[A] gas company based in Maryland called Chesapeake Utilities wrote at least a couple energy bills for the Florida legislature this past session.
“We saw, unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry show up in a very real way. Chesapeake Utility is just one example. We also saw the Florida Natural Gas Association registered on a lot of bills. And we saw our utilities that I think most Floridians are familiar with: we have TECO, People’s Gas, Florida Power and Light, Duke. We saw them all this past legislative session,” Schafer said.
“The records that we found from Chesapeake Utilities specifically focused on two things: cost recovery, which is a way for fossil fuel industries to — in the simplest terms — make more profit off of their investment by passing those costs on to customers. … And we also saw tax breaks. Both of these efforts are worth millions of dollars to these fossil fuel corporations. And those millions, of course, are impacting everyday Floridians, whether it’s in lost tax revenue, or by impacting our monthly bills.”
The cost recovery legislation died in session, but the tax breaks made it through in the tax package, signed into law by DeSantis.
In Florida, most utilities function in a monopoly marketplace, so there aren’t many competitive options.
