A Florida Senate bill that would void Key West’s voter-approved cruise ship reduction, has found a match in the Florida House.
Keys Weekly previously reported that Republican Sen. Jim Boyd from the state’s west coast on Jan. 5 had filed Senate Bill 426, which would eliminate local governments’ authority to restrict or regulate commerce at Florida seaports. The bill, if passed, would void Key West’s voter-approved changes to the city charter requiring the city to significantly reduce the size and capacity of cruise ships that visit the island.
Boyd’s bill has been referred to the Senate’s Transportation and Community Affairs committees, and now has an identical companion bill in the Florida House of Representatives.
Republican State Rep. Spencer Roach, from near Fort Myers, on Jan. 14 filed House Bill 267 with text identical to Boyd’s bill.
The bills state, in part, “a local government may not restrict or regulate commerce in the seaports of this state … including, but not limited to, regulating or restricting a vessel’s type or size, source or type of cargo, or number, origin or nationality of passengers. All such matters are expressly preempted to the state. … Any provision of a county or municipal charter, ordinance, resolution, regulation, or policy that is preempted by this act and that existed before, on, or after the effective date of this act is void.”
Key West City Attorney Shawn Smith alerted city commissioners to Boyd’s initial bill just before the Jan. 5 city commission meeting adjourned.
There was no discussion of the bill by the commissioners, although Mayor Teri Johnston asked Smith where the bill had originated. Smith told the mayor it came out of Manatee County on Florida’s west coast.
In order to become law, the bills must pass both houses of the state legislature.
The bills further state, “…allowing each local government in which a Florida seaport is located to impose its own requirements on the maritime commerce conducted in that port could result in abrupt changes in the supply lines bringing goods into and out of this state, thus disrupting Florida’s economy and threatening the public’s health, safety, and welfare, and allowing each local government … to impose its own requirements on the maritime commerce conducted in that port could reasonably be expected to suppress such commerce and potentially drive it out
of the port and out of the state in search of a more consistent and predictable operating environment, thus disrupting Florida’s economy and threatening the public’s health, safety, and
Welfare.” The bill also says that “allowing each local government in which a Florida seaport is located to impose its own requirements on the maritime commerce conducted in that port could result in abrupt changes in vessel traffic, frustrating the multi-year planning process for all Florida seaports and the assumptions and forecasts underlying federal and state financing of port improvement projects, and, in light of these negative impacts, federal and state governments must be relied upon to adopt uniform regulations governing seaport operations.”
