TALLAHASSEE — It’s the last bill left.

As of midday Friday, the House and Senate have sent Gov. Rick Scott 271 of the 272 bills passed in the 2016 session. Scott has approved 206 bills, vetoed one bill and 64 bills are pending in his office.

The lone holdout is Senate Bill 668, which would overhaul Florida’s alimony laws while also creating a 50-50 child-sharing standard, which has drawn opposition from the Family Law Section of The Florida Bar, which wants Scott to veto the bill.

Holding a bill is one of the post-session strategies used by legislative leaders. In theory, it gives advocates of the legislation more time to make their case to the governor for approving the measure once it reaches his desk. Of course, it also gives opponents time to make their counter-argument.

But the decision to send the bill to the governor is entirely in the hands of the House speaker and Senate president. The alimony bill actually received its final vote, 74-38, in the House on March 8, with a 24-14 prior approval in the Senate on March 4.

Once the bill is sent to Scott, he will have 15 days to act on the measure.

For some context, Scott, who is a conservative Republican like the legislative leaders, has not been aggressive with his use of his veto power on individual bills. With action on more than three-quarters of the bills passed this year, Scott has only vetoed one measure (HB 1355), objecting to a provision that would have allowed members of a utility authority in Gainesville to be paid.

Last year, Scott vetoed seven of the 227 bills that reached his desk. In his re-election year, Scott only vetoed one bill after the 2014 session.

His high-point in vetoed bills was the 2012 session, when he vetoed 12 measures.

He vetoed 11 bills in 2013, with one of those bills being the Legislature’s last attempt to revise Florida’s alimony and child-support laws.

Lower gas prices boost economy

A new update on Florida’s economy by the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research makes the gas that lower gas prices have helped boost consumer spending in the nation’s third-largest state.

As of March 24, the average price of gas was $2.054 per gallon, based on AAA data, compare to $2.427 a year earlier, the report showed.

“Consumers in Florida have generally treated the lower gas prices as a one-time windfall or dividend, boosting consumer spending,” the report said.

Using data from IHS (Global Insight), state economists said Americans spent $750 less per household on gas in 2015 than they did in 2014. In Florida that translated into an additional $5.86 billion in consumer spending.

If all that spending was on taxable sales, it would have resulted in a $350 million increase in sales tax collections, the primary source of funding for the state government. The economists said it was one of the reasons for a projected increase in sales tax collections last summer, although it was adjusted downward in January.

A similar consumer spending boost may occur this year, with IHS projecting households will spend $380 less at the pumps in 2016 than they did in 2015. But state economists said there is a downside to the continuing trend of lower gas and oil prices.

“However, prices have fallen so low that the negative effects on the world economy have begun to dominate the positives,” the report said.

Lloyd Dunkelberger covers the Legislature for GateHouse Florida. Contact him at lloyd.dunkelberger@gmail.com.

WINNER OF THE WEEK: The “Cat” Fund. As the 2016 hurricane season approaches, Ash Williams, head of the State Board of Administration, reported the Hurricane Catastrophe Fund is in its best-ever financial shape. The fund, which provides a critical financial backstop to the insurance industry, is prepared to provide up to $17 billion in extra storm damage coverage, Williams said. It would be enough to handle a storm like 1992’s Andrew, which resulted in $26 billion in damages in 2015 dollars, but it would fall short of a storm like Katrina, which resulted in some $80 billion in losses in the Gulf of Mexico states in 2005.

LOSER OF THE WEEK: League of Women Voters. In a 4-3 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ruled the state does not have to reimburse the LWV and other members of a voting coalition for legal fees related to the successful appeal of a case that overturned Florida’s congressional district lines. The appeal resulted in the redrawing of the congressional districts to conform with a constitutional ban on gerrymandering. Last month, the LWV also lost an appeal at the 1st District Court of Appeal, where the coalition was seeking reimbursement for the circuit-court trial costs in the congressional redistricting case.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “With news that the Connecticut Legislature wants to unfairly tax one of the nation’s most renowned universities to deal with the state’s budget shortfall, it is clear that all businesses in Connecticut, including Yale, should look to move to Florida,” Gov. Rick Scott said. Yale declined the offer.