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Legislative Updates 2002To: Conservation Friends Howdy! Well, the legislature did not solve the budget impasse, but it did send a budget to the governor that does not take the Heritage Fund. Now we have to fight any raids in the fiscal year 2003 budget process. Please thank Senators and House Members for refraining from taking the Heritage Fund in this budget and ask them to do the same for 03. Also please call House members and ask them to oppose HB2638. The bill says that if any county adopts a planning designation in its comprehensive land use plan or a zoning regulation that causes a reduction in use or value of property of ten percent or more then that is considered a taking and the property owner is entitled to compensation. If HB2638 passes, it will result in a lot more litigation and will be costly to counties (county taxpayers) that are trying to plan and zone to protect the quality of life in their communities. Individuals do not have a right to speculate at taxpayer expense about a possible rezoning of their property in the future. The bill is aimed at undercutting the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and other planning efforts. Please focus on Representatives Linda Binder, Carmine Cardamone, Jim Carruthers, Cheryl Chase, Mark Clark, Jake Flake, Mark Maiorana, Gary Pierce, Tom O'Halleran, and Mike Gleason. If you can attend the hearing on Wednesday, please do! Ask your senators to oppose SB1274 state land; leases and improvements (Martin, Brown, Arzberger, Guenther). This imposes additional roadblocks on those who would bid on grazing leases for conservation purposes -- it makes it more costly to buy "improvements," limits the time for coming up with the dollars, and limits what can be done with the improvements. The State Land Department has drug its feet and refused to recognize that it is in the best interest of the trust to consider other applications for grazing leases -- even those that offered much more money. Now that the Supreme Court has told the Department to do so and before it has even considered one conservation grazing lease, the legislature -- at the request of the Land Department and the Cattlemen -- is erecting additional roadblocks. We believe that is inappropriate and that the Department actually ought to go through the process of considering a lease and identify in that process if it needs any additional legislation. How the Land Department can defend supporting this bill when its constitutional mandate is to do what is best for the Trust beneficiaries is beyond me. Here is what the court said about this," The Department, in other words, cannot use the classification system in such a manner as to discourage or automatically reject those who seek to lease grazing lands for restorative purposes." This bill clearly does that. Please call and remind senators to oppose SB1117 school buses; alternative fuels (Smith: Bennett), a measure which exempts schools from meeting alternative fuel goals for school buses. While we understand that the schools are asking for this due to financial constraints, we think it is a step backwards for air quality and the health of Arizona's children. Continuing to run the school buses on diesel fuel contributes to our air quality problems and affects the health of those who are exposed to the diesel exhaust. There are numerous studies that indicate a significantly higher cancer risk from exposure to diesel exhaust, not to mention the impact of the exposure of the children to the fine particulates in the exhaust. Coming up in the legislature this week: MONDAY Senate Committee on Finance at 9:00 a.m. in SHR1 SCR1002 will have a striker on military airports; land exchanges which refers to the ballot a measure which would allow state trust land to be exchanged for land in high noise and accident potential zones surrounding military airports. So how would this be in the best interest of the trust and the trust beneficiaries? We oppose this. Land exchanges need to be done very carefully and on a limited basis otherwise the public ends up getting a bad deal. TUESDAY House Committee on Counties and Municipalities at 8:00 a.m. in HHR5 HB2266 municipal zoning change; protest; requirements (Somers) changes the statues regarding a zoning protest and says that if a protest is filed by a single property owner who owns twenty percent or more of the areas in which the protest is allowed, then there must be a protest by at least one owner in another area. A person's ability to rezone is not blocked if the protest level is achieved; it simply kicks in the supermajority requirement so if the proposal is good enough, it will presumably be approved by the council. There's no reason for this change. WE OPPOSE IT. HB2644 lot splits; disclosure affidavits (O'Halleran, Allen, Pearce, et al) makes some limited changes to the disclosure affidavit associated with lot splits. It is positive, but is really not what is needed. WE ARE GENERALLY SUPPORTIVE. House Committee on Ways and Means at 8:49 a.m. in HHR4 HB2106 property tax classification; conservation easement (Huffman, Hershberger, Gullett, et al) lowers the rate at which property will be taxed if it has a conservation easement. WE SUPPORT IT. 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 Retirement and Government Operations at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3 HB2487 EMINENT DOMAIN (Farnsworth, Pearce, Anderson, et al) changes the conditions under which cities can use eminent domain in redevelopment areas -- limits it to elimination of slum or blight. House Committee on Environment at 1:00 p.m. in HHR5 HB2125 chemical fires response coordination (Landrum Taylor, Lopez L, Chase, et al) requires cities with a population of 75,000 or more persons to work with the state fire marshal to establish a permitting process that identifies and tracks commercial and industrial buildings that use or have hazardous materials on site. WE SUPPORT IT. HB2127 Hazardous chemical; right to know (Landrum Taylor, Lopez L, Chase, et al) provides for electronic filing of emergency and hazardous chemical inventory forms. WE SUPPORT IT. HB2130 hazardous waste facility; notice hearing (Gullett, Huffman, O'Halleran) is a vehicle bill, I believe. HB2315 waste permits; disparate impacts (Loredo, Avelar, Lugo, et al) will have a strike everything amendment to set up a study committee regarding the cumulative impact of hazardous waste and solid waste facilities. WE SUPPORT THE BILL. HB2545 environment; cumulative risk (Loredo, Lugo, Clark, et al) will have a strike everything amendment limiting to two years the amount of time a hazardous waste facility can operate with a temporary permit. WE SUPPORT THIS. HB2560 air quality fund; control measures (Gullett, Huffman, Loredo, et al) continues the new vehicle emissions fee and puts it into the air quality fund. It 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, and other measures that have been evaluated by ADEQ. WE SUPPORT IT. HB2563 water quality fund transfers; repeal (Huffman, Allen, Miranda, et al) repeals the transfer of funds from the Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund that was passed in the special session. WE SUPPORT IT. HB2585 air quality; regional haze program (Huffman, Allen, Gullett, et al) allows the ADEQ to begin 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 also may have a strike everything amendment. WE SUPPORT MOVING THIS FORWARD. HB2622 fire department; electronic reporting (Landrum Taylor, Giffords, Burton Cahill, et al) requires facilities that are subject to the emergency response regulations in cities with 75,000 or more persons to file an electronic format hazardous material inventory state and hazardous material management plans. WE SUPPORT IT. House Committee on Public Institutions and Rural Affairs at 1:30 p.m. in HHR4 HB2106 property tax classification; conservation easement See above. HB2594 water exchanges (Gleason) expands the conditions under which water exchanges can occur. WEDNESDAY House Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture at 9:00 a.m. in HHR4 HB2064 will have a strike everything amendment dealing with general industrial use permits. HB2162 state land; planning and administration (Flake, Gleason, Guenther, et al) makes numerous changes to the urban lands act. It will be amended to say leapfrog development and sprawl are fine with the land department as long as it is in the cities' or counties' plans. WE OPPOSE THIS BILL. 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. It extends the deadlines for adopting new general plans to December 2003 and requires that they continue to refer the plan until they get approval. WHATEVER. HB2638 local planning; grazing protection (McClure, Brimhall, Clark, et al) See above. HB2643 water protection fund; surcharge (O'Halleran) redirects, from the state general fund to the water protection fund in FY 2002-2003, revenues collected from the surcharge on leased Colorado River water. This at least restores a funding source for this program. WE SUPPORT IT. HB2649 land conservation fund allocation (Nelson, Hanson, Kraft, et al) allows State Parks to grant more than fifty percent of the Growing Smarter dollars to one county provided that the applications from all counties do not exceed the available dollars. I believe this is to address the fact that they cannot allocate these dollars because small communities and smaller counties cannot come up with the match. WE SUPPORT THIS. HB2655 aggregate mining community notice (Farnsworth) gives the state mine inspector more responsibility relative to sand and gavel operations and requires a community notice. It is unlikely that this will change much. The mine inspector is not strong relative to enforcement and mining operations. This could be worse than nothing. House Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5 HB2622 fire department; electronic reporting (Landrum Taylor, Giffords, Burton Cahill, et al) See above. HB2641 will have a striker on light pollution; government facilities (Hatch-Miller), which will restrict outdoor lighting. HB2693 clean power development (Graf, Chase, Flake, et al) will have a strike everything amendment on it. This amendment should make it state policy to encourage greater use of distributed electrical generation, clean energy resources, and energy efficiency. It also extends the renewable portfolio requirements to Salt River Project, among other things. I have not seen the final strike everything, but we like what we have seen. House Committee on Financial Institutions at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3 HB2023 will have a strike everything amendment dealing with clean burning fuel; credit banking and trading program. THURSDAY House Committee on Military, Veteran Affairs and Aviation at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5 HB2592 has a striker called Hunters Trespass -- it will require hunters to get the written permission of the property owner to pursue game on their property. HCR2036 initiative; appropriations; return to ballot (Marsh, Johnson; Blendu) is another attempt to limit citizens' rights to the initiative and referendum process. It says that any measure that allocates money from the general fund has to be submitted again to the voters every ten years. This process is so painful and difficult that I can't imagine having to resubmit measures every ten years. The legislature can re-refer a measure AT ANY TIME, if it has the votes. WE OPPOSE THIS. FRIDAY House Committee on Retirement and Government Operations at 9:00 a.m. in HHR4 HM2001 Picacho Peak state park expansion (Giffords, Loredo, Lopez, et al) recommends that Arizona State Parks take action to expand this park If we can hold on to the Heritage Fund and get full funding, it is a lot more likely. WE SUPPORT THIS.
Thanks for all your help! 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 go to http://www.arizonasenate.org/members.html for the Senate and to http://www.426-hemi.com/cars/azhouse.htm for the House. 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: 03/15/02Back to 2002 Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |