New state laws took effect July 1

Florida’s new laws went into effect Saturday. Among them are new rules on drone deliveries, ride-sharing, boat docking and criminal histories.

Gov. Rick Scott signed 234 and vetoed 11 of the 245 bills passed by the Florida Legislature in its regular and special sessions this year.

Some important legislation already had gone into effect, such as a law clearing constitutional hurdles that had stopped the state from sentencing people to death for about a year.

Other bills won’t go into effect unless voters approve. Voters will consider a new $25,000 expansion of the homestead exemption in 2018. If they approve, the Legislature also passed a companion bill that will implement the tax cut.

Drones and robots

Florida becomes the fourth state to regulate commercial deliveries by drones and “land-based personal delivery devices,” such as robots. HB 1027 essentially adds personal delivery devices to the list of vehicles, such as bicycles, allowed to operate on sidewalks. It also adds commercial delivery to the allowed uses for drones. This opens the door for major delivery companies such as Amazon to begin delivering goods to people’s doors using unmanned drones and robots.

Ride sharing

With HB 221, ride-booking apps such as Uber and Lyft are subject to statewide rules. Drivers are required to meet certain insurance standards. Fares are still set by the companies. But the law preempts any local laws that required additional fees, which could have been passed on to customers, except any fees charged to all hired vehicles at airports or seaports.

Boating

Boaters have to follow new rules about where they can anchor or moor their boats. HB 7043 sets specific distances boats can anchor near marinas, yacht facilities and public moorings.

South Florida marina owners have long complained about vessels anchored too closely to marinas. The law also gives local governments the right to regulate live-aboard vessels, which some residents of Broward and Miami-Dade counties have said are cluttering some waterways in the area.

A separate bill, HB 711, lowers vessel registration fees for boats that have emergency location devices. That bill comes after two 14-year-old boys, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, disappeared at sea off the coast of Jupiter Inlet two years ago.

Religious expression in public schools

Public schools are required to allow children to pray and to treat coursework that includes religious elements the same as the school would consider secular work. SB 436 also allows school personnel to join in with student-led prayer. Another new law, HB 989, allows any county resident — not just a parent of a child at a school—to object to textbooks and other class materials used in a school.

Medical marijuana

SB 8A had already taken effect, technically, but major provisions of the lawthat implements the medical marijuana constitutional amendment voters approved in November begin this month. The Florida Department of Health faces a deadline to finalize regulations and issue five more growers’ licenses, bringing the state total up to 12.

Criminal history records

Floridians won’t have to pay to have an arrest mugshot removed from a publication or website. Websites that run mugshots and then charge a fee to remove them have been especially problematic in Florida. The state’s broad public records law has allowed sites to post millions of mugshots online, then charge to have them removed. SB 118 also creates a public record exemption for all arrest records in which the person arrested is subsequently found not guilty or the charges dismissed.

Education

HB 7069 offers 274 pages and $419 million worth of new school programs and funding. It mandates 20 minutes of daily recess for grades five and under and requires students be allowed to have sunscreen on school campuses. The law requires school districts to give charter schools some of the money they take in from property taxes and features a $140 million fund to entice charter schools to open near failing traditional public schools.

Everglades reservoir

SB 10 allows for the creation of a massive reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee. It’s to be built on 31,000 acres of state-owned land at a cost of $1.5 billion. Proponents, including Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, believe the reservoir will serve the dual purpose of sending more water south into the Everglades while preventing further pollution of the St. Lucie River, near Stuart, and the Caloosahatchee River, near Fort Myers.

Solar energy tax credit

SB 90 implements a constitutional amendment passed by voters in the August 2016 primary election. Residential property already gets the value of renewable energy devices such as solar panels deducted from the property value when determining taxes. The new amendment grants commercial property the same exemption. Proponents hope it could lead to a boom in solar farms and panels attached to large retail stores and industrial facilities.

Budget

SB 2500 funds our state government for another year to the tune of $82 billion. That includes millions of dollars in local projects in South Florida, such as improvements to roadways and stormwater treatment. Several additional budget items were hashed out in the special session, including $76 million for the tourism marketing agency Visit Florida, $85 million for a new job growth fund and pay raises for all state employees (the first such raise since 2013), and an additional $215 million in K-12 funding, increasing per-student funding by $100 from last year.