Bruce Ritchie
As it passed its final committee stop on Thursday, state agriculture officials on Thursday defended a House water bill against the idea that it represents a power grab by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.
HB 7003 has backing from agriculture, business and industry groups. The bill passed the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday with three votes against — all from Democrats.
But environmental groups say it doesn’t go far enough to protect springs and waterways. And Audubon Florida said the bill stall phosphorus reductions for Lake Okeechobee by relying too heavily on agricultural “best management” practices overseen by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
The bill would delete language requiring discharges from Lake Okeechobee to comply with state water quality standards and instead depends on the basin management action plan, which includes those voluntary best management practices.
Describing what he had heard in the bill was a transition of oversight over water from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to the agriculture department, Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach and House Democratic leader, asked, “How will that actually work, functionally?”
“I would think that might be some misinformation,” said Grace Lovett, legislative director at Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
And Rich Budell, director of water policy in the department, said, “There is no transition of power in the bill from DEP to DACS.”
Earlier during the meeting, Eric Draper of Audubon Florida said the state is failing to meet goals for reducing phosphorus in water flowing into Lake Okeechobee before it flows on to the Everglades and estuaries. He said the agricultural best management practices can be used to reduce pollution but he said the state is nowhere near meeting phosphorus standards for Lake Okeechobee.
“I would love to be able to stand up here and support the bill,” Draper said. “There are a number of things that are good in there but we are concerned about this Lake Okeechobee section.”
Later, the agriculture department’s Budell later said that relying on the basin management action plan is consistent with other sections of state law that rely on DEP to set pollution limits and establish cleanup plans statewide.
“We are doing nothing in this legislation to cede power away from DEP,” Budell said, adding that the bill just was “aligning” state laws that implement water quality standards.
“It creates consistency between existing programs,” he said. “We are not eliminating those programs.”
DEP officials were at the Appropriations Committee meeting but they did not speak.
Pafford also criticized the fact that the bill was headed to the House floor now without going to the subcommittees that oversee environmental and agricultural policy and spending. A Senate water bill, SB 918, has yet to be assigned to committees.
Rep. Matt Caldwell, D-Lehigh Acres and chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, told reporters that HB 7003 had been carefully reviewed and questioned by his committee and the Appropriations Committee members.
“I think the bill has had a thorough vetting,” Caldwell said.
And he dismissed the idea that the bill represents a power struggle between Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and Gov. Rick Scott over control of water regulation. The Tampa Bay Times reported that struggle was occurring but Caldwell denied it, without referring specifically to the Times report.
“There is absolutely no power grab on the part of DACS,” Caldwell said. “In fact the bill, specifically at the request of groups like Audubon and Sierra Club, increases oversight of the best management practices program by DEP and the water management districts while in the past it was overseen exclusively by DACS.”
“It was almost a bizarro world interpretation of what we’re working on here,” he said.
Bruce Ritchie (@bruceritchie) covers environment, energy and growth management in Tallahassee.
