Coalition Continues Push for Veto of Adam Putnam’s Energy Bill

A coalition of conservatives, including comedian and activist Victoria Jackson, continues to lobby Gov. Rick Scott to veto the energy bill favored by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and passed by the Legislature this session.

Appearing before the media at the Florida Press Center in Tallahassee, Jackson, Americans for Prosperity Florida's Director Slade OBrien, James Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute, and regional tea party members repeated earlier arguments that the bill, HB 7117, will result in higher energy bills for Sunshine State consumers.

Scott has until April 14 to sign the bill, allow it to become law without his signature, or veto it.

OBrien said the state should remain focused on its coal and natural gas supply. Subsidizing companies in efforts to diversify energy sources, he said, will bring more expensive power bills to consumers.

The state currently receives about 80 percent of its energy from a pair of natural gas pipelines that run through the Panhandle.

Putnam has said he doesnt want the state to depend so heavily upon a single source of fuel. But OBrien said the reason natural gas makes up 80 percent of the states fuel source is that it is cheap and abundant.

We have a 100-year supply right here in the United States. We can put hundreds of thousands of people to work getting it out of the ground. Its crazy not to do something different, OBrien said.

Jackson, best known as a member of "Saturday Night Live" in the late 1980s and early 1990s, called the bill an example of a government takeover of the private sector using fake science.

I call it communism, others call it fascism, she said.

Putnam has said opposition to the legislation -- the first comprehensive energy plan in the state since 2007 that replaces alternative-energy mandates with market-driven incentives to expand solar and wind -- is rooted in a lack of good information.

Speaking to reporters last week, Putnam said:

It is only after you have spent significant amounts of private capital that you have some tax credit for that renewable technology, whatever that technology may be. You have to prove to the marketplace that it will be successful and then you have to demonstrate it to be eligible for that credit.

The credit would equal about 1 penny per kilowatt hour produced.

The bill provides for up to $16 million in tax credits the first year, with up to $21 million in credits for the next four years.

The bill allows the free market to determine which sectors of alternative-energy products will ultimately be successful and allows the state to provide credits based on initial investments by the business community, Putnams spokesman Sterling Ivey stated in an email Tuesday.

OBrien said 2,000 supporters of his group have sent emails to the governors office and made 1,000 phone calls, all urging Scott to veto the bill.

The governors office noted Tuesday that opposition far outnumbers supporters in contacting Scott about the bill.

Of the 2,548 emails submitted, 2,109 are from an organized campaign opposed to the bill. Meanwhile, the office has recorded 270 phone calls with only five in support.