Legislative Updates 2005

Hi all! Thank you to everyone who participated in Environmental Day at the Legislature. We had about 90 people total — an all-time high. Several legislators stopped by closer to 1pm after many folks had left and taken down their tables. Next year, we may try a breakfast. Thank you to all the speakers and groups that participated. I wanted to especially thank Michelle Pulich Stewart for all her work on helping put this together and also thank Diane Brown, Susan Culp, Scott Jones, Nicole Dement, Chad Campbell, Dale Volz, Maggie Huntington, Mike Harrison, and Jim Vaaler for their help with the event. I apologize to the folks from QualiTe and the Sustainable Energy Alliance for skipping their introductions. Next year, you go can go first.

This week, please call members of the House Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee and ask them to support:

HB2169 land use planning; water resources (O’Halleran), which requires cities and counties that are outside of Active Management Areas to include a water resources element in their general plans. This is already required of cities inside the Active Management Areas, so it seems appropriate to require it of all Arizona communities. Good planning should be required throughout the state. It is a modest and appropriate requirement.

HB2173 adequate water supply; notice (O’Halleran), which allows cities and counties outside of Active Management Areas to consider the adequacy of a water supply when deciding whether or not to approve new subdivisions.  It authorizes the city or town to deny approval of the subdivision if the water supply is found to be inadequate. It also requires that it be noted when a property is served by an inadequate water supply on the affidavit of disclosure that goes with a lot split (the sale of five or fewer parcels).

Members of the committee include Representatives: J. Allen jallen@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-3395, Brown jbrown@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-4129, Chase cchase@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-5030, Jones rjones@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-5273, Kirkpatrick akirkpat@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-5160, Mason lmason@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-5874, Nelson jnelson@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-5872, O’Halleran tohaller@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-4079, Jerry Weiers jpweiers@azleg.state.az.us (602) 926-5894. If you're outside the Phoenix area, you can call toll free at 1-800-352-8404.

If you have time, you might also consider calling members of the House Transportation Committee (go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/CommitteeInfo.asp?Committee_ID=59) and asking them to oppose the bad billboard bills:

HB2461 beautification; highways; advertising (Gorman: Pierce) , another attempt to make legal some billboards that are currently illegal. This is a new low in naming bills. It has nothing to do with beautification. OPPOSE.

HB2462 highway beautification; outdoor advertising (Gorman: Pierce) appears to be another attempt to get around local provisions relating to billboards. Again, there is no beautification here. OPPOSE.

And also the derail light rail bill:

HB2292 regional transportation plan; performance audits (Biggs) is an attempt to derail light rail by defunding it if it does not meet some specific performance standards. If only they applied the same standards to freeways we could save some money on concrete. OPPOSE.

Quick update: HB2406 downzoning; owner compensation (Pearce, Barnes: J Allen, et al) was held in the Federal Mandates and Property Rights Committee. It says that any county rezoning that restricts the use or reduces the value of land is a taking and requires compensation.

Here’s the schedule of key issues for this coming week:

Monday, February 7^th

House Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5

HB2169 land use planning; water resources (O’Halleran) See above. SUPPORT.

HB2173 adequate water supply; notice (O’Halleran) See above. SUPPORT.

HB2174 emergency drought transfers (O’Halleran) allows emergency, inter-basin transfers of groundwater if the Governor declares a drought emergency. Just what is a “drought emergency”? In Arizona, that could be normal conditions. It could be another means for shifting more water to fuel growth in areas that may not be able to sustain it. MONITOR.

HB2275 forest products; use fuel tax (O’Halleran, Hershberger, Mason, et al) cuts the use fuel tax in half for trucks hauling forest products. NEUTRAL.

HB2276 healthy forest amendment (O’Halleran, Hershberger, Huffman, et al) makes some technical amendments to the program developed in a bill passed last year. That was a bad bill that established a program for further subsidizing logging (as if there are not enough subsidies.) Anyway, this bill defines a qualifying forest product as trees 12 inches in diameter or smaller. A project needs to contain 70% of these smaller trees and 75% of them must come from Arizona to qualify for the tax breaks. It reduces the number of employees (from 10 to 3) that a company must employ in order to qualify for the various tax breaks. We are neutral on the bill, but will be watching it as these bills have a tendency to turn into nightmares at the Legislature where there is limited understanding of real on-the-ground conditions, the role of fire, or the difference between community protection and forest restoration. We would like to see no subsidies for logging big trees as there is already a market for them and there aren’t that many remaining in our southwestern forests. NEUTRAL.

HB 2277 water providers; water plans (O’Halleran, Hershberger, Landrum Taylor, et al) requires all public water systems to prepare a system water plan that includes a water supply plan, drought preparedness plan, and a water conservation plan and also requires an annual report on water withdrawals and deliveries.  Good planning is never a bad idea. SUPPORT.

Senate Committee on Judiciary at 1:30 p.m. in SHR1

SB1279 clean elections; verification; reporting slips (Huppenthal) requires a county recorder to report daily to the state on the verified number of reporting slips submitted only until candidate qualifies and requires Secretary of State to send a 20 percent sample to county recorders. SUPPORT.

House Committee on Ways and Means at 1:30 p.m. in HHR4

HB2276 healthy forest amendments (O’Halleran, Hershberger, Huffman, et al) See above.

Tuesday, February 8^th

Joint Appropriations Committee Meeting at 8:00 a.m. in HHR1

State Land Department Budget, Navigable Streambed Adjudication Commission Budget, Mine Inspector Budget

Senate Committee on Transportation at 1:30 p.m. in SHR1

SB1275 air quality; fuel formulations (Blendu) allows the sale of gasoline in Area with less than 10% ethanol on approval of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality director. MONITOR.

Wednesday, February 2^nd

House Committee on K-12 Education at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3

H2352 schools; solar equipment (Boone) requires the School Facilities Board to develop guidelines for solar cooling and heating for upgrades and replacements. SUPPORT.

HB2380 air fund; CNG school buses (Boone, Barnes, Gray, et al) allows the diesel low emissions incentive grants to also be used for compressed natural gas and for diesel buses that have been retrofitted with original manufacturers’ equipment for compressed natural gas fuel systems. This is all provided that they do not exceed the incremental cost differential from conventional diesel fuel schools buses. Existing portions of the bill require real and quantifiable emissions benefits, so this measure seems okay. MONITOR.

HB2381 state buildings; solar energy (Boone) requires state buildings including those constructed by the school facilities board to evaluate solar water cooling. It further requires the use of energy life cycle costing to evaluate all solar water heating and water cooling facilities for state buildings. It requires the use of solar water heating and cooling if the simple payback is twelve years or less or equal to the useful life of the product. It exempts solar photovoltaic projects from the simple payback requirements. This will promote the use of more solar energy in state buildings. SUPPORT.

House Committee on Commerce at 9:00 a.m. in HHR5

HB2390 energy efficiency appliance standards (Mason) includes minimum energy efficiency requirements on 15 products not covered by federal standards but already adopted by CA, CT and/or MD (NJ is also now adopting state appliance standards). The model state appliance standards bill was developed by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project (ASAP). The bill bans the sale of non-complying inefficient products in Arizona once the standards take effect in 2008. Manufacturers and retailers have time to prepare. According to the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project this measure will provide $800 million net economic benefit for Arizona households and businesses, increased competitiveness for Arizona businesses and the state economy, and save 2.6 billion gallons of water per year, one large power plant avoided by 2020. SUPPORT.

House Committee on Government Reform and Government Finance Accountability at 1:30 p.m. in HHR3

HB2180 Spur Cross Ranch conservation area (O’Halleran) directs the State Parks Board to hold and maintain in perpetuity an irrevocable conservation easement for preserving Spur Cross Ranch in a “substantially” natural state and deletes reference to it as a state park. While we support the end result ­ Spur Cross is protected ­ we are concerned about the process used. While the state never intended to keep it as a state park, that was used to get the original proposal through, the conservation easement has already been drafted and signed, so this is a rubber stamp on what has already happened. They should have come for the legislation first and actually discussed the conservation easement and whether or not it was the best way for the state to maintain its interest in the property. MONITOR.

HB2440 state lottery; distributions (McComish, Paton) changes the lottery structure and distribution. Our concerns about the Heritage Fund being subject to legislative appropriation are being addressed. NEUTRAL.

HB2488 ballot measure title; legislative referral (Downing, M. Garcia, Landrum Taylor, et al) requires that the bill number and the session in which it was approved appear on the ballot for any legislative referral. I see no problem with this.

Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Rural Affairs at 1:30 p.m. in SHR109

SB1318 flood control; omnibus (Flake, Arzberger, Brown, et al) makes numerous changes related to flood-related erosion prone areas. It defines a “flood-related erosion area” as a land area adjoining the shore of a lake or watercourse and likely to suffer flood-related erosion damage. It allows flood control districts to enter into flood control enhancement solutions, including flood-proofing assistance to property owners within a floodplain, preservation of areas within floodplains, and maintenance of flood warning systems. It allows flood control districts reasonable access to inspect development on property located in a floodplain or flood-related erosion area, requires the Arizona Department of Water Resources director to develop criteria for determining flood-related erosion areas, and requires the local governments to adopt and enforce regulations for the safety of structures from flood-related erosion and ensure that they do not aggravate flood-related erosion-prone hazards.

SB 1336 rural water legislative study committee (Flake, Arzberger, Bee, et al) creates a rural water study committee to evaluate information regarding water supplies in rural Arizona, effective methods of water reclamation, development of alternative water supplies, opportunities for water reuse, identify resources needed to enhance supplies and infrastructure, etc. This is a do-nothing measure. OPPOSE.

SB1337 forest health amendments (Jarrett, Blendu, Flake, et al) makes some amendments to last year’s program including reducing the required number of employees, promoting a website, etc. I am pretty sure this was filed in order to ensure that there would be dueling forest bills. MONITOR.

SB1392 municipal planning; aggregate mining (Flake: Arzberger, Jarrett, et al) is a ridiculous bill to require a land use element that protects the rock products industry. Why not ask for a special dry cleaning element? How about a special Wal-Mart element? It uses the excuse of the need for “protecting strategic industrial minerals.” It goes on to say that these are the minerals “of current or potential use in supplying the industrial, military or essential civilian needs of this state . . . .” Well, you get the idea. They want people to think that someone would have to be unpatriotic to oppose this. The sand and gravel industry is already exempt from numerous laws and is hardly persecuted. Legislators should reject this bill. OPPOSE.

SB1393 aggregate mined land reclamation act (Flake: Johnson, Soltero et al) establishes a new division of mined land reclamation at the mine inspector’s office and puts the reclamation for sand and gravel solely under the purview of the state mine inspector, a person who has traditionally been a cheerleader for mining rather than any kind of regulator. It gives broad authority for variances to the inspector. It does not appear to have a lot of accountability included. OPPOSE.

SB1414 recreational corridor districts; formation limitation (Burns, Blendu, Harper et al) limits the formation of future taxing districts. Apparently Rusty Bowers and his friends already got what they needed. New taxing districts appear to be unpopular, unless someone’s favorite industry or relative can benefit. NEUTRAL.

SB1459 appropriation; river reservoir (Flake, Brown) deposits $750,000 in the dam repair fund for dam repair on the Little Colorado River. MONITOR.

SB1461 voluntary environmental performance program (Flake, Allen, Huffman, et al) sets up a voluntary performance program. (Isn’t this what we have already?) It directs the ADEQ director to set up this program that provides incentives to companies that set up an environmental performance program. Those incentives can include expedited permitting, ability to consolidate permit applications, and a total or partial waiver of civil penalties for noncompliance. I am reviewing this more closely, but it seems like this may be an easy out for people who cannot seem to comply with environmental laws. REVIEWING.

Senate Committee on Government Accountability and Reform at 1:30 p.m. in SHR2

ADEQ presentation to defend its existence.

Thursday, February 10^th

House Committee on Judiciary at 8:30 a.m. in HHR4

HB2118 campaign finance; contribution limit (Biggs: Quelland) eliminates limits on individual political contributions. This is a bad idea. OPPOSE.

House Committee on Transportation at 9:00 a.m. in HHR3

HB2292 regional transportation plan; performance audits (Biggs) See above. OPPOSE.

HB2461 beautification; highways; advertising (Gorman: Pierce) See above. OPPOSE.

HB2462 highway beautification; outdoor advertising (Gorman: Pierce) See above OPPOSE.

Joint Committee on Appropriations at 4:00 p.m. in HHR1

Arizona Corporation Commission Budget

Thanks again for your help and support! To email legislators go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to http://www.vote-smart.org (You will need your 9-digit zipcode.) 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/ .