Legislative Update #12, March 30, 2001

SCR1005 S/E State trust Lands; Education 2000 (Bowers, Flake, et al.) refers to the ballot the changes that were made to the uses of the earnings from the state school trust land fund by Education 2000. By referring these changes to the ballot, the funding priorities for the state school trust land fund would require a _ vote of the Legislature in order to change the law if the ballot measure is passed. After certain conditions are met, any expendable earnings above the earnings in FY 2000-2001 will be deposited in the classroom site fund. WE ARE NEUTRAL.

 SB1472 S/E municipal zoning protests -- I am just watching this striker because of the subject.

SB1429 hybrid vehicles; hov lane (Blanchard, Valadez, et al.) allows the Toyota prius and Honda insight to use the hov lanes

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.

There are also several ballot measure bills, primarily bills dealing with local elections.

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 mean more leapfrog development like Anthem and is a big ol' subsidy for Del Webb, Suncor, Don Diamond and all of our friends in the master planned community business. WE OPPOSE IT.

SB1564 county infill incentives (Valadez, Soltero: Bee, et al.) authorizes counties to establish infill incentive districts in urbanized areas of a county if specified criteria are met. We are supportive of this and of infill incentives in general. Just a word of caution regarding this however, we need to be careful that we are not eliminating all of the affordable housing or running over neighborhoods in the name of redevelopment. WE SUPPORT THIS.

SB1565 county acquisition of development rights (Valadez, Bee, Hartley, et al.) allows a county board of supervisors to purchase, lease or transfer the development rights of private land within the county with monies from the development rights retirement fund or any other public or private source. We have the same concerns about this bill that we have about all of the purchase of development rights and conservation easement bills and that is the lack of accountability and public input that goes with the use of these public dollars. We would like to see some conditions established such as providing for a public hearing and opportunity for public review, ensuring that the property remain substantially undeveloped to protect the natural open space. They should also include monitoring and enforcement provisions. THIS APPEARS TO BE OKAY.

SB1122 sales tax exemption; pallets; containers (Hamilton) exempts the sale of reusable or returnable containers from sales tax. The reusable pallets are returned to a pooling company that rents the pallets to farmers and manufacturers. The idea is that it will help cut solid waste and reduce the use of lumber by encouraging the reuse of these pallets. WE SUPPORT THIS.

SB1249 diesel vehicles; fuels program continuation (Guenther, Allen) continues, for five years, the program to grant monies from the Arizona clean air fund (ACAF) for the conversion of heavy-duty diesel vehicles to operate on alternative fuel and increases the amount of money available from the ACAF for these grants. Eliminates all other uses of monies in the ACAF except for specified grants for constructing natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas refueling systems at gas stations around the state and to reduce the emissions test fees paid by motorists in Area A and Area B. Repeals the ACAF and the in lieu emissions test fee as of June 30, 2006.

SB1371 diesel program; application priority; correction (Guenther) is an emergency measure clarifying the priority of grants to be awarded from the Arizona clean air fund for the replacement or conversion of heavy-duty diesel vehicles to operate on alternative fuel.

Both of these bills are alt fuels bills that narrow the program to include only diesel vehicles.

HB2072 will have a strike everything amendment on eminent domain. This is probably the Marana bill.

SB1122 sales tax exemption; pallets; containers SEE ABOVE.

SB1194 appropriation; resin bush eradication (Arzberger, Brown, Guenther, et al) appropriates $185,000 from the general fund to the Gila Valley Natural Resource Conservation District for eradication of the sweet resin bush on state trust lands in Arizona. Dr. Joe McAuliffe from the Desert Botanical Garden has written a paper on this advising that we address eradication of it now. Our only concern continues to be with what type of herbicide they will use and what its impact will be on other plant species and wildlife. WE SUPPORT ERADICATION -- WITH CAUTION.

SB1275 nonnavigable streams; disclaimer of title (Guenther, Bowers) repeals the last four years worth of unconstitutional bills relating to the state's title to streambeds. That means we are now back to the question of navigability and back to where we were 14 years ago. It is time for the state to do the right thing and to objectively determine the navigability of Arizona's streambeds. Last year, the legislature passed SB1508, in 1999 it passed SB1133, and in 1998 it passed SB1126 to ratify recommendations by the Arizona Navigable Streambed Adjudication Commission (ANSAC) regarding the non-navigability of many of Arizona's rivers. Earlier this year, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that SB1126 was unconstitutional and that the proper standard for navigability was not being used. In light of that ruling, this bill has been amended significantly. Unfortunately, the bill gives the ANSAC even greater responsibility without establishing a new Commission. The current Commission has made it very clear that it is biased against determining any streambed as navigable and in fact included a statement in each of its determinations that makes its bias against navigability quite clear. The Commission's bias is contrary to the law and to good government. The law says that a "person who has expressed a desire that a watercourse in this state be determined to have been navigable or nonnavigable may not serve as a Commission member." Leaving this commission in place guarantees the same results. WE OPPOSE IT.

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

SB1519 NOW: industrial hemp; production; study (Hamilton; Guenther) allows ASU to study the use of industrial hemp.

SCR1004 state land exchanges; school lands (Bowers, Hamilton, Bundgaard, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure that allows for the exchange of state trust lands and also allows them to be donated for new school sites. SCR1004 states that the exchanges must be in the best interest of the trust and must be for preserving open space, agricultural lands or military airport buffer zones. The Legislature has tried four times to amend the Constitution in this manner; the voters rejected all of these measures. SCR1004 promises more of the same. It is clear the public does not trust the government with land deals, especially without adequate checks in place. While the proponents of SCR1004 have eliminated the provisions allowing for state-private exchanges, that is pretty meaningless. All the state has to do to facilitate a private exchange is use the federal government as the "middle man." The federal government is not limited in its land exchanges. WE OPPOSE IT.

HB2189 appropriation; agricultural preservation districts (Gleason) gives $7.5 million to these entities. It seems like an awful lot of money with very little in the way of accountability.

HB2408 water infrastructure finance authority specifies that Financial Assistance Loan Repayment Agreements entered into by WIFA are for construction of water and wastewater infrastructure and nonpoint source projects. It makes a lot of other changes. While we do not oppose this bill, I do think we would not have to worry as much about this if we were making developers pay their share of costs for infrastructure associated with development.

HB2426 environment; NPDES program (Huffman, Blendu, Graf, Landrum, et. al.), a bill which provides the foundation for ADEQ to pursue primacy for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program for discharges to surface waters, passed the House by only one vote. That means there may be some small chance to get positive changes regarding the bill in the senate. We do not believe the legislature will provide adequate funding for the program and we object to provisions that prohibit ADEQ from doing anything more stringent than the Clean Water Act. Really, what is the point if the Department cannot do this? We are also concerned about the level of enforcement -- in the bill everything is discretionary -- and about how ADEQ will address endangered species issues. We think the agency should be required to consult with U.S. Fish and Wildlife. WE OPPOSE IT.

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

HB2611 NOW: underground storage tank; fund transfers (Flake) establishes a Municipal Tank Closure and Corrective Action Program at ADEQ to assist small cities and towns in closing orphaned underground storage tanks and remediating releases discovered during the closure of those tanks. It also transfers unobligated monies in the UST grant account to the newly established municipal tank closure and corrective action program account by the end of 2001. The implications of this bill are more financial than environmental, so I really have no issues with it.