Legislative Updates 2004

 

Hi all! Thanks for all your calls, letters, and emails this past week.  Your efforts do make a difference.  Also, thank you to all of you who attended and helped with Environmental Legislative Day.  About 70 people attended.  It would be great if we could double that for next year.   Here is some good news from this week!

• SCR1014 lottery monies; reallocation; raffles (Harper; Johnson, Robson), a bill that refers to the ballot a measure that swipes all the lottery money and puts it in the general fund where the legislature will appropriate it, was held this week.  Let’s hope it is held indefinitely.  At least right now, there are no Heritage Fund raids on the table.
• HB2398 referendum; cities and towns (Arnold, Hubbs, Nelson, et al), a measure which would make it more difficult to do a zoning referendum in smaller communities, was also held this week.
• HB2367 animal and ecological terrorism (Biggs, Quelland, C. Gray, Yarbrough), a measure which would make lawful protests and other activities illegal, was held in environment this week, but is likely to re-emerge, just like its counterpart in the Senate.
• SB1227 climate change study committee (Giffords, Brotherton, L. Lopez, et al), a measure which establishes a study committee to look at the impacts of climate change on Arizona’s economy and environment and to recommend actions, passed out of Natural Resources and Transportation 4-2-1.  It has a long row to hoe, but it is at least spurring a little debate.
• SB1385 county land divisions; rules (Martin) directs the state real estate department to adopt rules governing the prohibition on acting in concert. This was intended to make it easier to act in concert and avoid subdivision laws, so it was a good sign that it went down in flames in committee this week.

And some not-so-good news.

• HB2400 vested property rights (Farnsworth) establishes vested rights when a zoning application is approved or when a site plan is submitted and meets the zoning requirements.  That is truly ridiculous.  As if we need more land speculation or as if the developers didn’t have enough influence.  This passed out of Federal Mandates and Property Rights.
• SB1212 healthy forest pilot program (Jarrett, Bee, Chase), an identical bill to HB2549 (see below) also passed out of committee.  
• The new chair of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Water and Native American Affairs is Representative Chuck Gray.

Apparently legislators are unable to find gainful employment after leaving the legislature, so they are proposing to repeal the one year ban on former legislators lobbying the legislature.  In fact, it is such a big issue for them, that they added an emergency clause to the bill.  This would mean it would take effect immediately upon the governor’s signature and would not be subject to a referendum by the people.  Not only is this a bad idea, it is a clear abuse of the emergency clause.  I hope you will take the time to let your legislators know that this is not a “good government” measure.  In the House, the bill is HB2454 lobbying; former legislators (Pearce; Quelland, Harper) and in the Senate it is a strike everything amendment on SB1022.  Strike everything means the bill is gutted and is replaced by an entirely new bill.  Both measures have one more committee to go through, so there is time to kill this rollback.  

This week, please call again and ask House members to oppose HCR2016 tax increase by initiative; vote (Biggs, C. Gray, Quelland).  It refers to the ballot a measure that, if passed, requires an initiative or referendum that increases state revenues to have a two-thirds vote on the ballot.  Considering very few measures pass with two-thirds votes, this would effectively hamstring efforts to get additional funding for preservation, for wildlife, or for any other program.  It passed out of Committee of the Whole this week and could go to a Third Read in the House as early as Monday.

Here is what is coming up this week:

Monday, February 16th

House Committee on Environment at 1:30 pm in HHR 4

HB2276 solid waste management; effective date (Hart) changes the effective date relative to federal law.  It appears to be technical.

HB2278 assured water supply certificate; assignment (Hart) allows someone with a certificate of assured water supply to transfer it under certain conditions.  It appears that there may be enough restrictions in place, but I think we need to watch this.

HCM2006 radiation contamination; compensation; Mohave county (Hart) sends a message to the congress and the president to compensate victims affected by the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.  This is a good idea. 

House Committee on Commerce and Military Affairs at 1:30 pm in HHR5

HB2119 structural pest control commission (Reagan) appears to make primarily technical amendments. It replaces certified applicator with “licensed”, requires them to retain fungi reports for five years, among other things.

HB2526 solar electricity; property tax classification (Clark, Boone, Graf, Mitchell) directs the Department of Commerce to develop a program for tax incentives for businesses that produce energy via on-site solar energy generation equipment.  It requires that at least 10% of the power consumed on site, come from the system.  Certification and inspections are required.  This is a good bill that we support.

Tuesday, February 17^th  

House Committee on Government and Retirement at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3

HB2615 fuel supplies; reporting (Huppenthal, Huffman, Nelson, et al) requires additional reporting requirements from gasoline suppliers.

House Committee on Appropriations at 1:00 p.m. in SHR1

HCR2011 voter approved expenditures; limitation (Konopnicki, Barnes, Gray C, Hubbs, et al) refers to the ballot a measure that undercuts voter approved ballot measures by allowing the legislature to proportionately reduce an appropriation for a specific purpose if the monies approved for the purpose are insufficient to cover all of the costs.  The legislature is likely to always say there is not enough money and easily divert dollars for conservation, health care, and education to other purposes.

Senate Natural Resources and Transportation Committee at 1:30 pm in SHR1

SB1006 technical corrections; public health (Jarrett) will have a strike everything amendment on task force; arsenic standards implementation.  As they finally have realized that this public health standard is going to stick.  (The Bush Administration backed off on the rollback), an implementation taskforce seems pretty harmless.

SB1084 solid waste program amendments (Allen, Blendu, Huffman) includes in the definition of inert material soil that contains no contaminants above the residential remediation levels, and requires solid waste treatment facilities and solid waste incinerators to develop solid waste facility plans, among other things.

SB1085 solid waste fees (Allen, Blendu Huffman) allows the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to adopt the annual fee for these facilities by rule.  That way, they might be able to actually cover more of the costs.

SB1313 Appropriation; water studies (Binder) appropriates an unspecified amount to the department of water resources for rural water studies.  This is a good idea, but they need to fill in the blank.

SB1349 water; exempt well provisions (Hellon: J. Burns) attempts to tighten up restrictions for the drilling of exempt wells in active management areas.  It needs some work and is likely to be amended.  Tightening up exempt well requirements is a good idea.

SCR1038 natural resources protection (Binder) says “Whereas, we are the custodians of the health of our children and of future generations, who are threatened in their ability to breathe clean air, drink healthful water, avoid toxins and share in the spiritual regeneration that comes from enjoying wilderness and nature. We are obliged to protect each citizen from these risks as surely as were previous generations obliged to enhance freedom, justice and prosperity.” What a great message!

Wednesday, February 18^th   

House Committee on natural Resources, Agriculture, Water and Native American Affairs at 9:00 am in HHR4

HB2549 healthy forest pilot program (Chase, Arnold, Carruthers, et al) is a poorly drafted bill that was the product of some sham legislative hearings last fall.  It sets up a process for developing a pilot project.  No environmental perspective was included, nothing about protecting old growth or focusing on the wildland urban interface, etc.  This is a silly bill intended to make a point, but not to make a difference.  There is no need for logging “deep in the forest” or applying their ideas across the landscape.  They do not recognize the differences in ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests.  They do not recognize the different goals and needs in the wildland urban interface.  And they fail to recognize the important role of fire in the forests or the importance of community protection.  We oppose it.

Senate Committee on Commerce at 8:30 am in SHR3

SB1304 subdivision sales; notice to commissioner (Leff) requires a statement to the real estate commissioner regarding uses and conditions located within 600 feet of the property that could adversely affect the health, safety and welfare of the purchaser.  They should have to disclose any issue, not just those within 600 feet.  We oppose this bill.

Thursday, February 19^th   

House Committee on Federal Mandates and Property Rights at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5

HB2528 military base preservation; consideration (McClure, L. Gray, Hubbs, et al) says that a county or a city cannot combine military base preservation with other matters in a referendum.  This is just a political bill and quite silly to force Pima County to separate the Davis-Monthan bonds from the other open-space bonds in the May 18 election.

Thanks again for all you do! 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) 926-3559 (Senate) or (602) 926-4221 (House).  Correspondence goes to 1700 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890.  For more information on legislation go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/.    To reach the Governor, call 602-542-4331 or toll free 1-800-253-0883.  To email her, either click on this link or cut and paste it into your server http://www.governor.state.az.us/post/feedback.htm