A Walmart-backed startup doesn't like local government rules. It wants Tallahassee to overturn them.

As it lobbies the Florida Legislature for help, records show Walmart-backed DroneUp LLC has become a substantial campaign contributor.

Photo credit: Walmart

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In early September of last year, a new company applied for a business license to begin flying delivery drones from the parking lot of a Walmart Neighborhood Market in the middle of a suburban subdivision east of Orlando.

Zoning staffers with Orange County government told the company — a Virginia-based startup called DroneUp LLC — that it would have to apply for a land-use change. That could mean a potentially contentious public hearing before the local county commission.

Orange County says DroneUp never applied for that change. Instead, the company turned to Tallahassee, where it is now lobbying bills through the Florida Legislature that would force Orange County to give the company its license.

It’s an extraordinary display of influence for a company that has been in Florida for barely a year. But DroneUp is no ordinary startup.

Walmart Inc., the world’s largest retailer and a $600 billion-a-year behemoth, is not only a customer of the company — it is also an investor. A senior Walmart executive sits on DroneUp’s board of directors.

And while DroneUp is new to Florida, records show it is already a substantial campaign contributor in the state. The company gave $25,000 last month to a political committee controlled by its lobbyists. That committee has in turn been making donations to individual lawmakers — including $5,000 each to fundraising committees for Rep. Wyman Duggan (R-Jacksonville) and Sen. Jay Collins (R-Tampa), who are sponsoring DroneUp’s legislation.  

Representatives for DroneUp did not respond to requests for comment. But in committee hearings on the bills (House Bill 1071 and Senate Bill 1068), the company’s supporters and lobbyists have said they want to ensure a consistent set of rules across Florida in order to foster growth of the drone-delivery industry.

DroneUp — which is currently testing deliveries from nine Walmart stores in Florida, mostly around Tampa — appears to be the first commercial drone-delivery operation in Florida. But rival retail giant Amazon.com Inc. is building a drone-delivery business, too.

“While, certainly, Walmart is the only one with DroneUp doing this today, this is coming to every community in Florida,” Jimmy Card, a lobbyist for DroneUp, told the House Transportation & Modals Subcommittee, during a hearing earlier this month. “Getting these policies in place is key to, obviously, growing this and having an environment that helps all Floridians, because drones are going to be able to deliver packages quickly and efficiently.”

‘Consistency’ through handcuffs

This is a familiar refrain in the Florida Legislature, where business interests regularly lobby state lawmakers to strip regulatory powers from local elected officials in the name of statewide “consistency.”

These are known as “preemption” bills, because they preemptively stop a city or county from doing something.

For instance, lobbyists for apartment developers and property managers are pushing another far-reaching preemption bill that would forbid communities from enacting extra consumer protections for renters. The legislation (House Bill 1417 and Senate Bill 1586) would undo a host of recently enacted local laws such as “Tenant Bill of Rights” ordinances.

“Protecting this regulatory consistency is critical to ensure that Florida remains a desirable place for housing providers to develop and continue to offer housing opportunities for Florida’s growing population,” Jimmy Chestnut, the president of the Florida Apartment Association’s board of directors, told the House’s Civil Justice Subcommittee earlier this week.

“Florida has over 400 cities and 67 counties,” he added. “If each local government enacted separate landlord-tenant policies, it could quickly create a patchwork of…policies across the state that will cause confusion for residents and landlords.”

This has been going on for years. Over the past decade, Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature — working first with former Gov. Rick Scott and now with Gov. Ron DeSantis — has passed more than 40 preemptions that prevent cities and counties from doing all kinds of things, such as requiring large employers to pay living wages or provide paid sick-leave to their workers.

And this session, business-lobbying groups like the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida, the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, the Florida Home Builders Association, and the Florida Realtors have jointed forces to push what some opponents call “the mother of all preemptions.”

That legislation (House Bill 1515 and Senate Bill 170) would give more ammunition for businesses to sue local governments and block enforcement of laws that they don’t like.

The bill has already passed the state Senate, where it’s a personal priority of Senate President Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples).

Saving time and money for businesses — at the expense of home rule

In the case of DroneUp, the company wasn’t just unhappy with Orange County.

Rep. Spencer Roach (R-North Fort Myers), who is co-sponsoring the company’s preemption bill, told the House Transportation & Modals Subcommittee that officials in Osceola County wanted DroneUp to go through what Roach called a “time-consuming and costly” pre-application process before it could begin temporary operations.

And Roach said nearby Seminole County told DroneUp that it needed to get planning-and-zoning approval before it could begin flying Walmart packages around the community.

DroneUp’s bills would effectively force those counties — and every other local government in Florida — to grant a business license to any drone-delivery company that wants one. It would also require local governments to allow a delivery “drone ports” on any piece of non-residential property.

Drone ports, at least as DroneUp envisions them, are essentially three-story towers erected in parking lots from where an employee operates the delivery drone.

An conceptual drawing of a DroneUp “drone port.” (Source: Orange County)

But that’s not all. The legislation would also exempt construction of drone ports from Florida’s building and fire-safety codes.

That’s because Walmart-backed DroneUp doesn’t want to comply with requirements such as building a second stairwell and installing a fire-sprinkler system. Roach said those features can can add more than $1 million to the cost of construction.

Walmart turned an $11.2 billion profit last year.

“It’s really cost prohibitive,” Roach said.