The public price tag on Florida's private train keeps going up
Session is coming. So are efforts to spend $50 million on Brightline, prevent fossil fuel protests, and gut local budgets. Plus: The dumpster fires are still raging at Reedy Creek and New College.
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Politicians in Tampa want $50 million from Florida taxpayers to subsidize the continued expansion of Brightline, the privately operated high-speed rail system that recently began service between Miami and Orlando.
The proposed earmark — the biggest budget request yet filed ahead of the Florida Legislature’s 2024 session, which begins in January — comes from Rep. Karen Gonzalez Pittman, a Republican member of the state House from Tampa, on behalf of Michael Owen, a Republican member of the Hillsborough County Commission.
This is a big deal. Executives at Brightline used to market themselves as the nation’s only privately financed passenger rail and once claimed to Congress that the project was “not publicly funded at all.” That was always false: Taxpayers indirectly subsidized the company’s initial leg between Miami and Orlando through billions of dollars in tax-free debt and millions of dollars in upgrades to rail crossings and other infrastructure.
But the public price of this private train keeps growing as Brightline turns to Tampa. The company and its allies iare pursuing more and more federal grants. And just last month, commissioners in Orange County approved a deal with Universal Orlando that will allow the theme-park giant to issue nearly $200 more in tax-free debt to build new tracks and a station facilitating Brightline’s route out of Orlando.
Now we’ve got a $50 million ask of Florida taxpayers, too.
Look, Florida absolutely needs to do more to support transit alternatives that help get cars off the road. And we would all benefit from a successful passenger rail system that links the state’s big cities, even if we don’t ever ride the train ourselves.
This would be a much better use of public money than another set of tax breaks for corporations. It would even be better than another gimmicky sales-tax holiday that does more to subsidize Walmart’s marketing budget than it does to save consumers money.
But it’s worth remembering that that were two earlier attempts to build public high-speed rail systems in Florida — and the state’s Republican leadership killed them both. Jeb Bush did it first in 2004 and then Rick Scott did it again in 2011.
So now we’re getting a private train instead. A private train owned by a $45 billion investment firm. A private train charging roundtrip ticket prices that start at $158.
And a private train that keeps getting more costly for the public.
A new fossil fuel fight in Florida
The fossil-fuel industry may want another favor from Florida.
It’s in the form of House Bill 275, a bill filed last month that would expose people who trespass at “critical infrastructure facilities” — like power plants, gas pipelines and mines — to potential criminal and civil penalties.
The legislation is pretty similar to the so-called “Critical Infrastructure Protection Act,” a model bill that the corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council has been shopping in state Capitols around the country. It was developed by the oil and gas industry following protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in the U.S. Midwest.
The Florida bill isn’t identical. For instance, it does not explicitly target trespassing. It instead would penalize anyone who “intentionally tampers” with pipelines and mines.
That said, tamper is so broadly defined that the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, which has been tracking these anti-protest bills around the country, says it could criminalize even benign protest tactics, such as writing messages in chalk, taping up posters, or inadvertently trampling a field during a demonstration.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Canady, a Republican from Lakeland who is in line to become speaker of the state House in a few years. Canady declined to say whether the bill was inspired by ALEC’s model — though she is member of ALEC who sits on the specific ALEC task force behind it.
For their part, environmentalist activists and ALEC trackers are convinced that this is another attempt to protect fossil-fuel interests. Several big energy companies have already registered to lobby on the bill, including Florida Power & Light, Chesapeake Utilities Corp., and TECO.
"This ALEC-inspired bill is the latest attempt by the fossil fuel industry to criminalize and chill environmental protests that seek to address and draw attention to the devastating effects of climate change that are underway," said David Armiak, research director at the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group.
More turmoil at the DeSantis Disney-control district
Just three days before Thanksgiving, the Ron DeSantis-controlled district that governs Walt Disney World fired four people — including two senior leaders, according to the Orlando Sentinel’s Skyler Swisher.
Swisher also unearthed this nugget: The agency formerly known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District — which was renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District after DeSantis seized control amid a personal feud with the Walt Disney Co. — has hired a public-relations firm called “Athos.”
Athos happens to be doing work for two key DeSantis allies — former state House speaker Richard Corcoran and conservative activist Christopher Rufo — who happen to be leading DeSantis’ other high-profile hostile takeover, at New College of Florida.
Speaking of New College:
How Florida Republicans may wield their supermajority next
When Republicans reached supermajorities in both chambers of the Florida Legislature following the 2022 elections, they gained an assortment of new powers.
One of the more sweeping of those new powers is the ability to really mess with the finances of local governments — the cities and counties that are supposed to be run by independently elected city councilors and county commissioners rather than politicians in Tallahassee.
For instance, the state Constitution explicitly forbids the Florida Legislature from passing laws that impair the ability of cities and counties to raise revenues — unless the Legislature does so by a two-thirds vote.
So it’s probably worth paying attention to House Bill 609, which would wipe out all local businesses taxes around the state. That would effectively impose a roughly $220 million funding cut on Florida’s cities and counties — a shortfall that state legislators in Tallahassee wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with themselves.
This sure seems like an idea with legs. After all, House Speaker Paul Renner, a Jacksonville-area Republican entering his final year in the House, has tried to take a hatchet to local business taxes before.
Bill-tracking in Tallahassee
With the start of the 2024 session now less than two months away, more bills and budget projects are being filed everyday. Here, in no particular order, are few from the past few weeks worth keeping an eye on:
House Bill 433, which would prevent local governments from passing laws making businesses provide protections to farmworkers, construction workers and others who in extreme heat. This bill is designed to short circuit the campaign for a heat-protection ordinance Miami-Dade County — an effort that’s attracted national attention. The sponsor is the same lawmaker who carried a bill last year that undid dozens of local “tenants’ rights” laws, which stripped basic consumer protections from more than 1.5 million Florida renters.
$50 million to expand a water storage operation managed by Lykes Bros. Inc., one of the Florida’s biggest agribusinesses.
House Bill 435, an early contender for the most protectionist piece of legislation of the year. It would make it illegal to manufacture or sell meat cultivated from animal cells — what’s often called lab-grown meat. Politico Florida had a good story about this one last week (though the pun in the headline is inexcusable).
$5 million for more expansion at the Cox Science Center and Aquarium, where key financial backers have a warm relationship with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Senate Bill 460, which would allow businesses to put 16- and 17-year-old teenagers to work on roofs, scaffoldings and superstructures. Rolling back child-labor laws seems like it’s going to be A Thing this session.
$40 million for a new intersection along International Speedway Blvd. at or near NASCAR’s Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach.
House Bill 347, which would protect pesticide distributors and retailers from products-liability lawsuits.
$15 million to improve an Interstate 95 interchange near the border between Volusia and Brevard counties. This is a project that seems intended to stimulate “Deering Park,” a real-estate development planned by Miami Corp., the investment firm founded by heirs of the founder of the business that became International Harvester Co.
House Bill 429, which would give timeshare operators the same power as hotels to remove or bar people from their properties — including owners who have bought in to the property.
$500,000 for the University of Florida to study the potential environmental and economic impacts of breaching the Rodman Dam near tiny Palatka, Fla. The Rodman Dam is a notorious environmental scar. It was built roughly 50 years ago, as part of a never-completed canal across the state that blocks the natural flow of the Ocklawaha River, a major tributary of the St. Johns River. But the dam is also responsible for the Rodman Reservoir, a nationally renowned bass-fishing lake that is one of the few economic engines in one of the poorest pockets of Florida.
Brightline trains are manufactured by Siemens, and Siemens was a major Nazi slave labor user during WWII. How is it that these type of companies still exist?
Once a fiscally conservative bunch, Republicans are full on into the grift. To double the starting salary for Richie and then hand him perks like they were candied popcorn is beyond comprehension. I read where Jason noted a "$100,000" electric car? For what on God's Green Earth does he need it? Doesn't Rich have a car already? Republicans have a craft and they work it well. Jump up and down about problems (perceived) over there and pick the pockets of every working Floridian over here. I believe they want to pump $30 million over 10-20 years for this "barely functioning" liberal arts school? Enrollment is a meager 700 students, give or take 20. This is the DIRECT result when Democrats stay home from elections. It's only going to get worse when Rob comes back home beaten, dejected, embarrassed and humiliated. Who wants to guess that they will make Florida worse than it ever has been?