Florida's state government will no longer be required to consider climate change when crafting energy policy under legislation signed Wednesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.
The new law, which was passed by the Florida Legislature in March and takes effect July 1, will also ban the construction of offshore wind turbines in state waters and repeal state subsidy programs that encourage energy conservation and renewable energy.
The legislation also removes requirements that government agencies use climate-friendly products and purchase fuel-efficient vehicles. And it prevents a municipality from imposing restrictions on the type of fuel that can be used in an appliance, such as a gas stove.
The legislation, along with two other bills that Mr. DeSantis signed Wednesday, “will keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks and China out of our state.” wrote the governor on the social media platform
Florida is one of the states most vulnerable to the costly and deadly impacts of climate change, caused largely by the burning of oil, gas and coal. Multiple scientific studies have shown that increases in heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have contributed to sea level rise and increased flooding in the state's coastal cities.
Last year was the hottest year in Florida since 1895, and in the waters off the coast heated to 90 degrees during the summer, bleaching corals and scorching sea creatures. Hurricane Idalia made landfall near Keaton Beach on August 30, causing an estimated $3.6 billion in damage. The year before, Hurricane Ian was blamed for more than 140 deaths and $109.5 billion in damage in Florida, making it the costliest hurricane in the state's history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Faced with increasing losses from flooding and increasingly extreme weather, Major insurers are withdrawing from the state. Florida homeowners are scrambling to find coverage and, when they do, pay some of the highest insurance premiums in the country. Thousands have signed up for the state's high-risk insurance pool, a fund that Mr. DeSantis says is “insolvent.” Instability in the insurance market is threatening Florida real estate and, by extension, the state's economy, experts say.
The governor has supported programs to make communities more resilient to extreme weather.
But Mr. DeSantis, who suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in January, has attacked climate policy as part of a push in the broader partisan culture wars. During a presidential debate last fall Mr. DeSantis promised that “on Day 1, I will tear up all the Biden rules, the Green New Deal, and throw them in the trash where they belong.”
Mr. Biden's climate rules are not the Green New Deal, a sweeping legislative package promoted by progressives that has not passed Congress.
Last year, Mr. DeSantis rejected $346 million available in federal funds to help Floridians make their homes more energy efficient, despite a request from the state legislature that Florida accept the money.
Florida is largely powered by natural gas, which provided about 74 percent of the state's total net electricity generation in 2022. Nuclear power provided about 12 percent, and solar power and coal provided the rest, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Florida has no offshore wind industry.
Brooke Alexander-Goss, the clean energy organizing manager for the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club, said Mr. DeSantis had “let down” his constituents by signing the bill.
“Allowing this bill to become law will endanger the health and safety of all Floridians, further proving that its top priority is appeasing big corporations and fossil fuel companies,” she said. “We will pay more at the pump and for our insurance premiums, and we will certainly see an increase in climate-related disasters and deaths.”
Michael B. Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said removing climate change as a priority is largely a symbolic move that does not prohibit lawmakers from including climate change in state energy policy.
“If they had a governor in the future with a different mind, the governor could still say, 'I want to consider climate change,'” Mr Gerrard said. “It's not forbidden.”
But, he said, the symbolism can still have a political effect. “It is a powerful signaling device that could have an effect on private sector actions, such as investments in clean energy efforts in the state and research at the universities,” Mr. Gerrard said. “Students and professors who care deeply about climate change will not be drawn to Florida, and climate research dollars could flow elsewhere.”