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Legislative Update #4, February 8, 2002by Sandy Bahr, Conservation Outreach Director, Sierra Club To: Conservation Friends Hi Everyone! I think we are making a little headway with the argument that the Heritage Fund should not be swept up in the budget mess. Please call Senators, House Members, and the Governor and ask them all to refrain from taking any of the Heritage Fund to make up budget deficits. Also, please go to www.arizonaheritagealliance.org and sign their on line petition. Please call House Members again and ask them to oppose HCR2018 initiative and referendum; filing requirements (McClure: Huppenthal, Andersen, et al). This bill refers to the ballot a measure that requires that a certain percentage of the signatures for an initiative measure come from three different counties (it was amended on the floor to reduce the number of counties to three). It's hard enough to gather the required signatures without trying to make sure you have all the percentages from the counties right. Ask your legislators not to undermine this important Constitutional right. Coming up in the legislature this week: MONDAY Senate Committee on Finance at 8:30 a.m. in HHR3 SB1336 sales tax; contractor's solar exemption (Yrun, Cardamone, Graf, et al) makes clarifying changes to this sales tax exemption, which, unlike the alternative fuels program, has a cap on it. WE SUPPORT THIS. House Committee on Transportation on 1:30 p.m. in HHR2 HB2496 vehicles of historic value; registration (Cooley, Robson, Chase, et al) has a strike everything amendment that expands the transportation board and requires that they look at multi-modal transportation. WE SUPPORT THIS. HB2501 emissions testing; motorcycles (Cooley, Giffords, Chase, et al) has a strike everything amendment that says ADEQ must ask EPA to exempt motorcycles and collectable vehicles from the emissions requirements. This is bad idea, especially at a time when we are trying to achieve compliance with existing standards. WE OPPOSE THIS. TUESDAY House Committee on Counties and Municipalities at 8:30 a.m. in HHR5 HB2104 county acquisition of development rights (Huffman, Hershberger, O'Halleran, et al) allows counties to purchase or lease development rights. This is a tool Pima County would like for use in the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. WE SUPPORT THIS. HB2381 initiative and referendum; pamphlet; signatures (McClure; Anderson, Binder, et al) requires the secretary of state to produce an official title for the initiative, require a legislative council review of the measure, and would hold the campaign committee liable for the county's costs (not to exceed 50 cents per signature) for examination and verification of the signatures if more than a third of the signatures that are turned in are invalid. WE OPPOSE THIS. House Committee on Retirement and Government Operations at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3 HB2133 environmental quality; reports (Gullett, Huffman, O'Halleran) is a vehicle bill. HB2317 alternative fuel safety; study committee (Loredo, Avelar, Clark, et al) establishes a committee to review safety concerns associated with alternative fuel vehicles. I'm not sure exactly why this is needed. HB2462 annexation; county land; restrictions (Gullett, Kraft: Cheuvront, et al) prohibits a city or town for annexing a county park without agreement from the county. This seems like a good bill to me. The cities are opposing it. House Committee on Environment at 1:00 p.m. in HHR5 HB2103 clean burning fuel: definitions (Huffman, Allen, Gullett, et al) includes low-sulfur diesel in the alternative fuels category. I am not convinced this is such a grand idea. We should be requiring low sulfur diesel anyway. Why give it all the extra benefits associated with much lower emission vehicles and fuels? HB2374 diesel fuel reporting; repeal (Huffman, Guenther, Allen) repeals these reporting requirements. Apparently the Department of Weights and Measures says it is not needed. I will need to look into this one further. HB2560 air quality fund; control measures (Gullett, Huffman, Loredo, et al) puts the new vehicle emissions fee into the air quality fund and requires that these dollars only be used for the specific purposes outlined in the bill and specifically for Area A (Phoenix area) and Area B (Tucson area). The funds can be used for air quality research for improving or maintaining attainment status and specifically reducing emissions of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds. The measures that are included in the bill include a voluntary lawn and garden equipment emissions reduction program, a voluntary vehicle repair and retrofit program, the diesel vehicle low emission incentive grant program, voluntary accelerated purchase of tier 2 and 3 equipment, local grants for particulate efficient street sweepers, and other measures that have been evaluated by ADEQ. It also allows incentive grants for cleaner burning diesel vehicles. This overall seems like a positive bill to me. WE SUPPORT IT. HB2585 air quality; regional haze program (Huffman, Allen, Gullett, et al) allows the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to participate in a regional haze program designed to identify and reduce pollution around Class I areas including places like the Grand Canyon National Park. The program will include monitoring, reduction of stationary and mobile emission sources, etc. This appears to be moving in the right direction. HB2601 growing smarter; planning and zoning (Huffman, Allen, Arzberger, et al) makes changes to the required water element for general plans -- they have to identify the known legally and physically available water in the plans and include an analysis of how the demands for water associated with growth will be met. It states that no additional hydrogeological studies are required. I am not sure how certain parts of the state will get the needed information without further studies, however. It extends the deadlines for adopting new general plans to December 2003. It is difficult to get too excited about anything relating to Growing Smarter as the base laws does very little. These changes seem relatively insignificant, but I guess the bill is probably here to justify the time people put into that Growing Smarter Oversight Commission. House Committee on Public Institutions and Rural Affairs at 1:30 p.m. in HHR4 HB2378 parks and recreation district (McClure, Somers, Binder, et al) allows the counties to establish special parks and recreation districts in unincorporated areas if there is a petition from ten percent of the qualified electors in the county. WE SUPPORT THIS. House Committee on Judiciary at 1:30 p.m. in HHR3 HCR2012 state lottery; continuation (Allen, O'Halleran, Huffman, et al) refers to the ballot a continuation of the state lottery. We care about this because all of the dollars for the Heritage Fund come from the lottery. Of course, we care a lot less about this if the Governor and Legislature are successful in sweeping the Heritage Fund. WE SUPPORT IT. WEDNESDAY House Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture @ 9:00 a.m. in HHR4 First there will be a presentation on the Governor's Water Management Commission Recommendations. HB2582 governor's water management commission amendments (O'Halleran, Carruthers, Hatch-Miller, et al) is an enormous bill that is intended to implement the recommendations of the above named commission. I have not read the entire bill, but it is my understanding that it does contain a tiny bit of recognition regarding the connection between groundwater pumping and riparian areas. HB2594 water exchanges (Gleason) expands the conditions under which water exchanges can occur. I am not sure about this one. In subcommittee, HB2162 state land; planning and administration (Flake, Gleason, Guenther, et al) makes numerous changes to the urban lands act. It changes the definition of leapfrog development. Under the new definition, Anthem would not be considered leapfrog development. It says as long as the developer is providing financing for "those facilities and services," it's not leapfrog development. It also says that infrastructure that crosses identified open space is not leap frog development. The bill redefines urban sprawl to say that urban sprawl is not a development where it requires the extension of facilities and services across conserved areas and again if the developer is providing financing for facilities and services. The Land Department seems to want a license for leapfrog development. THURSDAY Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment at 8:30 a.m. in SHR1 The agenda is not yet posted so we don't know what new bills they will consider this week. They will look at HB2022 water; best management practices agriculture, which is supposed to be amended to address concerns that Tucson has about this program creating additional agricultural groundwater pumping.
Thanks for all your help! If you are getting this via the U.S. mail and now have an email address, please call and let me know. It helps save paper and money. For more information on legislation go to the web page at 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. If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to www.vote-smart.org or call the House or Senate information desks. Page updated: 02/08/02Back to 2002 Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |