Legislative Update #6, February 16, 2001

SB1355 community facilities districts (Bennett, Bee, Rios) removes restrictions for counties to establish Community Facilities Districts. It allows for the creation of a special taxing district for financing urban infrastructure at tax-exempt rates. Can you say SPRAWL? This will only serve to further subsidize the worst kind of development. WE OPPOSE IT.

SB1525 preservation of military airports (Hamilton, Bowers) makes numerous changes relative to military airports and is similar to HB2602 and HB2604. It says cities and counties must consult with military airports regarding general plans if there is a military airport in their territory. It requires disclosure regarding subdivisions near military airports, noise issues, and several other items. It seems okay.

HB2357 county powers (Flake, Brown, Anderson, et. al.) allows counties to implement ordinances without further specific legislative authority. This is probably a good idea.

HB2442 agricultural composting (Gleason) prohibits cities from regulating activities related to general agricultural purposes including composting. I suspect the cities will have a problem with this as it restricts local control of these activities.

HB2524 municipal development fees; notice (Flake) requires municipalities to give sixty instead of thirty days advance notice before assessing a new development fee or increasing a current development fee. I hear more developer whining.

HB2558 waste tires; funding formula (Binder) raises the cap (from $2 to $2.50) on how much a tire seller can collect on new tires for the disposal of used tires. It also changes the formula by which the dollars are distributed to the counties.

SB1292 land conservation fund; development rights (Cirillo) deletes the dollars for "conservation based management" contained in one of the Growing Smarter iterations and appropriates the $2 million for purchase of development rights. There will be an amendment in the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee to take the $2 million from the dollars available for matching grants for the acquisition of state trust lands and leave in the dollars for "conservation based management." That means there will be $4 million instead of $2 million in this fund with almost no accountability to the public, and $16 million instead of $18 million for matching grants. This may not technically violate the Voter Protection Act, but it certainly violates the spirit of it. When the public approved the $20 million per year, people were told it was for open space acquisition. At least if the property is acquired, the public can see some benefit from the use of their dollars. The Senate NRAE Committee approved it. WE OPPOSE THIS.

HCR2015 Court surcharges; transportation; traffic safety (May) attacks Clean Elections by eliminating the primary funding source of the Clean Elections Fund (10% surcharge on civil/criminal penalties) and allocating this surcharge to the Transportation & Safety Fund. Representative May should just knock it off and leave Clean Elections alone. WE OPPOSE THIS BILL.

HB2109 leaf blowers; area A (Weason, Allen, Binder, et. al.) bans the use of gasoline and diesel leafblowers in area A beginning January 1, 2002. Leaf blowers generate a significant amount of pollution in the urban areas. Although some leaf blowers are powered by electricity, many of the engines are still the gasoline-powered two-stroke engines, which pollute at a much higher rate than four-stroke engines. Some are diesel-powered and they too are a major source of pollution. Much of the pollution from the two-stroke engines comes from uncombusted oil and fuel and in particular the lubricating oil. Among the pollutants generated by these engines are Hydrocarbons - unburned or partially burned fuel that reacts in the atmosphere to form ground-level ozone. These engines also generate particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. Elimination of leaf blowers would reduce emissions from both combustion and fugitive dust. Alternatives to leaf blowers and other gasoline or diesel-powered lawn equipment include higher tech solutions such as cleaner burning engines and fuels, or low-tech products such as rakes and brooms. WE SUPPORT THIS BILL.

HB2449 air quality; carb diesel (Allen) requires mandatory adoption of California Air Resources Board (CARB) diesel in Area A. CARB diesel will help improve the brown cloud and reduce several air pollutants including particulates (PM10 and PM2.5), Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulfur Dioxide and Volatile Organic Compounds, plus have a positive impact relative to public health. Exposure to diesel exhaust has serious public health implications. Diesel exhaust contains numerous hazardous pollutants of which at least 15 are considered carcinogenic to humans. Exposure to diesel exhaust has also been associated with reduction in lung function and susceptibility to infection, among other things. While requiring use of CARB diesel in Area A is a good first step, we would like to see it implemented on a statewide basis. WE SUPPORT THIS BILL.

HB2577 emissions testing; heavy diesel vehicles (Allen, Weiers, Blendu, et. al.) sets up a program for testing out of state diesel vehicles for emissions, that means a snap idle smoke opacity test. If they fail they are issued a notice of violation, they have to repair the vehicle and pay a $150 fine, the next citation they must repair and a pay $300 fine, the next time the fine is $800. The program would be administered by ADOT, but it seems to me there should be some coordination with ADEQ. It seems like a good idea, but I want to look at it further.

HCR2002air quality; CARB diesel referendum (Allen) would refer to the ballot a measure to require CARB diesel in Area A. They should just pass HB2449.

House Committee on Natural Resources & Agriculture @ 9:30 a.m.

HB2481 aquaculture; protecting aquatic environment (Gleason) will have a strike everything amendment to require that someone who knowingly destroys a crop that is grown for personal or commercial purposes or for testing and research shall be liable for twice the value of the crop damaged. I think they are concerned about people trying to stop some of the biotech crops by destroying these genetically engineered mutant products. Remember the veggie hate crimes legislation? I guess they want more protection for these mutant plants than they do for people. It seems to me the existing statutes regarding trespass and destruction of property address this.

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 (Buckeye) to the fourth management period. This is probably okay as Buckeye has this waterlog problem. A good question is what are they going to do with the water considering its poor quality. Also, again, couldn't this wait until after the groundwater task force has made its recommendations at the end of this year?

SB1363 Prescott active management area (Bennett, Bundgaard, et. al.) requires the director of DWR to issue a certificate of assured water supply if the Director has previously found that there is sufficient water available to support it for the development and the applicant has made a substantial investment for infrastructure. There are other conditions. This bill will probably die or be amended significantly.

SB1375 sewage connection; requirements (Bowers) says a municipality cannot require people to hook up to city sewers if they already have a septic tank. This is not a good idea. Sometimes it is essential to get people to plug into sewers in order to better protect the water and wells from contamination. WE OPPOSE IT.

SB1396 urban land; recreational uses (Mitchell and others) relates to liability relative to open space and expands the immunity of cities and entities like SRP for their open space. The trial lawyers are opposing this. The cities want it.

SB1402 appropriation conservation program (Guenther, Arzberger, Bowers, and others) appropriates $165,000 from the state general fund in fiscal year 2001-2002 to the state treasurer for the Lower Colorado River multi-species conservation program. We are not supportive of this program because it appears to be a means to avoid providing greater protection for endangered species and for avoiding the provisions of the endangered species act, plus Mexico and its endangered species are totally ignored in this proposal. WE OPPOSE IT.

SB1429 hybrid vehicles; hov lane (Blanchard, Valadez, et. al.) allows the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight (gas/electric vehicles) to use the hov lanes. These cars get great mileage and have super low emissions. They did not qualify for any of Groscost's special alt fuels deals. We support this.

SB1430 natural gas vehicle service fee (Blanchard, Bowers, Peterson) eliminates the prohibition on a public power entity from charging a monthly service fee for natural gas provided for the refueling of vehicles through home refueling systems. This seems fine.

SB1506 asbestos abatement; repeal (Bennett, Cirillo, et. al.) repeals this program. That's okay, because there is a federal program in place.

SB1519 water; groundwater transportation (Hamilton, Guenther) expands the authority to withdraw groundwater in the Harquahala Irrigation Nonexpansion Area, to be transported to an initial active management area. At some point we need to consider the real impacts of moving around all this water. Again, shouldn't this wait until the task force finishes its work.

SCM1001 arsenic levels in drinking water (Bundgaard) asks the Congress of the United States do everything in its power to allow the EPA ample time to review information related to the arsenic rule and to consider lowering it. There are some inaccuracies in this. For example, it says throughout the memorial that EPA lowered the standard to 5ppb when they actually lowered it to 10ppb. You have to be careful taking these ALEC documents word for word. I think there is research to support the EPA findings and for the 10ppb level. The level proposed by EPA is consistent with the Safe Drinking Water Act, which directs EPA to establish national standards for contaminants in the public drinking water supplies and to establish enforceable standards at a concentration at which no adverse health effects in humans are expected to occur and for which there are adequate margins of safety. There are several studies to support the 10ppb standard. WE OPPOSE THIS.

HB2602 Military preservation (Marsh, Voss, Blendu, et. al.) and HB2604 Airports; military facilities; preservation (Marsh, Carruthers, Blendu, et al) are both intended to require more planning, notification, etc. regarding military airports apparently to alleviate the urban pressures and to keep the airports.