The Florida House on Tuesday adopted a measure preempts local governments from banning over-the-counter drugs and cosmetics, specifically sunscreens.
Senate Bill 172, the Florida Drug and Cosmetic Act, sponsored Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, was approved in a 68-47 House vote. The bill, approved by the Senate on Jan. 29 in a 25-14 vote, now goes to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk, where it awaits an uncertain fate.
Last year, DeSantis vetoed a similar preemption bill that prohibited local governments from banning plastic straws and has expressed home-rule reservations about another 2020 bill, House Bill 1011, which would forbid municipalities from regulating vacation rentals.
DeSantis on Feb. 24 said he was “leaning against” the state “micromanaging vacation rentals.”
The governor’s resistance to the state preempting home-rule oversight by locally elected officials will be balanced against fellow Republicans’ insistence that the Florida Drug and Cosmetic Act is more about safety than preemption.
Rep. Spencer Roach, R-North Fort Myers, who sponsored the House companion, called the bill a “cancer prevention” measure, noting Florida has the nation’s highest rate of skin cancers.
Roach said DeSantis found no compelling state interest in preventing local regulation of plastic straws, but “that is not the case here.”
“There is absolutely a compelling state interest in protecting the health and safety of our citizens in allowing them to choose to purchase, use and apply what three decades of research has told us is the best and most effective cancer prevention on the market,” he said.
The bill was filed in response to Key West’s ban on sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate because the chemicals allegedly damage coral reefs.
That contention has been challenged in a study by the Legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability (OPPAGA), which concluded oxybenzone and octinoxate would impact coral reefs and marine life only in “concentration levels generally not observed in nature.”
The OPPAGA study also said even if sunscreens with the chemicals were banned, oxybenzone and octinoxate still would be found in seawater from “wastewater effluent, leaching from plastics and leaching from hull paints on ships.”
Rep. Ralph Massullo, R-Beverly Hills, a dermatologist, said sunscreens being marketed as “reef safe” are commonly zinc-based, which are thick, stain and are difficult to apply.
“If we don’t have evidence that is good, that is verified, we cannot allow these communities to ban sunscreens,” he said. “We have plenty of empirical evidence that sunscreens are very, very important to our society, that they save lives. By banning them, we’ll be threatening lives.”
Rep. Javier Fernandez, D-South Miami, said the same OPPAGA study and consumer research reports cited by proponents also document that “more than 6,000 tons of sunscreen wash up on coral reefs across the globe each year. These are concentrated clusters at popular dive and snorkeling locations like our national marine sanctuaries.”
Fernandez called the bill a “gross overreaction to what has been a measured and reasonable limitation passed by the city of Key West.”
Rep. Sam Killebrew, R-Winter Haven, joined Democrats in opposing the measure.
“With the federal and state governments spending resources to protect the coral reefs, it is counterintuitive that, today, we’re voting to block local governments from protecting the same coral reefs,” he said.
The bill was supported by Johnson & Johnson, which manufactures sunscreens with oxybenzone; the Florida Chamber of Commerce; the Florida Retail Federation; and the Florida Society of Dermatology & Dermatologic Surgery.
The Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation are among organizations that opposed the measure.
