Jacob Ogles
A push to shift oversight for the Office of Energy from Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried to Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t survive budget talks with the House and Senate.
The House had passed legislation that would transfer the Office of Energy from the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The Senate has not moved the bill.
That bill would return the office to the Department of Environmental Protection. Before 2008, DEP handled the state’s energy policy. The office was moved to the Agriculture Department in 2011.
But Fried had slammed the attempted “power grab … part of a larger plan to … subvert democracy” by giving “unchecked power to the Governor.”
Speaker Jose Oliva defended the move as “a priority of the Governor.” But that ultimately wasn’t enough reason for the Senate to go along with the move.
“I’m not even sure there’s a Senate bill on that issue and I would not consider that a priority of the Senate,” Senate Budget Chair Rob Bradley said earlier this year.
The budget negotiated between Bradley and House Appropriations Chair Travis Cummings did not include the controversial reorganization.
That marks a significant victory for Fried, the only Democrat currently holding statewide office. That also happened after a provision to put more oversight of DEP was left out of an environmental bill passed by the Legislature.
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A.G. Gancarski reporting used for this report.
One comment
Lynn
March 14, 2020 at 9:49 am
Delighted the gop did not try to ruin Fried’s job because She is a Democrat and responsibly handling her job, unlike many others.
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