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Legislative Updates 2002

To: Conservation Friends
From: Sandy Bahr, Conservation Outreach Director, Sierra Club
Date: May 17, 2002
Re: Legislative Update #18

Hi all! This week I thought I would start with a bit of good news. The Legislature should finish this session next week, so perhaps we can all break away for a bit. In other good news, the Senate has amended the budget bill to hold the Heritage Fund harmless. This is a pretty big deal considering the governor proposed sweeping this fund in both the 02 and 03 budgets. The bad news is the state parks budget has been decimated overall and it is very likely that the agency will face closing some parks this summer. The budget still needs to be passed by both houses, so we will continue to monitor and watch for shenanigans.

Please make one more call this session and ask your house members to oppose HB2162 state land; planning and administration (Flake, Gleason, Guenther, et al). Apparently, the State Land Commissioner has some big sprawl development he wants to promote and is concerned that the existing law might get in his way. The "notwithstanding" language in 37-132 Section (B) 8 of the bill effectively negates the anti sprawl language in Section 37-132 (A) 4 which states the commissioner shall "Promote the infill and orderly development of state lands in areas beneficial to the trust and prevent any urban sprawl or leapfrog development on state lands." The bill also deletes the word "any" in the prior sentence.

UPDATE ON A FEW BILLS:

HB2032 NOW: county planning; land (Huffman) says that county plans may not prevent, restrict or otherwise regulate the use or occupation of land or improvements for railroad, mining, metallurgical, grazing or general agricultural purposes, if the tract concerned is five or more contiguous acres. It further modifies the provisions that allow counties to purchase or lease development rights. It was amended in a conference committee to include the provisions of SB1353 which establishes the Arizona Agricultural Heritage Commission and the Arizona agricultural heritage fund within the Department of Agriculture, for the purpose of purchasing agricultural easements. This awaits final passage in the House and Senate.

HB2560 air quality fund; control measures (Gullett, Huffman, Loredo, et al) was amended on the Senate Floor to include a provision regarding the phase out of diesel buses in the schools. We are not too thrilled with this provision as it allows schools to meet the requirements by using low sulfur diesel, instead of something cleaner. The bill continues the new vehicle emissions in lieu fee and puts it into the air quality fund. The funds can be used for improving or maintaining attainment status and specifically reducing emissions of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, volatile organic compounds, and hazardous air pollutants. 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. This passed on Final Read in the House 42-15-3.

HB2585 air quality; regional haze program (Huffman, Allen, Gullett, et al) passed on Final Read in the House 52-5-3. The bill allows the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (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. It was amended to say that ADEQ could only proceed under the 309 provisions of the federal regulations if it is determined that mobile source emissions from areas within the state do not contribute significantly to visibility impairment in any of the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission Class I Areas. That part of it was ridiculous.

HB2622 NOW: hazardous materials; planning; filing (Landrum Taylor, Giffords, Burton Cahill, et al) passed on Final Read in the House 49-8-3. It allows 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 statement and hazardous material management plans.

HB2693 NOW: renewable resource study committee (Graf, Chase, Flake, et al) establishes a renewable energy study committee to evaluate state and federal policies that hinder or encourage the use of renewable energy resources. This passed 39-17-4 on Final Read in the House.

SB1354 protected development rights; procedures (Guenther, Brown, Weiers, et al) passed out of the House 39-18-3 and the Senate 19-8-3 and was signed by the Governor. The bill allows phased development plans to be submitted as protected development right plans. It really gives the big developers more leverage in the planning process.

Thank you for all your help!

To email legislators go to http://www.arizonasenate.org/members.html for the Senate and to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/members/45leg/house.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. 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. For more information on legislation go to the web page at www.azleg.state.az.us.

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