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Doral-inspired blocking new waste-to-energy plants a half-mile from populated areas advances in Senate

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Two years after Miami-Dade County’s waste-to-energy plant burnt to a crisp, there may be new safeguards in place to protect residents from another such blaze.

Members of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee voted 8-0 to advance a bill (SB 1008) that would block any future waste incineration facility from being built within a half-mile of population centers.

The bill, effective July 1, would apply the restriction to sites a half-mile (2,640 feet) from any residential property, school or commercial property.

Hialeah Gardens Republican Sen. Bryan Ávila, the measure’s sponsor, said the proposed change wouldn’t apply to existing facilities. He’s also looking at amending the bill to allow more allowances near commercial properties.

Florida has 10 waste-to-energy facilities statewide, according to the Florida Waste-to-Energy Coalition whose Executive Director, Joe Kilsheimer, spoke against SB 1008 on Monday.

Kilsheimer argued that waste-to-energy, when compared to landfilling and older trash incineration methods, is far and away the superior method for disposing of trash. He said waste-to-energy facilities annually prevent landfilling 5 million tons of municipal solid waste that would otherwise produce methane emissions, create toxic runoff, take up huge areas of land and require post-closure remediation that can last up to a century.

It also recovers and recycles more than 200,000 tons of metal yearly, enough to build 140 cars, he said, adding that in other areas in the state and across the country — from Lake County and Fort Lauderdale to the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center outside the Twins’ ballpark in Minneapolis — waste-to-energy facilities are situated far closer to cities than Ávila’s bill would allow.

“In fact, in major countries around the world, waste-to-energy facilities are often sited in the middle of major cities, literally next to school and home,” he said. “Because waste-to-energy is a proven, safe and reliable technology.”

Residents of Doral, where the Miami-Dade plant burned for nearly three weeks in early 2023, have a different perspective, and they’ve fought plans to construct a replacement within the city’s bounds. So have those who live in the Broward County city of Miramar, where a nearby site has been floated as an alternative place to build the plant.

Firefighters respond to a February 2023 blaze at a waste-to-energy plant in Doral. Image via Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue.

Facing that opposition already, Miami-Dade is also against SB 1008 in its present form. Executive Assistant County Attorney Jess McCarty told the committee the bill’s restriction on projects near commercial areas is a non-starter.

“The way the bill reads currently, all five sites currently under consideration for a new facility in Miami-Dade would be ineligible under the bill,” he said.

Ávila said that concern was already on his radar and would likely be addressed soon through an amendment. Other changes may include language specifying from what part of the facility the half-mile distance would be measured. Ávila said the incinerator stack or cooling tower could be the “central point from which we have that distance.”

But a change is needed, he said. A representative from the environmentally focused Sierra Club agreed and signaled support for SB 1008.

Ávila briefly detailed what Doral residents experienced after the facility caught fire. Flames erupted outside of the building numerous times. Ash filled the sky, covering cars and homes. Many residents couldn’t go outside for any extended length of time because of the contaminated air.

The incident caught the attention of President Donald Trump’s second son, Eric Trump, who has opposed rebuilding the plant in Doral, where his father owns a golf resort.

Ávila acknowledged the half-mile restriction may make it difficult for some local governments. Lake Mary Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur said that the commercial restriction, which encompasses agricultural operations, would make it all but impossible in some areas of the state.

“But I think having some sort of buffer there,” Ávila said, “is something that’s imperative. I don’t live within a half-mile of one of these facilities, but I know a lot of residents that do, and they tend to be not very well off, and they tend to not have many options as it relates to housing.

“So, my heart is really with those residents and trying to make sure that moving forward for any new facility that we have some protections for those residents and that local governments are not allowing for a massive development around these sites where there should be at least a little bit of space.”

SB 1008 will next go to the Senate Community Affairs Committee, after which it has one more stop before reaching a floor vote. Its House twin (HB 1609) by Republican Reps. David Borrero of Sweetwater and Meg Weinberger of Palm Beach Gardens awaits a hearing before the first of three committees to which it was referred this month.


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Byron Donalds calls for removal of Ft. Myers Council members after illegal immigration deadlock

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The Naples Republican expects Gov. DeSantis to take action.

A candidate for Governor from Southwest Florida is accusing Fort Myers officials of “dereliction of duty” for failing to ratify an agreement between their local police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on handling illegal immigration.

And U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds is arguing that local officials should be removed from office if they don’t change their stance.

“These officials that don’t understand their role, which is to implement a federal and state law, not circumvent and create sanctuary cities. They simply need to be removed from office. They’re not going to follow the law. It’s that simple,” Donalds said on Newsmax.

The measure failed on a 3-3 tied vote of the City Council Monday night, amid worries that the enforcement agreement would lead to racial profiling.

Donalds thinks the legislators need to flip their positions sooner than later.

“These Council members need to understand they have a responsibility to execute and implement state and federal law not to run against it, not to create a sanctuary,” Donalds added. “In my view, that’s a dereliction of their duty and their oath of office, and if they don’t reverse course, they should be removed.”

State law passed earlier this year bans local officials from not cooperating with federal and state efforts to cooperate with attempts to fight illegal immigration.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has removed local officials before for not following his interpretation of the law, and Donalds noted during his interview Tuesday that the Governor is “not going to let this go,” suggesting that he expects potential gubernatorial suspensions of the wayward Council members.


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Top House Democrats seek DOGE details, questioning if it operates ‘outside the bounds’ of U.S. law

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Top Democrats on the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees have filed a lengthy Freedom of Information Act request questioning whether the Trump administration’s DOGE Service is operating “outside the bounds of federal law,” The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Gerald Connolly of Virginia are seeking detailed information about the authority of the Department of Government Efficiency Service, including billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk and some 40 other people, to carry out firings of federal workers and dismantling of federal agencies.

They also are requesting detailed information about DOGE’s access to sensitive data, its use of artificial intelligence, the resumes and training of its staff and its communications related to Musk-held entities including SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla.

“The Administration and Mr. Musk have hidden behind a veil of secrecy as they systematically dismantle the federal government of the United States,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason accompanying the FOIA request, which was obtained by the AP. “The American people deserve answers, and we are committed to using every tool at our disposal to expose the truth about DOGE’s operations.”

They are seeking expedited review of the request, with a response within 20 days.

The FOIA request is the latest in an escalating confrontation between Congress and the executive branch as President Donald Trump is rapidly slashing routine aspects of the federal government by doing away with thousands of workers and unwinding various longstanding agencies and services.

While generally anyone can file a FOIA request, the Democrats on the panels are utilizing the avenues at their disposal as the minority party to press for oversight of the Republican administration any way they can. It’s also a potential step toward more binding measures, including legal action.

In the FOIA request, Raskin and Connolly, who are the ranking Democrats on the committees, wrote that the information is necessary “to provide answers to the many open questions and an explanation to the public.”

They said, “There exist possible questions concerning the government’s integrity regarding DOGE’s operations, formation, and activity, which form the basis of this request, as many of DOGE’s actions may be outside the bounds of federal law.”

It’s unclear if the Trump administration will respond.

Trump and Musk have shown little regard for the protests coming from Democrats — and some Republicans — in Congress as their teams march across the federal government. Musk has vowed transparency, but the Democrats noted he has met privately with House and Senate Republicans.

The Trump administration is purging employees, shuttering federal agencies and otherwise disrupting operations in the name of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. Some 100 lawsuits have been filed, with judges slowing and stopping some actions, while allowing others.

In the sweeping request, the Democrats seek four main types of information about the authority involved with DOGE’s activity: its access to sensitive data; the guidance and decision-making around its firings of federal employees; the potential conflicts of interest around its leadership; and its internal communications.

They seek the names, job titles and qualifications of DOGE staffers who have “been granted access to personally identifiable or sensitive information” since inauguration day, Jan. 20, and their purpose for doing so.

Additionally, they want to know about the various computer programs, including but “not limited to, artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs), your agency is using to store, process or analyze personally identifiable or sensitive information or data.”

The request seeks all DOGE directives, guidance and analyses around the firing of federal workers, including the dismissal of Inspectors General, and the undoing of various government agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education and others.

Democrats are also requesting information about DOGE’s authority to direct and execute these directives as well as details around the funding of DOGE operations.

Musk, DOGE Administrator Gleason and some 40 other employees are listed in the FOIA request, which seeks information about their resumes, salaries, any conflict of interest waivers and any non-disclosure agreements involving their employment.

The request also seeks all communication from those workers, including via text message, and various messaging platforms, and specifically around key words including Musk-related entities SpaceX, Starlink, Twitter, Tesla and others.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.


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Byron Donalds questions whether ‘climate change risk’ should matter in reinsurance formula

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European companies factor it in. But the Naples Republican says maybe they shouldn’t.

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds continues to weigh in on Florida’s insurance market as he runs for Governor, now suggesting that foreign companies and “climate change” analyses are partially to blame for high costs for homeowners.

“A lot of these reinsurance companies, a lot of them who are out of Europe, they’ve been trying to price in climate change risk, which is almost impossible to quantify, but that’s been in the calculations for how insurance companies have to stabilize their portfolios and their risk,” Donalds said on Rich Valdes’ America at Night.”

The phrase “climate change” has been one that has dogged the current Governor.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation last year striking it from state law.

DeSantis has said he’s “not a global warming person” and has complained about “politicizing the weather” but when he was running for President, he acknowledged the impact of human activities on weather patterns.

Donalds’ interviewer Tuesday night did not ask him if he believes climate change actually exists, but the Naples Republican suggested that it shouldn’t matter to reinsurers in assessing Florida’s market.

In addition to blaming European financiers for Florida’s problems, Donalds also said federal fiscal policy was driving up costs to “rebuild property” because “overspending inflates costs.”

Donalds previously said his goal is to “find a way to stabilize costs” by “reexamining some of our reinsurance capital requirements, reexamining cap requirements on insurance carriers,” along with a “lot of other things that we’re going to have to get into and really figure out how to synthesize the Florida insurance market so it can become a little bit more affordable for the people of Florida.”

The new language suggests that his position on the issue is still evolving.

His position matters to voters.

Polling last month from the Associated Industries of Florida Center for Political Strategy found that a third of voters see insurance costs as the biggest issue facing Florida.


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