Environmentalists decry deregulation bill that FL House GOP suddenly fast-tracked

[seafan]

Christine Stapleton writes at the Palm Beach Post:

April 28, 2011

The Florida House is poised to vote Friday on a bill that environmentalists are calling a Frankenstein, an eclectic collection of 34 regulatory changes that would make it easier and faster for various industries to obtain environmental permits.

The goal jibes with Gov. Rick Scott's push to make Florida a business-friendly state, but environmentalists say it would create "a monstrous threat to Florida's environment."

.....

House Republican leaders decided to skip two committees in considering this bill, and jammed it onto today's schedule for a full House vote.

They don't need no steenkin' committees.

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WHAT HB 991 WOULD DO

* Provide incentives, such as fewer inspections and longer-lasting permits, to companies with clean environmental records.
* Limit reasons for revoking permits.
* Require the person or organization challenging an environmental permit to prove the project would harm the environment rather than the permit applicant having to prove the project is safe.
* Expand the use of internet-based self-certification services for some exemptions and permits.
* Reduce the permit review process from 90 to 60 days.
* Limit the number of times state agencies can request additional information from permit applicants to two requests.
* Prohibit local governments from requiring companies to obtain federal and state permits as a condition of granting a development permit.

The conservation groups Audubon of Florida, 1000 Friends of Florida, the Sierra Club, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the Nature Conservancy and the National Parks Conservation Association are pursuing a last-ditch effort to stop this Republican bill to "streamline" environmental permitting, but it doesn't look good.


And the worst part of this bill?

.....

(This bill's) most objectionable feature, critics say, is the way it reverses a traditional legal standard that requires permit applicants – like a phosphate mining operation – to prove that they will NOT do irreparable harm to the environment.

The measure would instead force neighborhood groups who object to the operation to prove that the operation WILL be harmful.

“This is the bill that will do the most harm to a citizen’s right to participate in the process,” said Audubon executive director Eric Draper. “This is Big Government, Big Utilities, Big Developers and Big Polluters coming together to squeeze out the little guy.”

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House Speaker Dean Cannon(R) and sidekick Senate President Mike Haridopolos(R)



Again, the question: When will it be enough, Florida?