A new bill, House Bill 1217, known as the \u201cnet zero\u201d bill, would limit St. Petersburg\u2019s authority in sectors like energy policy, environmental standards and climate regulations. Though Gov. Ron DeSantis has not yet signed the bill, City Council is already preparing for its potential impact.<\/p>\n
Under HB 1217, cities would be barred from adopting stricter rules than the state in certain areas. In practice, that means St. Pete\u2019s long-term plans to reduce emissions, incorporate climate resilience and enforce greener development standards could be preempted by state-set limits.<\/p>\n
Even existing programs could be affected. The City has been pushing its Integrated Sustainability Action Plan (ISAP), described as \u201ca data-driven blueprint for integrating sustainability and resiliency across departments,\u201d guiding policies that touch everything from infrastructure to economic development.<\/p>\n
Officials say ISAP shapes projects like energy efficiency retrofits, electric vehicle infrastructure and \u201cgreen infrastructure development as part of city projects and land use planning.\u201d<\/p>\n
That framework has translated into hundreds of millions of dollars in resilience investments, including stormwater upgrades, seawall repairs and broader infrastructure efforts aimed at addressing flooding and sea-level rise. The city is planning more than $600 million in resiliency projects over the next five years.<\/p>\n
St. Pete\u2019s 2026 budget also prioritizes climate resilience, housing and infrastructure as part of a nearly $1 billion spending plan.<\/p>\n
Those projects could be challenged. Additionally, HB 1217 includes penalties for municipalities that attempt to exceed state standards.<\/p>\n
Anticipating the bill\u2019s passage, City Council voted Thursday to add the issue as a special meeting agenda item to further discuss its implications.<\/p>\n
Council Member Brandi Gabbard told the Catalyst the bill \u201cwill certainly limit our ability to reduce our own carbon footprint and address climate change impacts that we are seeing in our coastal city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabbard, who chairs both the Legislative Committee and the Health, Energy, Resilience and Sustainability (HERS) Committee, said the goal is to begin evaluating impacts now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to get it on the docket so staff could start exploring questions,\u201d she said, adding the city is waiting for DeSantis to sign the bill, \u201cbut for all intents and purposes, I know he will.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gabbard said one of the most immediate impacts could be on the city\u2019s efforts to transition its fleet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I understand it, it isn\u2019t that we are not allowed to buy electric vehicles,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just cannot have specific procurement goals around it. But that is only my understanding and I have not been given legal guidance on that as of yet. Much more to come as we pivot around Tallahassee\u2019s continued preemptions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new bill, House Bill 1217, known as the \u201cnet zero\u201d bill, would limit St. Petersburg\u2019s authority in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-236114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}