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Legislation approved by a House Committee Wednesday could cost Florida newspapers tens of millions of dollars.

It would remove the requirement that legal notices be published in daily or weekly papers, but the newspapers are fighting back.

Former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Kottkamp told lawmakers the audience for legal notices would be cut by 90 percent if they were only published on the government website.

“There are still large percentages of our population, Minority populations, over sixty-five that don’t use the internet, don’t have access to the internet. Frankly, if you want to hide information from the public, put it on a government website because nobody goes to government websites,” said Kottamp.

“What I would remind us is that the next time we are told we don’t spend enough money on healthcare, let’s remember that newspapers stood up here and said we need to spend money on newspaper ads. The next time we’re told by a newspaper we on’t spend enough money on education, let’s remember that the newspapers stood up here and said we ought to be forcing governments to pay for ads in their newspapers. The time for print ads has passed,” said Fine.

The law also requires notices of probate and even storage shed operators must print notices they intend to see someone’s belongings for non payment of storage fees.

How those would be published if the idea becomes law is yet to be worked out.