FL Tourism Industry Opposes Plan To Allow Tourism Taxes To Be Used To Fight Rising Seas
A bill offering local governments the power to use tourist development taxes to address sea level rise floated through a House committee Monday despite steadfast opposition from the tourism industry. “The tourism industry, the only way they would support this bill is if it were dead. Let’s be honest,” HB 1429 sponsor Republican Rep. Bryan Avila of Miami Springs told the House Ways and Means Committee Monday. “So they will constantly advocate that this is not the right course of action. But in reality, this might turn out to be their saving grace.”
Avila wishes to save the tourism industry from rising sea levels, which could increasingly flood and eventually inundate much of Florida’s coast, including the hotels, restaurants, and attractions that line Florida’s shoreline. Avila’s bill would give local governments the power to use the money raised through the tourist development tax or the convention development tax for flooding mitigation and improvements. “This bill does nothing to make the local governments do anything. It doesn’t redirect. It does nothing of that sort. It simply provides an additional option for those local governments, if they chose to,” Avila said.
Tourism industry officials who spoke strongly against the bill Monday dislike not just the immediate prospect that they might lose tourism tax money to something that’s not clearly a tourism issue, but that the bill could open the door to future raids. So Monday’s discussions focused on how linked the future of Florida’s tourism is to climate change and whether advocates might use an argument for such linkage for other needs, such as transportation, health care, education, or law enforcement.
“We fundamentally create what is a slush fund for issues and projects that haven’t otherwise been prioritized,” said Samantha Padgett, general counsel for the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association. She painted the prospect that tourism taxes might be used to help prevent flooding in residential neighborhoods, doing nothing for tourism.
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https://floridapolitics.com/archives/413761-committee-likes-industry-hates-tourist-tax-bill-to-address-climate-change
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Photos posted here for those who cannot see signature lines. From 1980 to 2018 this has been the effect. This is a real situation - in approximately 1990 I would beach my flats boat and enter the domes. The tides here are only a few feet and at no time recede to the point that the land beneath the domes is exposed.
