Day 5 Florida Legislative Session recap – Highlights from Tallahassee
Bottom Line: I’m doing a daily recap of the some of the notable developments from Florida’s session. So, let’s get to it. On the fifth day there was...
- The Senate Agriculture Committee voted 3-2 to ban hydraulic and acid fracking in Florida. There are competing bills in the House and this version moves to the full state Senate
- A bill passed the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee that would ban insurance companies from using data collected from genetic tests to determine policies/pricing
- The state Senate Criminal Justice Committee confirmed Simone Marstiller to head the Department of Juvenile Justice
The vote on hydraulic and acid fracking is commonly referred to as a partial fracking ban. Democrats have measures to end fracking altogether in Florida, though they’re unlikely to move forward. The divided vote leaves the future of this proposal in doubt before the full state legislature. Regarding the genetic tests bill... There’s concern that insurance companies could use info obtained by genetic testing, including the lightly regarded information obtained by services like Ancestry and 23andMe, to determine policy eligibility and costs. This bill would explicitly ban insurance companies from obtaining/using genetic testing information.
The Department of Juvenile Justice’s new head, Simone Marstiller, is a former Jeb Bush official who’d been nominated by Governor DeSantis.