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| Political Action |
Legislative Update #1, January 12, 2001by Sandy Bahr, Conservation Outreach Director, Sierra Club Happy New Year! I hope you all are doing well and are ready for the coming legislative session. I want to thank you for all you do and to remind you that your calls, letters, and emails do make a difference. If you are receiving this update via the US mail and now have an email address, please contact me so I can switch you to the email list. If any of you have suggestions on improving this effort, please do not hesitate to contact me. The outlook for this session is slightly better than in past years. There is a 15-15 split in the Senate and a shared power arrangement, but best of all Senator Rusty Bowers is not a committee chair and does not have his little environmental subcommittee -- a place where all good bills went to die and the bad bills just got worse. This week the Senate is addressing a very important issue; they will hold a confirmation hearing in the Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Committee on Thursday at 8:30a.m. Please attend if you can but definitely take the time to call, write, or email your senator and ask her/him to oppose the confirmation of Sue Chilton to the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. (Calls are preferable, but if you email, please include your name, address, and telephone number and don't forget to tell them you are a constituent.) We are urging the Senate to reject this confirmation because Sue Chilton has:
Sue Chilton is a partner in the Chilton Ranch and Cattle Company; she and her husband have the 27,000-acre Montana Allotment, most of which is public land within the Coronado National Forest. Because it is part of the National Forest system, the allotment is subject to periodic environmental assessments. The Game and Fish Department routinely submits comments on the condition of grazing allotments from a wildlife perspective; the Department's analysis of the Montana allotment indicated it was overstocked and that livestock were damaging habitat for endangered species. Ms. Chilton has repeatedly attempted to remove all official Arizona Game and Fish input into the U.S. Forest Service Environmental Assessment of the Montana Allotment. This is a conflict of interest, as she will benefit financially if the Department backs off on its recommendations regarding the Chiltons' allotment and the Chiltons are allowed to increase the number of cattle. Beyond that, Ms. Chilton's has also attacked the expertise of individuals in the Game and Fish Department. In her comments on Wildlife 2006, a Game and Fish document used to guide wildlife management, Ms. Chilton makes several disturbing recommendations. While asking that the Department use the "best science" relative to wildlife and recreation decisions, she then asks for arbitrary reductions in the number of elk and the number of mountain lions. She provides no basis for these recommendations. Ms. Chilton also asks the Department to provide compensation where wildlife had reduced the value of private property. This comment itself demonstrates quite clearly that Ms. Chilton does not understand the Commission's public trust responsibility for wildlife. She goes on to ask the Department to delete language that states, "For many other species, especially those tied to permanent surface water or natural riparian vegetation, the future is not so bright." She asserted, "This is unsubstantiated hyperbole. The sort of out of context newspapers love to lift . . . ." In another part of the document she says that it "is probably not true" that riparian areas are disappearing. In effect, Ms. Chilton asks the Department to deny the reality that these species are threatened by past and future activities associated with water diversion and riparian destruction and to also deny the science that supports it.
We believe that Ms. Chilton does not meet the requirements of the statute and that there are significant questions about her ability to fulfill the mission of the Game and Fish Commission. The statute requires that a Commissioner be well informed about wildlife and its conservation, but Ms. Chilton, in the time she has been in the public eye, has demonstrated little knowledge about wildlife or interest in its conservation. She has had little, if any, involvement with hunting, fishing or wildlife conservation in Arizona. In addition to the hearing the Chilton nomination, the legislature is doing the following: Monday January 15th House Committee on Commerce and Economic development @ 1:30 p.m. HB2023 Sale of Subdivided lands (Huffman, Leff, Somers) exempts the sale of certain lots in subdivisions from notifying the real estate commissioner of several things -- name and address of subdivider, legal description, etc. if there were five previous sales in that same subdivisions by the seller. We will keep an eye on this one. Wednesday January 17th House Committee on Natural Resources, & Agriculture @ 8:30 a.m. HB2020 groundwater exemptions; management periods (Gleason) extends exemptions from irrigation water duties, conservation requirements, and portions of groundwater withdrawal fee for portions of Phoenix active management area to the fourth management period. Thursday January 18th Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Committee @ 8:30 a.m. Sue Chilton nomination (see above) Thanks for all your help! For more information on legislation go to the web page http://www.azleg.state.az.us. If you're outside the Phoenix area, you can call your legislator's office toll free at 1-800-352-8404. In the Phoenix area call (602) 542-3559 (Senate) or (602) 542-4221 (House). Correspondence goes to 1700 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890. To email legislators use first initial + 7 letters of surname@azleg.state.az.us. Page updated: 1/12/01 Back to Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |