Author name: bruce

A Senate recycling bill on Monday was amended and passed by a committee after it was nearly derailed by biomass energy opponents. SB 570 by Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, lays out a path towards reaching the state’s goal of recycling 75 percent of waste by 2020. The state now recycles about 28 percent of […]

A House energy bill was passed Monday by a committee despite concerns about biomass energy raised by a pulp and paper industry representative. HB 7229 allows utilities to recover $386 million from customers for 735 megawatts of renewable energy over the next three years. Chris Broome, general manager of the Smurfit-Stone container board mill in

The House on Monday did not include money for Florida Forever in its conference committee budget offer but it did offer $10 million for Everglades restoration. Florida Forever is the nation’s largest land-buying program but the program received no money from the Legislature last year and could run out of money this year. The House

A Senate agriculture bill was amended Monday to remove a prohibition against local governments adopting stricter fertilizer amendments than an adopted state standard. SB 382 would have established criteria for local governments to meet if they wanted stricter ordinances than the state “model” fertilizer ordinance adopted by the Legislature in 2009. A late-filed amendment (140990)

Legislation to allow drilling in state waters won’t be voted on by the House this year, Rep. Dean Cannon on Friday told the House Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning. The council chaired by Cannon, R-Winter Park, held 10 hearings and workshops last winter and spring towards developing legislation to lift the state’s

Northeast Florida Blueway Project, St. Johns County City and county officials, ranchers, conservationists and a Florida National Guard representative on Friday pleaded for their favorite land-buying projects and for support for the state’s Florida Forever program. The statewide land-buying program is the nation’s largest but it’s in jeopardy. Florida Forever received no money from the

Images from report by the Collins Center for Public Policy report on oil drilling to the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida. To download the report, click here. A draft proposed House council bill would open Florida’s waters to oil drilling but would ban permanent rigs and platforms above the water’s surface within six miles

A House panel is expected Thursday to receive a draft committee bill that would lift the ban on drilling for oil and gas in state waters. The House Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning has been holding hearings on whether to allow drilling in state waters within 10.4 miles of the coast. Rep.

A bill that would allow utilities to charge customers in advance for renewable energy projects cleared a Senate committee Wednesday. SB 1186 received backing from several business groups and firms that said the bill would quickly spur the growth of solar and other renewable energy technologies in Florida. The Senate Committee on Communications, Energy and

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is using federal dollars to help some schools in north Florida get greener. DEP announced Thursday that it had completed a $250,000 federal grant project that allowed for 199 buses in 10 rural school districts to be refitted with devices that reduce harmful tailpipe emissions. The diesel oxidation catalysts