FYI Miami: July 4, 2024

Below are some of the FYIs in this week’s edition. The entire content of this week’s FYIs and Insider sections is available by subscription only. To subscribe click here.

TECH HUB FUNDED: A South Florida effort to find climate change solutions will get $19 million in tech hub funds announced Tuesday by the White House. The South Florida ClimateReady Tech Hub, led by the Miami-Dade’s Office of Innovation and Economic Development, is one of 12 such tech hubs across the nation that got a total of $504 million. South Florida’s hub focuses on “scaling climate resilient infrastructure” to address issues such as flooding. “Miami-Dade is proud to collaborate with public sector, academic, and private partners from Broward, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties on this groundbreaking initiative,” said County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. “This funding marks a pivotal moment for South Florida,” said Francesca de Quesada Covey, the hub’s regional innovation officer and chief innovation and economic development officer of Miami-Dade. “The ClimateReady Tech Hub is not only the only recognized hub focused on finding solutions to our pressing climate challenges but also brings economic benefit in jobs and increased GDP to all of our communities.”

LINKING TRANSIT DATA: A requirement to move data from 35 separate transit systems onto a single app in a way that would link the schedules and routes for passengers throughout Miami-Dade County got an endorsement last week from the Citizens’ Independent Transportation Trust. The legislation would require the data from each municipal system to be fed to the county to meld together. They already file the information, but not in formats that can be easily combined in real time to be useful to riders in planning their trips. The legislation is now before county commissioners for action.

POWER OUTAGES CASE: Florida Power & Light has urged an appeals court to reject a rehearing request in a suit alleging that FPL didn’t meet obligations to help prevent power outages during Hurricane Irma. A brief said the 3rd District Court of Appeal shouldn’t reconsider a May 22 ruling that dealt a blow to the lawsuit, as a three-judge panel backed FPL’s arguments that the state Public Service Commission has authority to determine whether the utility met obligations during the hurricane. The panel reversed decisions that said customers could pursue a class-action lawsuit against FPL, sent the case back to Miami-Dade County circuit court and ordered a judge to stay the lawsuit while “threshold issues” are resolved. In the brief FPL’s attorneys said the panel ruled correctly and that such issues should go before the Public Service Commission. “There is nothing unreasonable, let alone absurd, about assigning jurisdiction over complex regulatory questions to the PSC,” the brief said.