By JIM TURNER
News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE – Florida slowly got back to business after Labor Day weekend getaways and the first full slate of college football games.
For Capitol types, the House and Senate this week scheduled committee meetings that will start in December and lead up to the 2025 legislative session. Lawmakers also got briefed on what to expect with the state’s finances over the next three years.
And state utility regulators started formally looking at the possibility of adding nuclear power in the future.

NUCLEAR
ESCALATION

Florida Public Service Commission staff members Thursday met with experts and electric-industry officials to discuss what is known as “advanced” nuclear technology. The meeting was the first formal step in the commission carrying out a legislative directive to submit a study by April about the possibility of using the technology.
“We think that this will help tee up these opportunities over the next several decades,” said Lauren Sher, senior director for development at Florida Power & Light who chairs a nuclear working group for the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group.
Nuclear plants produce about 13 percent of Florida’s electricity, according to a state House analysis. But Florida hasn’t added new plants since the 1980s. Duke Energy Florida decided in 2013 to close a Crystal River nuclear plant after it sustained damage in a containment building.
Lawmakers this year passed a broad energy bill that included requiring a study about using advanced nuclear technology. Among other things, the study will look at the possibility of adding nuclear power at military bases.
Sher described the study as a “long-term view and a long game.”
Jacob Williams, general manager and CEO of the Florida Municipal Power Agency and chairman of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, said the state needs to diversify its energy sources, as about 75 percent of electricity is generated with natural gas. While utilities continue to build solar facilities, Williams said nuclear power could be important in meeting future needs.
“Florida sits like a sore thumb. We are the most dependent (part of the country) on a basically single source of electricity,” Williams said.

GRIDIRON PRAYER

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week upheld a lower court ruling that Tampa’s Cambridge Christian School didn’t have its First Amendment rights violated when it was blocked from offering a prayer over a stadium loudspeaker before a 2015 high-school football championship game.
The case was somewhat moot, however, because the Legislature in 2023 passed a law requiring that high schools be allowed to offer “brief opening remarks” – which could include prayers – before championship events.
The appeals-court panel’s 52-page opinion backed the Florida High School Athletic Association, which denied the request to offer a prayer before the 2015 championship game at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium. The court rejected Cambridge Christian’s arguments that the denial violated speech rights and the right to free exercise of religion.
U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell initially dismissed the case in 2017, but the Atlanta-based appeals court in 2019 overturned the dismissal and sent the case back to Honeywell for further consideration. That led to her 2022 judgment in favor of the association, which prompted another appeal by Cambridge Christian.
While the appeal was pending, the Florida Department of Education filed a brief backing the school, and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed the 2023 law. The appeals court said, however, it needed to rule on the First Amendment issues because Cambridge Christian sought “nominal damages.”

LESS VICE

Legislative budget leaders got a long-range economic overview on Friday.
A couple of issues should please the anti-vice crowd. Sales of packs of cigarettes are forecast to drop by 4.75 percent this fiscal year, which started July 1, and go down 3.75 percent in the upcoming 2025-2026 fiscal year. State tobacco revenue is expected to drop a little more than $30 million a year.
Meanwhile, economists reported that lottery ticket sales came in at $9.417 billion during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which ended June 30. That was down from $9.8 billion in the previous fiscal year and was $132.5 million less than anticipated.
The 2023-2024 total marked the fourth consecutive year of ticket sales above $9 billion, driven by a series of large jackpots in the multi-state Mega Millions and Powerball games. But economists project sales to be below $9 billion this fiscal year and during the next two years.
A big part of the decline in 2023-2024 was a 6 percent drop in scratch-off ticket sales.
Saba Igbal, senior economist in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, said scratch-off sales tracked the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and then inflation.
During an Aug. 8 meeting, Igbal said “people now have to spend more on kind of the necessities, as things are kind of more expensive. So, we’ve seen the ticket sales kind of start to come down to reflect that.”

STORY OF THE WEEK: Utility regulators talked about the possibility of expanding nuclear power in Florida.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Government officials are unlikely to admit outright that they violated the law.” – Lauren Zimmerman, an attorney who represents plaintiffs challenging the removal of the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three” from Escambia County school libraries.