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Legislative Updates 2003". . .clearing underbrush and dense thickets of smaller-diameter trees through prescribed burns is more effective a t preventing catastrophic fires than cutting down more fire-resistant trees. 'It's clearly the small diameter trees that are the problem,' he said citing trees 8 to 10 inches in diameter." — Dr. Tom Swetnam, Director of the Tree Ring Lab at the University of Arizona (Arizona Daily Star, June 25, 2002) To: Conservation Friends From: Conservation Outreach Director, Sierra Club Date: May 23, 2003 Re: Legislative Update #19 Hi all! As you probably know, the Senate Leadership was unable to round up the needed 16 votes to push through the fiscal year 2004 budget. Senators Linda Binder and Slade Mead said no to a budget that decimates many important programs. We don't like the budget because it hits environmental programs hard -- programs that benefit people, I might add. Of particular concern is the $10 million hit to the Heritage Fund. This budget also authorizes State Parks to use all of the remaining Heritage Fund money for operation and maintenance, so for parks it is a full diversion of Heritage Fund money from the specified purposes. Please continue to call, write and email legislators on this. The Governor has said she will not agree to a Heritage Fund raid in the 2004 budget, so please let her know you appreciate that. Since the Heritage Fund's inception over $200 million has been reinvested in our state. Between the Game and Fish and State Parks Departments there are currently almost 200 active grants statewide. Heritage Funds have benefited every Legislative District in Arizona. Almost 100 Game and Fish employees are funded via the Heritage Fund and the Department uses the fund to pay for up to 50% of all non-game wildlife programs. The Heritage Fund provides funding for approximately 40 positions at State Parks and funds programs such as the Site Stewards that has over 600 volunteers who donate thousands of hours monitoring archaeological sites. The sale of the state's interest in Spur Cross Ranch to Maricopa County is still in the budget. Spur Cross Ranch is a beautiful area of upper Sonoran Desert, just north of Cave Creek. The deal to sell it was apparently negotiated between the House Republican Leadership and Maricopa County Supervisors and did not include the State Parks Board, not to mention any members of the public. Second, the money that was put into Spur Cross Ranch originally came from the State Parks Heritage Fund, so if Parks is to give up its interest in Spur Cross, the dollars should come back to the Heritage Fund, not the general fund. This is backdoor raid on the fund to the tune of $3.75 million. We are concerned about relying on Intergovernmental Agreement to protect this area, as there have been efforts open up more roads and access in order to accommodate other development. The Legislature will be back on Tuesday to finish up business on outstanding bills and continue to see if they can come up with the votes to pass a budget. It's anybody's guess how long they will drag this out, but the longer they are in session, the more mischief that is the likely result. One of the bills still outstanding is SB1138 (NOW: outdoor advertising; electronic messages) (Martin, Blendu, et al.) If you have not called your senator, please do so. The bill overturns 33 years of sound public policy by deleting the prohibition on electronic billboard displays adopted in 1970 Arizona Highway Beautification Act. The level of brightness of the proposed electronic message displays are not limited by the bill and as such will result in more light pollution in our night skies. Yes to seeing the stars, no to this bill. Here is a brief bill update: SB1071 (NOW: land conservation fund; grazing; agriculture) (Brown) shifts $2 million dollars per year of the Growing Smarter dollars to a new fund called the "Livestock and Crop Conservation Fund." This new fund will be administered by the Department of Agriculture. Currently the State Parks Board administers these dollars. This bill highlights a bad program and an example of the legislature trying to pull one over on the voters, violating the Voter Protection Act, and giving handouts with no public benefit. The bill went to conference committee, where they added additional public review and also some minimal requirements for the ranchers who get these dollars. This program diverts dollars away from conservation of state trust lands (as the voters intended) and from the Trust beneficiaries (primarily the public schools). It should be eliminated. This bill passed the House and the Governor is likely to sign it. HB2294 vehicle title and registration (Pierce) was amended in conference committee to include an unrelated section in session law dealing with exemptions from the vehicle emissions program in both Area A (Phoenix area) and Area B (Tucson area). This portion of the bill expands a section of session law passed last year that required the Department of Environmental Quality to ask the US Environmental Protection Agency for exemptions from the emissions program for motorcycles and classic vehicles to now include all vehicles 25 years old and older. They are required to make this request if they determine that there is not a "significant" air quality benefit. It goes on to require the Department of Environmental Quality to come up with alternative control measures in order to allow for these exemptions. The bill passed in both houses and goes to the governor. And in Congress: The Orwellian "Healthy Forest Restoration Act," HR1904 passed the U.S. House of Representatives 256 to 170. Pastor and Grijalva voted against it. The rest voted yes. Now it is up to the Senate to bring some semblance of sanity to forest management and to say no to cutting out the public. While calling it the Healthy Forest Restoration Act is clever, I am not sure how HR1904 could be more misleading. It cuts the public out of the process so big timber interests can once more control our forests and continue to create the conditions that have brought them to this point -- cutting the larger more fire resistant trees, making way for a proliferation of smaller trees. HR1904 poses a major threat to environmental protection and public involvement in public land management. This measure does virtually nothing to protect homes and communities from wildfire. Rather than provide any new funding authorization or mechanisms for fuels reduction on public or private lands, the bill relies on scaling back environmental safeguards to reduce fire risk. In contrast to that, the Governor is seeking to bring folks together, encourage public involvement, and to focus resources and treatments -- thinning small trees and brush and prescribed burns -- on the wildland-urban interface, that area within about a 1/4 mile adjacent to homes and communities. There is also a lot of rhetoric flying around about bark beetles. The bottom line is that the bark beetle infestation is unlikely to lessen until the end of the drought. While we are in the midst of the drought there is little that can be done to effectively control the bark beetle outbreak and logging in these areas can actually promote spread of beetles to unaffected areas. 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 http://www.azleg.state.az.us/. Sandy Bahr Page updated: 05/23/03 Back to 2003 Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |