With the budget out of the way and a little more than $200 million lighter Gov. Charlie Crist can return his attention to oil in the Gulf of Mexico, an abortion bill he still awaits from the House and his U.S. Senate campaign though some might say the first two things are directly connected to the last.
The holiday-shortened week brings in the Atlantic Hurricane season, which started officially Monday. That will turn state policy makers attention inevitably to property insurance and whether insurers, reinsurers and the states backup funds can adequately cover all the damage should we have a Hurricane Igor or Hurricane Hermine this year that does a lot of damage.
Florida will enter the 2010 hurricane season in the best financial shape from that perspective that it has been in years despite a sluggish economy that has been a drain on state and local coffers for the past three years. While the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund is flush with cash and the bonding capacity to survive all but the most destructive 2010 season, observers say the state is still only a couple hurricanes away from being back at the financial precipice it experienced following back-to-back hurricane ravaged seasons in 2004 and 2005.
The first named storm of 2010 will be Alex, which could come just as Alex Sinks campaign for governor is getting into full tilt. The 2010 storm list is a repeat of the 2004 names remember 2004? except that the names of the four big ones that hit that year, Charley, Francis, Ivan and Jeanne, have all been retired, to be replaced by Colin, Fiona, Igor and Julia. Other storm names this year will be Bonnie, Danielle, Earl, Gaston, Hermine, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Thomas, Virginie and Walter.
Heading into June and the summer doldrums, state officials also continue to keep a wary eye on the Gulf not just for storms, but for oil. BP says we may know by early next week whether the Deepwater Horizon continues to leak oil. Typically Memorial Day weekend ushers in the North Florida tourist season, so another thing Florida will have its eye on this coming week is the airports and highways. Will ads that are expected to begin running in key markets around the country convince people to go ahead and come on down for a beach vacation, or will they continue to be turned off by the possibility of tar and goo?
Crist will return from the long weekend still hoping for a special session on drilling but lawmakers arent terribly interested, so whether talks actually start or not remains a question.
