No. HB 5701
Filed under Environment & Water.
Petroleum Cleanup Programs; Removes 2025-2026 fiscal year limitation on prohibiting certain deductibles and copays, prohibiting enforcement of certain monetary caps, requiring that certain costs be absorbed at the expense of the Inland Protection Trust Fund, and providing exceptions.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDTwo petroleum cleanup programs previously waived deductibles, copayments, and cost caps only for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, with the Inland Protection Trust Fund absorbing the cost; this bill deletes that one-year limit, making the waiver permanent.
Both programs also had a rule stripping incentive-program eligibility, and shifting full liability, onto owners who falsified their tank's location or intentionally damaged it; that rule was set to expire July 1, 2026, and this bill deletes the expiration too.
Both changes take effect July 1, 2026, the exact date the old rules would otherwise have lapsed, so the permanent versions replace the temporary ones without any gap.
AIThe rule barring deductibles and copayments, blocking enforcement of monetary caps, and requiring the Inland Protection Trust Fund to absorb cleanup costs no longer applies only to the 2025-2026 fiscal year; it now continues indefinitely.
AIA rule disqualifying a site from the incentive program, and making the owner solely liable for discharge costs, when the owner falsified the tank's location or intentionally damaged it, was set to expire July 1, 2026; deleting that expiration lets the rule continue instead of lapsing.
AIThe same waiver of deductibles, copayments, and enforced monetary caps under the Florida Petroleum Liability and Restoration Insurance Program, funded instead by the Inland Protection Trust Fund, also loses its 2025-2026-fiscal-year limit and becomes permanent.
AIThe identical disqualification-and-liability rule for owners who falsify a tank's location or intentionally damage it, under the separate insurance program, was also set to expire July 1, 2026; that expiration is deleted too.