Johnnie Byrd's plan would add $2 to Florida gun purchases to clean up polluted gun ranges.
By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published March 5, 2004
TALLAHASSEE - House Speaker Johnnie Byrd on Thursday endorsed a proposal to charge gun buyers a special fee to clean up polluted gun ranges.
It was a surprising move for Byrd, who has consistently opposed new taxes of any kind and is in a fiercely competitive Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in which gun owners make up an important voting bloc.
Byrd called a proposed $2 fee on Florida gun purchases "a logical way" to help cover the cost of cleanups.
"There may be some way we can have a fee that is directly paid by the sale of guns or ammunition or something like that," Byrd told reporters.
Byrd's announcement came the same day Gov. Jeb Bush reiterated his opposition to exempting gun ranges from state environmental regulations.
Bush said he is concerned "that we don't create a blanket exemption from liability of polluters." He said he would consider a limited exemption if range owners agree to enact environmentally sound policies.
Spurred on by a Pinellas Park case, the Legislature is moving quickly to pass a law that prohibits the state, cities or counties from suing gun ranges to require cleanups. The bills exempt ranges from any cleanup costs if they inform the state by 2005.
The bill has the support of the National Rifle Association, which says the state has jeopardized the Second Amendment rights of gun owners by aggressively policing the gun ranges.
The NRA supports the proposed fees, which include higher license renewal fees for nearly 500,000 gun owners and a new $12 annual fee for every Florida police officer. The fee would be paid by officers' employers under the House bill (HB 149), which is sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.
"Gun owners are very responsible. We always pay our own way," said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer.
A state lawsuit against the Skyway Trap & Skeet Club in Pinellas Park for alleged lead and arsenic pollution would be dismissed within 30 days of the bill becoming law. The federal government and private landowners could still sue ranges.
Bush said the gun bill was moving at "warp speed" before he "slowed it down."
"I hope we can find some common ground on this," Bush said.
Environmentalists have criticized the proposals, saying taxpayers should not have to pay to clean up pollution caused by a private business. They most strongly oppose a part of the bill that makes it a crime, punishable by as much as a year in jail, if any government employee takes action against a range after the bill is enacted.
"This bill is illogical," said Susie Caplowe, a Sierra Club lobbyist. "It's punishing the people that we employ to protect us from polluters and it's saying to the polluter that it's okay to pollute."
House Democratic Leader Doug Wiles, D-St. Augustine, said that as a gun owner, he opposed "a new tax on gun owners ... just to bail out a well-connected gun range owner in Pinellas County."
But Byrd, who has steadfastly opposed new taxes, said the new charge is a fee, not a tax, because it would be paid by gun owners, who are the biggest customers of Florida ranges.
"A fee is something where a user pays for a specific activity," Byrd said. "A tax is where you take money and put it in the general fund, and apply it for all kinds of things."
The Senate bill (SB 1156) first proposed increasing licensing fees for security guards, firearms instructors and people who hold concealed weapons permits. The House version now contains similar provisions. The money would be set aside in a new "Shooting Range Cleanup Trust Fund."
Bush has criticized the proliferation of such trust funds because he says they make it difficult to balance the state budget.
- Times staff writer Joni James contributed to this report.
