Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried argued Tuesday that an effort to move the Office of Energy from her department to the governor’s administration is more political than policy-driven, as a House panel overwhelmingly approved the proposal.
Fried told members of the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee and later reporters that the proposal (PCN ANR 20-01) to relocate the office to the Department of Environmental Protection is a “power grab” by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“We know that for a decade Republicans have had no problem with the office being where it is, as long as it was run by a Republican,” Fried, the lone statewide elected Democrat, said after the meeting. “But now that a Democrat sits in this office, the first woman ever elected to this office, it suddenly needs to be moved.”
Fried added that if she had lost the 2018 election to the Cabinet post, “I don’t think we would be having this conversation here today.”
DeSantis spokeswoman Helen Aguirre Ferre didn’t comment on the topic when asked about it in an email.
Rep. Holly Raschein, a Key Largo Republican who chairs the House subcommittee, called the proposed move an “acceptable place to put the Office of Energy.”
The office was part of the Department of Environmental Protection until 2011, moving to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services following a debacle involving about 10,000 unprocessed solar power rebates.
In casting the lone vote against the proposal on Tuesday, Rep. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, said she didn’t understand how the move benefits the office or the state agencies.
“It just hasn’t been described to me why this needs to be done,” Polsky said.
Rep. Kristin Jacobs, D-Coconut Creek, expressed concerns about the “lack of justification” for the move and said a potential changeover may need to be slowed from four months to a year. Jacobs voted for the proposal.
Fried called the bipartisan support for the proposal “politics as usual.”
“Unfortunately, the Republicans, they (Democratic members) realize, control the budget,” Fried said. “If they’ve got items that they care about inside the budget, they jeopardize losing that by voting otherwise”
The move would shift the energy office and its 14 full-time employees, along with $1.2 million in authority for trust-fund money.
Under Fried, the office has completed a state energy and climate plan that is the basis for bills she is pushing during the 2020 Legislative session.
Since 2011, the office has overseen $158 million in renewable energy programs, from lighting on ball fields to water audits for farmers.
Fried said she has not heard from the governor’s office about a need for the proposed move and became aware of the effort when a draft bill was filed.
Such clashes could grow between Fried and Republican leaders.
Last year, Republican legislative leaders placed a provision in a budget bill that limited inspection stickers affixed to gasoline pumps to including only “a combination of lettering, numbering, words, or the department logo.”
The concern from Republicans was that stickers with a picture of Fried, whose department oversees the inspections, was being used to gain free political exposure.
The new House proposal comes after another plan that would increase DeSantis’ power.
A bill (SB 1758) filed by Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, seeks to give DeSantis more control over appointing the heads of the Department of Environment Protection and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, taking power away from the Cabinet --- made up of Fried, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Currently, the governor appoints both agency heads but must get support from the Cabinet. Bean’s bill has not been heard in committees or drawn a House version.
