A top Florida Senate panel on Thursday narrowly rejected energy industry-backed legislation that would effectively overturn local bans on fracking, though the measure could be revived in the coming days.
The bill, SB 318, failed in a 10-9 vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee. A handful of the panel's majority Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the measure, arguing that widespread fracking could contaminate the underground aquifer that supplies most of Florida's drinking water.
"Florida's water will wind up being like Michigan's," Sen. Arthenia Joyner (D-Tampa) said during an emotionally-charged two hour debate over the bill.
Roughly five dozen Florida municipalities have passed moratoriums on fracking, which uses chemically-assisted pressurization techniques to drill through rock to extract large underground supplies of oil and natural gas. The bill would put the state Department of Environmental Protection, not local officials, in charge of determining if and where fracking would be allowed to take place.
The legislation's supporters said its implementation would result in an immediate statewide fracking moratorium, something that currently doesn't exist. The ban would remain in place until DEP officials determine that drilling can be conducted in an environmentally sound way.
"There are some environmental advantages of fracking and horizontal drilling. It reduces and diminishes the impact on the surface, it can be done, it can be done right, it can be done properly," said Sen. Thad Altman (R-Melbourne), who voted in favor of the bill.
Environmentalists, however, pointed to documented mishaps involving fracking operations that have caused irreversible water contamination.
"Water is a very visceral issue, as it should be," said Tampa Bay resident Andrew Rock, who testified at Thursday's hearing. "It makes everyone concerned, the idea of poisoning our one and only water supply. We don't get a do-over on that."
Following the close vote on the legislation, its sponsor secured the ability to have the bill reconsidered by the committee, a procedural move that allows time to lobby legislators who voted against the bill to consider changing their position.