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Introduction to the Tracker & Issue Chairs

Our Position:
Bill Number: 001
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Legislative Session: 2006

2006 Florida Chapter Sierra Club Tallahassee Report Legislative Tracker

Welcome to the Florida Chapter Sierra Club 2006 Tallahassee Report for the 2006 legislative session. We are implementing a new process for keeping up with this session's legislation and we hope you like it and find it informative and easy to use. The Chapter Executive Committee has several issues we will be focusing on this session and we will be providing you with bill numbers and updated information via this Legislative Bill Tracker. So stay tuned and keep checking on our progress as we move through session. The following lists are the members of the Florida Chapter Conservation Executive Committee and Chapter Conservation Issue Chairs . Each area has several active volunteers as Chairs of different issues under each category.

Florida Chapter Conservation Executive Committee (*) and Conservation Issue Chairs 

Florida Chapter Conservation Chair, Betsy Roberts*

A. SMART ENERGY SOLUTIONS : Chair Ed Deaton*

Energy Chair, Ed Deaton,  and Vice Chair, Brian Lupiani have divided up tasks. Please contact Brian Lupiani for legislative issues

Offshore Drilling Chair, Ginger Perlman

B. FLORIDA's/AMERICA’S WILD LEGACY Chair: John Hedrick*

Bone Valley Chair, Marian Ryan; Green Swamp Chair, Marian Ryan;  Everglades Chair, Brian Scherf; Protecting Florida's Native Habitat Chair, Ben Fusaro; Sprawl Chair, John Hedrick, Vice Chair, Lesley Blackner; Biodiversity Chair, David Auth; Manatee Chair, Helen Spivey

C. SAFE AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES Chair:  Karen Orr*

Wetlands and Water Chair, Karen Orr; Safe Drinking Water Chair, John Glenn; Marine Waters Chair, John Swingle; St. Joe/Panhandle Chair, John Hedrick; Toxics Chair (temporarily), Dan Hendrickson

D. DEMOCRACY & THE ENVIRONMENT Chair: Pedro Monteiro*

Clean Elections Chair, Helen Spivey;  Election Reform Chair, Mike Thompson; Florida Hometown Democracy Chair, Pedro Monteiro; Citizen Participation Chair, Dan Hendrickson; Florida Fair Trade Chair (temporarily), Pedro Monteiro

Other Conservation Execom members

LEGAL CHAIR: Dan Hendrickson*

POLITICAL CHAIR: Curt Levine*

LEGISLATIVE LIAISON: Helen Spivey*

 Because the legislative session is very action packed, the Chapter has a Legislative Liaison for members to contact when seeking information regarding specific legislation or other requests that arise during session. The liaison will find out the answer to your questions and get back to you. So for more information on these issues or to volunteer with our legislative committee, please e-mail Helen Spivey at manatees@habitats.org

Thank you and good luck to us all.

Susie Caplowe

Florida Chapter Lobbyist

Status

Background

4/8/06: The legislature is about to take a week off for Passover and Easter. The Senate will be gone the week of the 10th through the 14th. The House will hold committee meetings on Monday and Tuesday.

We try to update the Tracker on a regular basis. Please do not wait for a notice from the Tallahassee Report to get your update: ADD THE TRACKER WEBSITE ADDRESS TO YOUR "FAVORITES" now on your computer. We update it as often as we can, but as you can tell, we are being bombarded by "legislative killer bills" on a regular basis, especially at the same time, in numerous Committees in the House and Senate. We are a small army up here and need you the masses out there to keep communicating with your legislators about what we oppose and support.  We will keep adding good and bad bills, but we are not able to work on all of them, we are providing a smorgasbord of issues for all of you who have contacted us wanting to know what is going on with xyz bill(s)so you can pick what you want to follow and take action on.

The more you use the Tracker, and click on the links we set up for you, the more you will begin to notice that we have provided you with what you need to follow the bill history. Just click away on the Bill History page and you will be able to read the latest version of the bill; what amendments were filed for the next committee hearing; what the next committee stop is; when it was heard; when it will be heard in the next committee; how the members voted; what the Committee staff analysis says about the impact of the legislation; and more.

EVEN IF YOU LOOKED AT THE BILL USING THE LINKS WE PROVIDE IN THE MORNING, GO BACK AND LOOK AT THE BILL(S) LINKS THAT EVENING, AND THE BILL(S)  MAY HAVE BEEN UPDATED BY THE LEGISLATURE.

We hope you continue to keep in touch with your legislators to give them the heads up as the bills approach the Floor of either the House or Senate. They need to know our position on the bills. We are trying to stay steps ahead of the next attack of the killer bills and when the swarm dissipates, we come up for air and start all over again.  Several bad bills passed out of committees this past week: Incentive Based Permitting; Northwest Florida Environmental Resource Permit/wetlands mitigation; DRI exemptions; Pave over Florida's Farmlands; Carrying Firearms in National Forests; removal of the Florida Keys from an Area of Critical State Concern; Septic tanks over central sewage systems; and more. We continue to add more bills and update when we can, so just keep checking back whenever you have a chance.

Please keep sending out articles and sending us the responses you are getting from legislative offices, just understand we do not have time to respond individually to your phone calls and email messages, but we sure appreciate and make good use of your feedback.