She had previously supported a bill that would have made the controversial practice legal and imposed regulations on it, but only after the state studied whether or not fracking was dangerous to Florida's environment. The practice, after all, would have likely involved using a pressurized acidic solution to bore through the state's porous water table in order to access oil and natural gas stores. That bill was in response, ostensibly, to illegal fracking operations in southwest Florida. Although environmentalists railed against the bill at the time, Young maintained that she was against fracking and it was a way to protect the state's fragile ecosystems from unbridled proliferation of the practice.
The bill she lauded Tuesday morning, Senate Bill 442, is an all-out ban, her office announced in a press conference in Tallahassee as well as a release sent to reporters.
“As a 6th generation Floridian and avid outdoorsman, I believe we must act quickly and decisively to protect our fragile environment from incompatible well stimulation practices in our state,” Young said in a written statement. “We have seen the detrimental impacts fracking has had in many states around the country, most notably Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. As Floridians, we must join together and say ‘no’ to this harmful activity, before irreversible environmental damage is done.”
Groups like Environment Florida and Florida Conservation Voters see the bill as "clean," i.e., there aren't any loopholes that would leave the state open to fracking despite the bill's overt intent, and they're asking Floridians to call their state lawmakers and encourage them to support it. It bans fracking of all types: hydraulic fracking, acid fracking and matrix acidizing.
“Florida Conservation Voters applauds Senator Dana Young for sponsoring a ban on the dangerous process of fracking for oil and gas (SB 442). Fracking poses too big a risk for the millions of Florida families and visitors who rely on our groundwater for safe, clean drinking water. We’re pleased to see that Senator Young’s bill addresses both hydraulic fracturing, which breaks rock formations to extract fossil fuels and acidizing, which dissolves them. We look forward to working with Sen. Young throughout the 2017 Legislative Session as we work to ban fracking in Florida once and for all,” Aliki Moncrief, the group's director said in an emailed statement.
Of course, environmentalists warn, lawmakers who are unfriendly to the ban may try to amend the bill should it travel through the State House and Senate.
But it already has support from at least one powerful state legislator.
“I am proud to support and co-sponsor this very important piece of legislation which will help keep our environment safe and protect our aquifer from being one accident away from becoming the next oil spill which would contaminate our drinking water for years to come,” Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, exoressed in a written statement, “More than 75 counties and cities have passed ordinances and resolutions banning fracking and it is time their voice is heard on this issue and this bill gets a fair hearing in the Senate.”
Among those cities and counties that have passed resolutions calling for a ban are St. Petersburg and Pinellas County. Even though most of the Tampa Bay region would not have been potentially subject to the practice like Collier County would have been, council members and commissioners there were concerned about the possible effects of the massive amount of water the practice uses as well as how waste materials would have been stored.
The bill appears to have bipartisan support. State House Minority Leader Janet Cruz, a Tampa Democrat, is among the bill's House cosponsors.
“I’m proud to prime co-sponsor this great piece of legislation to ban the dangerous practice of fracking in Florida because we must do everything we can to ensure the long-term environmental and economic prosperity of our state,” Cruz said.
Young's proposal has at least one skeptic. Charly Norton, director of Florida Strong (a PAC that hammered Young during her four-way 2016 State Senate race), questioned Young's past statements, pointing out that she has said she's "always" been against fracking yet has also said she changed her mind about the practice and is thus backing a total ban, statements Norton said contradict one another. Norton also points out that oil companies like Chevron and Marathon have given to her campaign in the past, which records do show.
Skepticism or not, Young's proposal, and bipartisan lawmakers' enthusiastic support of a ban on the controversial practice of fracking is a rare contrast to the often acrimonious political climate, even on environmental issues, in Tallahassee and Washington.
If it passes the State House and Senate unscathed, it would then need Gov. Rick Scott's signature, and it's unclear whether Scott, who tends to heavily favor big business over environmental protections despite how much the state's economy relies on clean air and water.
This article appears in Jan 19-26, 2017.