In an earlier post I talked about how the Florida legislature would be meeting in a special session from July 20-23rd about creating a constitutional amendment to ban offshore-drilling, which would be put on the ballot in November for the people to vote on. The session on Tuesday lasted only 2 hours and 18 minutes during which the legislature quickly rejected Governor Charlie Crist's reason for calling the special session. What they did do was appoint six working groups of lawmakers to address oil spill issues. Each of the six groups included a lawmaker from the Panhandle, an area which has been hit the hardest so far by the oil spill. The lead coordinator to all the groups is Rep. Gary Aubuchon, R-Cape Coral who all the groups will answer to. They will eventually report their findings in a special session that House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, and Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, plan to call in September. The ultimate goal of the working groups is to guide the creation of legislation in September that will provide property relief for the Panhandle, put the state and the people in a position that would allow them to sue BP and to strengthen the state's seafood-safety testing. To keep up-to-date on news in the legislature, check out Florida Capital News.
