I’m doing a daily recap of some of the notable developments from this year's legislative session.
On the fifth day, 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. 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.
Also, a bill passed the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee that would ban insurance companies from using data collected from genetic tests to determine policies and pricing. 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.
Lastly, the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee confirmed Simone Marstiller to head the Department of Juvenile Justice. The Department of Juvenile Justice’s new head, Simone Marstiller, is a former Jeb Bush official who had been nominated by Governor DeSantis.
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