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from the sunshine-state-finally-living-up-to-its-name dept.
Solar Industry Magazine reports
Following a long local--and national--campaign, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a pro-solar ballot measure during the state's primary election on [August 30].
Passed with 73% of the vote, Amendment 4 implements a change to the state constitution and clears the way for the legislature to implement new tax laws that advocates say will end prohibitive tax liabilities and help boost Florida's fledgling distributed solar market.
According to Vote Solar, a big proponent of the measure, Amendment 4 was placed on the ballot after garnering unanimous support from state policymakers in March. Specifically, the amendment authorizes the state legislature to abate ad valorem taxation and exempt tangible personal property tax on solar or renewable energy source devices installed on commercial and industrial property. This reflects an extension of the existing ad valorem abatement for solar and renewable energy devices on residential property. Once implemented by the legislature, the tax incentives of the amendment will begin in 2018 and extend for 20 years.
[...] The ballot summary says, "This amendment establishes a right under Florida's constitution for consumers to own or lease solar equipment installed on their property to generate electricity for their own use. State and local governments shall retain their abilities to protect consumer rights and public health, safety and welfare, and to ensure that consumers who do not choose to install solar are not required to subsidize the costs of backup power and electric grid access to those who do."
The Florida Supreme court narrowly approved the amendment's language in a 3-4 vote, and in her dissenting opinion[PDF][1], Justice Barbara Pariente deemed the ballot measure a "wolf in sheep's clothing".
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Previous: Florida Supreme Court Removes Barrier to Widespread Solar Power
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday September 02 2016, @01:31AM
Having skimmed the court ruling, I have to agree with the interpretation of the dissent. I think it would perhaps be judicial overreach to disallow the amendment to go to a vote, but the dissent points out a number of disturbing issues that will likely come out in future litigation. I often find this to be the case with dissents -- they may not have the rationale to produce a winning argument, but they point out things not said in the majority opinion that produce legal complications which may come out later. Scalia was notorious for doing this on SCOTUS -- you may have viewed his opinions to be brilliant or demented, but he had a knack for pointing out where the majority logic would lead (even if the majority denied it would lead there).
Anyhow, the dissent here points out the problems with what the amendment doesn't say. It has a title talking about "rights" and "choice," but the dissent points out that consumers in Florida already had a "right" to "choose" solar under the existing constitution. It wasn't as specific, but the Florida Constitution already grants broad property rights, so there would have had to be a very solid legal basis for removing that right or "choice" for solar, and it's not clear a local or state law attempting to do so could withstand constitutional challenge.
But the more concerning thing here is that the new amendment explicitly enshrines a power of regulation of solar in the constitution. Again, that power already exists, but without this amendment it would likely be easier to curb or limit that power significantly, e.g., with courts striking down regulatory laws that seem to be overreach. Now, however, Floridians have explicitly said the government has broad regulatory powers on this specific issue. At the moment, far from creating a new "right," the amendment mostly keeps the status quo.
Thus, the likely result down the road from this amendment is that (1) the "right" to solar already existed and was unlikely to go away (even if some municipalities tried), but (2) the power to regulate may now be harder to curtail in the future. Therefore the amendment is likely to have the opposite result of what its title promised, potentially resulting in more regulation and government interference with this new "right" to own solar.
The one substantive thing the amendment does other than maintain the status quo is to prohibit "subsidies" of non-solar customers for solar customers, but as the dissent rightly points out, the word "subsidy" is not defined in the extensive list of legal terms defined within the amendment. Thus, it's quite possible there are ways around this broad statement... which would render the amendment rather useless, except potentially in explicitly authorizing government interference.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 02 2016, @01:42AM
Florida has one major electricity provider: Florida Power and Light, and they basically write their own laws and amendments. Whatever comes to a vote, you can be sure that it was approved by, if not outright written by, FPL.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @02:03PM
They are big, but far from being everything.
They are very cheap. They are a significant part of Florida's cost-of-living advantage.