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Legislative Updates 2003"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about
things that matter." To: Conservation Friends Howdy! Thanks for your help. This week please call members of the House Environment Committee and ask them to support HB2322 and HB2324 and to support renewable energy and energy efficiency. (See bill details below.) Committee members include Representatives: Hart, Rosati, J. Allen, Alvarez, Bustamante, Clark, Graf, C. Gray, Gullett, Huffman, Landrum Taylor, and Tully. For emails and phone numbers go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp?Body=H or refer to the bottom of this alert. Also, please call members of the Senate Natural Resources and Transportation Committee and ask them to oppose SCR1012 (details below). The exact same language was just rejected by the voters last fall. Land exchanges are almost always bad deals for the public. Finally, HCR2017 and HCR2023 were not heard in Judiciary last week; so if you did not have a chance to call then, please consider it now. Here's what's up at the legislature this week: Monday, February 10th House Committee on the Environment at 1:30 p.m. in HHR4 HB2322 sales tax; contractor's solar exemption (Graf, Pearce, Anderson, et al) makes clarifications in the sales tax exemption for solar contractors - both the sale and installation are exempt up to $5,000. We support this. HB2324 state building; energy conservation standards (Graf: Downing, Jayne, et al) requires the state to reduce energy consumption in state buildings by 10% by 2008 and 15% by 2011. It also requires the purchase of EnergyStar products unless it is shown that they are not cost effective over their lifetime. It also updates the energy conservation standards reference for state buildings. We support this bill. HB2362 alternative fuel safety study committee (Clark: Barnes, Bradley, et al) establishes this committee to look at safety and related issues relative to alternative fuel vehicles. House Committee on Transportation at 1:30 p.m. in HHR3 House Committee on Commerce and Military Affairs at 1:30 p.m. in HHR5 HB2341 structural pest control commission (Reagan, Hershberger, Meza, et al) makes significant changes to this law including requiring licensing of applicators and allowing only licensed applicators to apply pesticides in schools. It looks like overall it is tightening things up, but I want to look at it a little more closely. Tuesday, February 11th House Committee on Public Institutions and Counties at 8:30 a.m. in HHR5 HB2194 community facilities districts; county authority (Huffman) allows counties to set up these districts for preservation of open space. Why not? House Committee on Financial Institutions and Insurance at 1:00 p.m. in HHR3 HB2341 structural pest control commission (Reagan, Hershberger, Meza, et al) See above. House Committee on Appropriations at 1:00 p.m. in HHR1 HB2328 income tax checkoff; state parks (Graf, Pearce: Biggs) establishes an income tax check off for a state parks enhancement fund for capital improvements. It is only available to those who file tax forms electronically. We support this. Senate Natural Resources and Transportation at 1:30 p.m. in SHR1 SB1094 hybrid vehicles; HOV lanes (Mead, Giffords: Hershberger) allows hybrids to use the HOV lanes. Those big Suburbans with a tiny propane tank can use them, so why not a vehicle that really reduces emissions. We support it. SCR1012 military base preservation initiative (Blendu, Binder, Martin et al) contains not one word related to military base preservation and is a blatant attempt to mislead the public. It refers to the ballot a measure that is identical to Proposition 101, which was on the ballot last fall and was defeated by the voters. The voters have rejected land exchange ballot measures five times already, but the Arizona Legislature does not want to take "no" for an answer. SCR1012 allows the state land commissioner to trade away state land and open up more public land to development, including more than 200,000 acres of land near the Grand Canyon. Land exchanges are almost always a bad deal for the public. Federal land management agencies have had land exchange authority for the past decade. Even though they are required to do thorough reviews and ensure that the trade is in the public interest, they still have great difficulties. The General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report in June 2000 where it examined a total of 51 land exchanges most of which occurred in the west. GAO auditors found that often the public lands were being undervalued while the private lands were being overvalued, resulting in significant losses to taxpayers. The agency also found that many of these exchanges had questionable public benefit. Wednesday, February 12h House Committee on Natural Resources, Ag, Water & Native American at 8:30 a.m. in HHR4 Department of Water Resources presentation on Rural Water Issues HB2088 well administration and enforcement (O'Halleran, Carruthers, Gullett, et al) requires a fee for a notice of intent to drill a well. This fee will be used for monitoring and enforcement. We support it. House Committee on Utilities and Municipalities at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5 HB2119 county island; annexation (Carruthers) says that a county may require annexation of land that is 10 acres or less and that is totally surrounded by land that is part of a city. This is to help address small county islands and the difficulty with planning, zoning, etc. This seems like a good idea. HB2383 county islands; annexation (Hanson, Nelson, Jayne, et al) sets up alternative procedures regarding annexation of parcels 80 acres or less. I am not sure where this coming from. We will watch it. Thursday, February 13th House Committee on Judiciary at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3 HCR2017 initiatives filing date (Quelland, Allen J, Johnson, et al) moves the date when signatures must be filed from four months before the election to January 2 of the year of the election. This is ridiculous as it gives you a very limited amount of time to gather the signatures and it also gives the legislature a lot of time -- an entire session -- to muck around with your initiative. We oppose this. This was amended last week to make it seven months before the election. We still think this is unnecessary and makes it more difficult for grassroots efforts. Perhaps they could give people 120 days for a referendum (it's currently 90) as a trade off. HCR2023 initiative and referendum; signature distribution (Farnsworth, Pearce, Johnson, et al) requires citizens working on an initiative or referendum to gather a certain percentage of signatures from five different counties. It requires that signatures from each of these five counties be a total of ten percent of the votes cast for governor in those counties for a statutory change, fifteen percent for a constitutional amendment, and five percent for a referendum. This will create additional hardships for grassroots organizations, citizen groups, and others without enormous resources, as it adds to the expense and time it takes to gather not only the required number of signatures, but also the correct percentages from each of five separate counties. House Committee on Federal Mandates and Property Rights at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5 HB2119 county island; annexation (Carruthers) See above. Thanks! To email senators go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp and for house members to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp#house. If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml 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. Page updated: 02/07/03 Back to 2003 Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |