisions designed to protect local communities and to achieve the best use of the jurisdiction’s lands.\u00a0 It eliminates local input and control over industrial power plant siting.\u00a0 Further, automatically permitting these industrial scale power production installations (with no limit on their size) deprives local governments of their ability to point out inconsistencies with their comprehensive plan under the Power Plant Siting Act.\u00a0 Agricultural producers who know the importance of using land properly, and who work and pay taxes, deserve better than to be sacrificed to electric utilities’ desire for a monopoly on solar energy.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Water<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n- SB 2516:\u00a0 Water Storage North of Lake Okeechobee<\/strong> will inappropriately use $50 million annually from the Land Acquisition Trust Fund to purchase pumps and pipes for aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) wells on the north side of Lake Okeechobee instead of acquiring floodplains for water storage, treatment, and conveyance south.\u00a0 ASRs are not true ecosystem restoration but rather only be a short-term water supply tactic; increasing sea level rise and the accompanying increase in total dissolved solids will require expensive reverse osmosis or similar measures to maintain even the ability to use the water for irrigation.\u00a0 ASR wells will not be able to pump water below the ground quickly enough during intense storm events to adequately diminish discharges to the east and west estuaries.\u00a0 ASRs would be a misappropriation of taxpayer dollars and kick the can down the road to delay the wetland restoration that is the only remedy that can accomplish Lake Okeechobee discharge reduction and water treatment and conveyance to actually restore the Everglades and Florida Bay.\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- SB 64\/HB 263:\u00a0 Reclaimed Water<\/strong> continues the unwise practice of injecting treated wastewater into an aquifer for eventual potable use (see lines 90-93).\u00a0 There are millions of chemicals in the literature\u00a0 and we test for only about 300 of them.\u00a0 We are inventing and using new chemicals all the time, and many find their way into the wastewater stream. These include contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) such as endocrine disruptors, nanoplastics, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and the metabolites of licit and illicit drugs.
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our drinking water standards and testing\/purification regime (membrane filtration, ultraviolet\/ozone, and chlorine disinfection) is effective for controlling microbial contamination, but is inadequate for dealing with CECs which may have long-term chronic or cumulative effects.\u00a0 CECs injected into a drinking water aquifer for a decade or more will be just about impossible to remove if significant public health threats are identified. Public water systems may be able to institute an aggressive response (at great expense); private wells will not.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
We do not oppose injection wholesale. Using it to buffer against salt water intrusion, where the buffer will not be for potable use, for example, is acceptable.\u00a0 But the risk posed by injection into the drinking water aquifer is unacceptable.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- SB 426\/HB 267: State Preemption of Seaport Regulations<\/strong> neutralizes the recent Key West ballot measures to protect the environment on which the city’s economy depends by limiting the use of their port to ships that have fewer than 1500 disembarkations, have the best safety and environmental records, and have no more than 1300-person capacity.\u00a0 By overturning the solid majority of Key West voters who supported the limits, Florida’s legislature has shown contempt for the democratic process and endangered North America’s only living coral barrier reef.
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Land<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n- SB 487\/HB 1274:\u00a0 Growth Management<\/strong> increases by 500% the acreage threshold that qualifies as a “small scale comprehensive plan amendment.”\u00a0 Amendments of 50 acres or 100 acres in rural areas would now qualify as “small scale.”\u00a0 This kind of amendment requires only a single hearing by the local governing board; no review by DEO or any other agency is needed.\u00a0 This statutory change follows on SB 1494 (2019) which eliminated the cumulative 120-acre cap for small scale amendments. While small scale amendments are not supposed to include text changes to the plan, they do involve text changes related to the Future Land Use Map.\u00a0 With this larger acreage qualifying for small scale amendments, potential major changes will occur in multiple 50 and 100 acre amendments with no state oversight.
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- SB 1876\/HB 421 and HB 1101:\u00a0 Relief from Burdens on Real Property<\/strong> inserts subsurface rights and mineral estates into the definition of “real property.”\u00a0 This inclusion will give an oil or gas developer a legal wedge to force a locality or the Department of Environmental Protection to refrain from actions that would “inordinately burden” the developer’s property by preventing fracking or other oil or gas exploration and production.
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
For local governments, this could include their objection to issuance of a permit for drilling within three miles of their corporate limits under 377.24 (6) F.S.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the oil\/gas industry is denied a permit to drill, they will, pursuant to 70.001 (4)(a) F.S., be able to submit with their claim an appraisal of the value of oil or gas thousands of feet below the ground that “demonstrates the loss in fair market to the real property.” This threat would potentially put millions of tax dollars at risk and will force localities to risk either bankruptcy or the impacts of drilling on drinking water supplies, public health, and climate change and sea level rise.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Air<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n- \n
SB 88\/HB 1601: Farming Operations<\/strong> is clearly biased in favor of “farm operations” and against any party that may be injured by them who seeks justice at court.\u00a0 The bill is designed to gut the class action suit against Big Sugar for harms to western Palm Beach County residents caused by smoke and ash from the outdated practice of pre-harvest sugar field burning eight months each year by changing the state laws on which that case will be decided.\u00a0 The bill:
\n<\/span><\/div>\n\n- limits standing to sue to those within half a mile of the burning despite the fact that smoke plumes extend more than 26 miles
\n<\/span><\/li>\n- limits any damages to the amount a plaintiff’s property value is diminished despite there being absolutely no nexus between property value and the health impacts of and medical costs for asthma and COPD
\n<\/span><\/li>\n- restrains the court from holding a farm liable unless the plaintiff proves (using a higher than usual standard of proof for civil cases) that the farm did not comply with state or federal laws or best management practices \u2013 when there may be no laws involved (civil cases are about harms suffered by individuals while criminal cases involving laws are about harms suffered by the state)
\n<\/span><\/li>\n- prohibits punitive damages unless the plaintiff can show the defendant was guilty of the same conduct within three years of the conduct that spurred the suit
\n<\/span><\/li>\n- provides that the plaintiff has to pay fees, costs, and expenses if they lose (a provision calculated to chill any appetite for suing Big Sugar)
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Democracy<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n- SB 90\/HB 7041:\u00a0 Election Administration<\/strong> increases the size of the no solicitation zone from 100 to 150 feet and provides that nothing may be given to those in the zone, including water, food, or a chair except by election staff.\u00a0 Since low income and minority neighborhoods are often subject to longer waits to vote than other areas, this provision is cruel \u2013 especially since the election staff has other things to do besides bringing water or snacks to voters.\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bill reduces access to drop boxes and imposes new costs on election operations.\u00a0 It limits the ability of volunteers to collect ballots from the ill and infirm to deliver them to drop boxes or to voting locations.\u00a0 It reduces the duration of vote-by-mail requests and imposes new signature confirmation requirements.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- SB 61\/HB 1238:\u00a0 Percentage of Elector Votes Required to Approve Constitutional Amendment or Revision<\/strong> would increase the required majority from three fifths (60%) to two thirds (66 2\/3%).\u00a0 It would also limit the majority required to repeal a constitutional amendment to the majority that was required to adopt it thereby making it even more difficult to adopt constitutional amendments while making it easier to repeal those already adopted.
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n- SB 699\/HB 1890:\u00a0 Campaign Financing<\/strong> would limit contributions to a political committee formed to sponsor a citizen initiative to amend the state Constitution to $3,000.\u00a0 The cap on contributions would be lifted on the day the Secretary of State determines that sufficient signatures from at least half the congressional districts in Florida have been collected and the initiative is given a ballot position.\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sponsoring a citizen’s initiative under this bill would mean gathering 885,397 signed petitions in at least 14 congressional districts in a period of a year and a day (2,236\/day) with no contributions over $3,000.00 and no ability to collect major contributions to fund petition gatherers or an ad campaign to advertise the initiative until all the necessary signatures are collected.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that the circulation of initiative petitions represents core political speech and merits the highest level of protection.\u00a0 Campaigns run on money; starving the initiative campaign of money means an issue will die because there isn’t enough money to pay for fast and broad petition circulation rather than because it is a bad idea.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since we are still days away from sine die, we hope that some of the above may not actually make it to your desk but some already have; as such, we send this out-of-the-ordinary veto request in advance of the session’s adjournment to ensure that you receive our message before you sign even one more damaging bill.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
By vetoing one or only a few of the bills on the list, you may correct one or more legislative transgressions, but limited action will not afford you the right to call yourself a “green” governor.\u00a0 Floridians will recognize the difference between greenwashing and the actual protection of Florida’s environment and its people.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
A true environmental champion will recognize the opportunity before him, and will use his power to veto each and every one of these bad bills.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Legislature has forsaken Florida’s environment, its people, and what should be inviolate: American principles of democracy.\u00a0 It is up to you, Governor DeSantis, to remedy the Legislature’s failures.<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Steve Wonderly<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nChair<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nSierra Club Florida<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nSteve.Wonderly@Florida.SierraClub.org<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am forwarding this message from Florida Sierra about bad bills still pending in Tallahassee. Contact your legislators to keep these bills from passing. TALLAHASSEE, FL–Today, ahead of sine die, Sierra Club Florida sent an out-of-the-ordinary “veto request” letter to Governor Ron DeSantis.\u00a0 The fact that the Governor has been signing bills into law at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1614,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1613\/revisions\/1614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientislands.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}