The Florida Senate’s companion bill to a House measure that would have allowed fracking in the state appears to have died in committee earlier this week.
Melissa Durham, a legislative assistant for Senator Bill Montford, confirmed on Wednesday morning, March 3, that Senator Gary Richter, the sponsor of Senate Bill 318 – the companion piece to the House - approved Bill 191 – had withdrawn his proposed legislation on the previous day.
Durham said indications were that HB-318 was dead for this session, given the sponsor’s action and the fierce opposition the bill had drawn. Knowing the legislative process, however, Durham wouldn’t give a definitive affirmative on the bill’s death.
“It’s not over until it’s over,” said Durham, stating that anything was possible in the legislative process.
Sen. Montford, for his part, opposed the bill, Durham said, adding that the Senator based his opposition on the thought that sufficient scientific evidence existed to raise questions about the environmental and health consequences of fracking.
Representative Halsey Beshears also, for the record, voted against the companion House bill, despite its passage in that chamber.
Fracking – shorthand for hydraulic fracturing – is a controversial technique that involves drilling vertically and/or horizontally into the earth and pressure injecting a mix of fluids and chemicals into subterranean shale rock formations to create fractures and to release the gas and oil contained within.
Among the many concerns that fracking opponents cite, several of them are environmental and health issues, including the millions of gallons of water needed to inject the mix, the potential for contamination of the groundwater and the carcinogenic and other health risks associated with the practice.
If approved, SB-318 and HB-191 would have, among other things, set up regulatory rules on the practice and provided $1 million to study its impact on Florida’s aquifer and distinct limestone bedrock. It would have also voided all existing local government ordinances and regulations relative to fracking, given all authority on the matter to the state and disallowed local laws that kept fracking out of certain land-use zones.
SB-318 specifically stated: “The Legislature declares that all matters relating to the regulation of the exploration, development, production, processing, storage and transportation of oil and gas are preempted to the state, to the exclusion of all existing and future ordinances or regulations relating thereto adopted by any county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state.”
Whatever the fate of HB-318 going forward (similar legislation has been introduced in previous years and there is no guarantee it won’t surface again next session), opponents were in a celebratory mood on Tuesday, March 1.
“Today, SB-318, the bill that would have rolled out the welcome mat for big oil and natural gas companies to bring the environmentally dangerous process of hydraulic fracturing or fracking, to the state of Florida, officially died in the Senate,” emailed Rich Templin, of the Florida AFL-CIO, under the subject line “Fracking Bill Dead in the Senate!”
“In 2015, the delegates to the Florida AFL-CIO Biennial Convention unanimously passed Resolution 11, ensuring that the nearly one million union members, retirees and their families in the state would take a united stand in protecting our environment against the practice of fracking,” Templin said. “Today marks a huge victory for the coalition of organizations and working families who lobbied for months to stop this bad bill.”
The League of Women Voters of Florida (LWVF) was equally celebratory.
“Thanks to the tens of thousands of voices of the League and other citizens of Florida, Republican Senator Gary Richter withdrew his bill,” LWVF President Pam Goodman emailed under the subject line “Yeah…No Fracking in Florida!!!”
“The heroes in killing this bill are the bold and courageous city and county commissioners across our beautiful state who laid the groundwork for the battle against fracking,” Goodman said. “It was their efforts through voting on resolutions to ban fracking that help to unify the effort against this bad bill. And it was our united determination to work with our own local officials to get those resolutions passed! Democracy in action is a beautiful thing!”
The Madison County Commission, Monticello City Council and Jefferson County Commission were among the many local governments across the state that adopted resolutions calling for a ban on fracking last year. The Madison County Commission unanimously adopted its resolution on March 11, 2015, as did the Monticello City Council on Aug. 4, 2015.
On Aug. 18, 2015, the Jefferson County Commission followed suit, narrowly adopting a ban resolution 3-2. It was the argument of one of the nay-voting commissioners that the state should decide the issue solely on its own and that local political capital shouldn’t be expended on trying to influence the outcome.
All told, 34 counties and 48 cities across the state have adopted anti-fracking resolutions, with Brevard and Pinellas counties the latest to pass their resolutions on Tuesday, March 1. The populations of the 34 counties and 48 cities represent 73.6 percent of the state’s total population or 14,865,912 of 19,815,183 people.