Storm package draws critics

When legislative budget chiefs agreed during negotiations to spend $1.5 million on a study about extending a toll road north to Georgia, they started to lock into Florida’s new budget some of the 78 recommendations a House select committee created in the wake of last year’s deadly hurricane season.

Also crossing the finish line as the annual legislative session ended Sunday was storm-related money for farm repairs, generators for nursing homes, affordable housing in Monroe County and help for students displaced from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Still, many of the measures crafted in response to hurricanes Irma and Maria failed to win support. They included creating a strategic fuel-reserve task force and using rail-tank cars to bring fuel into evacuation areas.

Rep. Jeanette Nunez, a Miami Republican who was chairwoman of the House Select Committee on Hurricane Response and Preparedness, said “a good amount” of the overall recommendations were approved by lawmakers. But she said the Senate failed to “step up to the plate” in matching the House in many of the policy changes sought by her committee.

“It’s a shame,” Nunez said. “We spent a lot of time, and we really did take that select committee seriously.”

Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said the Senate conducted “a thorough review of these critical issues and [is] pleased that the Legislature passed a comprehensive recovery and preparedness package.”