TALLAHASSEE -- A Florida House committee signaled its willingness Thursday to make official what has already happened in practice by passing a bill that could end the future development of nuclear power plants in Florida.

The House Energy and Utility Committee approved PCB 13-01 to prevent utility companies from charging customers for the development of nuclear plants before they obtain a license. It also precludes any new power plants from being eligible to collect the nuclear fees.

“This is only a start, but it should not go unnoticed this is a big start,’’ said Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, committee chairman.

Since the nuclear cost recovery statute was passed in 2006, Progress Energy has charged customers more than $1 billion to expand the now shutdown Crystal River nuclear power plant and to start developing a new nuclear power plant in Levy County. The company, which terminated the Crystal River project, does not have a permit for the Levy County project, but it has kept $150 million of the money in profits.

Florida Power & Light collected $511 million and used the money to finance expansions to its existing power plants at Turkey Point and in St. Lucie County. It has also proposed building two new reactors at Turkey Point but has not yet obtained a permit from the federal government to do it.

Now that FPL’s last expansion project is about to go online, the company is publicly objecting to the bill. The bill does not repeal the law until 2025, but limits utilities from collecting the money.

The bill is similar to a measure that passed a Senate committee early this week and is the first time in eight years that lawmakers have stood up to pressure from the powerful utility industry, which has fought any change to the 2006 law.

The House bill, however, is not only disliked by the utility industry, it also received a lukewarm reaction from consumer advocates. They say it doesn’t go far enough to cap the costs of speculative nuclear development and fails to encourage cost-efficient options to expensive power plant construction.

"Unfortunately, what is being proposed doesn’t fix the problem,’’ said Susan Glickman of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Florida’s utility regulation "rewards capital expenditure. Not only do we need to fix past mistakes, we need to avoid future ones."

Consumers groups for years have complained that the ability of Progress Energy and Florida Power & Light to charge customers for nuclear plants that may never may be completed was corporate welfare. The utility companies have said that customers will save money in the long run if they are charged for the development of the expensive nuclear plants before the projects are constructed.

The House bill imposes new restrictions that utility companies say will remove all incentives for them to develop nuclear options.

“This bill puts an end to nuclear power plants,’’ said Jerry Paul, a former nuclear reactor engineer with the Energy Information Center. Since nuclear power provides 73 percent of the nation’s no-emissions energy, he believes “a vote for this bill is a vote against cleaner air.”

But for Mary and Lee Wilkerson, small business owners who operate an upscale resort in Indian Rocks Beach near Clearwater, the Legislature’s support for expensive nuclear power is out of step with the public.