Daniel Perez creates short-term House panel on hemp regulation

Hemp regulation will again be a hot topic this Session, and to ensure lawmakers have the best information available, House Speaker Daniel Perez is assembling a short-term panel to dig into the issue.

He’s empaneling a new, but temporary, Combined Workgroup on Hemp. It’ll last for seven days beginning March 3, during which the group’s 24 members will hear from experts, regulators and industry leaders.

Perez said hemp regulation is one of “a handful of complicated, intensely lobbied issues that fall outside the personal and professional experience” of House members, and it has “repeatedly come up in conversations” lawmakers have had with him and his leadership team.

He noted that the workgroup will focus solely on gaining knowledge about hemp and the hemp industry. Meetings won’t include consideration of “legislation or specific policy proposals,” he said, nor will they be forums for “generic public testimony.”

After the meetings conclude, the workgroup’s members will be tasked with identifying additional information or resources that could help House members make informed legislative decisions.

Perez said not to read too much into his decision to create the workgroup.

“Because of the way this process sometimes works, and the tendency of lobbyists and advocates to insinuate secret meanings, let me be perfectly clear: there are no signals being sent,” he said.

“House Leadership has not adopted any position on this issue nor are we laying the predicate to do so in the future. We are not endorsing any particular bill, position, industry, or perspective. How — or even whether — we proceed with legislation on this issue this Session will be determined by all of you.”

The panel’s members include 12 members each from the Industries and Professional Activities Subcommittee and Housing, Agriculture and Tourism Subcommittee.

They include Republican Reps. Shane Abbott, Yvette Benarroch, Erika Booth, Richard Gentry, Mike Giallombardo, Peggy Gossett-Seidman, Jim Mooney, Vanessa Oliver, Toby Overdorf, Bill Partington, Juan Porras, Mike Redondo, Michelle Salzman, Judson Sapp, Chase Tramont, Kaylee Tuck and Brad Yeager, and Democratic Reps. Bruce Antone, Lindsay Cross, Anna Eskamani, Gallop Franklin, Yvonne Hinson, Felicia Robinson and Leonard Spencer.

Salzman, who chairs the Housing, Agriculture and Tourism Subcommittee, will manage the workgroup.

The hemp industry exploded across the United States following the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which established a federal framework for producing and processing the versatile crop. Among the changes the bill brought was a so-called “loophole” that allowed the production of non-cannabis hemp extract products that compete with cannabis products.

There has been a regulatory war since, between the hemp and cannabis industries, with both sides seeking to hold an overshare or monopoly of the market.

Florida lawmakers last year approved a similar regulation measure (SB 1698) that opponents warned would kill the hemp extract industry, which produces both THC products that offer psychotropic effects similar to cannabis and CBD products that offer health benefits without a “high.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis ultimately vetoed the legislation, sponsored by Republicans Colleen Burton and Tommy Gregory in the Senate and House, respectively. He cited the severe and adverse impacts it would have on Florida’s more than 100,000 workers and many small businesses in the industry, which has a more than $10 billion annual impact on the state economy.

One of SB 1698’s Democratic supporters, Tracie Davis of Jacksonville, is carrying this year’s version of the legislation (SB 1030) on the Senate. Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel of Dania Beach filed its House analog (HB 601).

Neither has received a committee hearing yet.

Sarasota Republican Sen. Joe Gruters has also filed bills that would allow limited home growth of cannabis plants for personal use (SB 546) and ease requirements for medical cannabis users (SB 552).

Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade also has a lengthier proposal (HB 555) that contains aspects of both of Gruters’ bills.