| Senate Environmental and Natural Resources Committee: Senator Garcia's Bills |
The Senate Environmental and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Anna Maria Rodriguez (R-Doral), passed several bills that had their first hearing on Tuesday of this week.
The Committee passed two bills sponsored by Sen. Ileana Garcia (R-Miami).
1) The first bill, SB 50, Nature-based Methods for Improving Coastal Resilience, would require the Department of Environmental Protection to adopt rules for nature-based methods (green infrastructure) for coastal resilience and would also require the department, in consultation with the Division of Insurance Agent and Agency Services of the Department of Financial Services, to conduct a statewide feasibility study regarding the value of nature-based methods being used to improve coastal resilience. The bill would also require the Florida Flood Hub for Applied Research and Innovation at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science to develop design guidelines and standards for green and gray infrastructure and models for conceptual designs of green infrastructure and green-gray infrastructure.
Audubon believes that the provisions of this good bill could be expanded to include requirements to improve statewide resilience. Too often we think about sea level rise and resilience as strictly coastal issues. Recent storms and flooding across our state point to the need to think of resilience more holistically.
2) The second bill, SB 56, Geoengineering and Weather Modification Activities, is in response to unsubstantiated concerns that "chemtrails" and other illicit "weather modification" techniques utilizing planes and heavy metals are impacting public health, changing the color of the sky, and fueling stronger hurricanes. The bill would ban attempts to cause or disperse rain, snow, fog, or other atmospheric conditions, a process often referred to as cloud seeding, by repealing 11 provisions in Florida statutes that allow state-licensed cloud-seeding to cause rain. It would also prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of any substance or apparatus into the atmosphere within Florida’s borders “for the express purpose of affecting the temperature, the weather, or the intensity of sunlight.”
Finally, the bill creates a tip line to be monitored by the Department of Environmental Protection, for subsequent investigation of citizen reports of suspicious aircraft and weather conditions. The bill passed along party lines with a vote of six yeas and three nays. HB 477, the House companion bill, is sponsored by Rep. Steele (R-Dade City). |
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