Citrus greening bill closer to Florida House approval

The Florida Current reports that a bill urging federal support "for Florida's efforts to battle citrus greening easily cleared its only two committee stops this week."

The bill passed the House State Affairs Committee on Friday. Earlier in the week, Rep. Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, told the Local & Federal Affairs Committee that citrus greening has been "clearly catastrophic" to the industry.

The Current also reports that "The federal dollars will be in addition to proposed state spending included in the rival House and Senate budgets for fiscal year 2014-15.

"The House is proposing $13.7 million for citrus greening response including $4 million for citrus research, $7.2 million for the citrus health response program and $2 million for the citrus repository and budwood labs.

"The Senate has $6.5 million for citrus greening and budwood facilities, Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government, told the Senate on April 3. Budget conference committees are expected to begin meeting on April 21."

For more information, and to read the whole article, visit the Current's website.