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Legislative Updates 2006Sierra Club 2006 Legislative Update #1 “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
Hi all! Welcome to the 2006 Legislative Session. Our key issues this session are promoting renewable energy resources, water conservation and protection of our rivers and riparian habitat, providing notice of pesticide use for the parents and guardians of children in daycare, and defending environmental protection, including heading off attacks on the Arizona Heritage Fund and citizens' rights to the initiative and referendum process, among others. Also regarding Heritage Fund, we would like to see the dollars that were diverted from Game and Fish returned to them, now that the budget is flush. We are supporting a measure to limit the feeding of wildlife — feeding animals is bad for them and for us. If an opportunity arises to push measures to improve air quality, we will certainly be working on that as well. For those of you getting this via email, we now have a Legislative Tracker on our website. The opening page will be similar to the first part of these updates, but you can also see specifics on the individual bills we are tracking. Check it out at http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/ For those of you still getting this via the regular mail, please let me know if you have an email address and would like to get it electronically. It saves money and resources. Thanks. Coming up this week at the Legislature:
Monday, January 16
Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday the House is not meeting, but the Senate is. The Senate Ethics Committee is meeting to address a complaint against Senator Jack Harper.
Tuesday, January 17
House Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture at 9:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room 3
Wednesday, January 18
Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 SB1086 parks board reservation revolving fund (Burns) allows parks to keep more of this fund. Currently they can keep up to $12,000. This raises it to $40,000. The dollars are generated via surcharges for reservations. WATCH. SB1103 omnibus agriculture act of 2006 (Arzberger, Aguirre, Cannell, et al) makes several changes to the agriculture statutes including adding a definition of livestock officer and making additional information exempt from the public records law including animal identification data and animal tracking data that collected pursuant to the National Animal Identification System. WATCH SB1140 water; monitoring assistance program (Flake, Blendu, Cannell, et al) makes some technical changes and includes nitrates in the list of contaminants for which the monitoring assistance program must monitor. SUPPORT SB1144 drinking water systems’ equipment (Flake, Blendu, Cannell et al) indicates that any material used in a drinking water system must meet the national sanitation foundation standards unless it is specifically exempted by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. It does not prescribe how such an exemption will occur, so we are going to check into that. WATCH
House Committee on Environment at 1:30 p.m. in HHR5 HB2036 stagnant water; pest control; notice (Barnes) authorizes local government to order property owners to remove stagnant water, requires notices for spraying of stagnant water. This is a good bill and should help address the West Nile problems. Prevention — removing the stagnant water—is the most effective means of addressing mosquito issues. Spraying is pretty ineffective and introduces more harmful chemicals into the environment, many of which have significant human health impacts. Providing additional notice for spraying is a good idea. A better idea would be not to do it. SUPPORT
Please join us for Environmental Day at the Legislature Tuesday, February 7, 2005 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Second Floor Conference Room, Executive Tower Arizona State Capitol 1700 W. Washington in Phoenix
Please come learn more about the key environmental issues, meet with your legislators, meet other activists, and learn more about making your voice heard. We have the Second Floor Conference Room reserved for a light breakfast and issue presentations and briefings from legislators. If you represent an organization, we also would like to invite you to have literature at the event and/or in the packets. Please keep in mind there is limited room for displays. The program will begin at 8:30 a.m. and run until around 10:30 a.m. and will focus on sustainability. Please let me know if your group plans to participate. Also, please consider making appointments with your legislators that day. It is a great opportunity for them to hear from you. If the timing works, we will try to have our group introduced from the Floor of the House or Senate. A light breakfast, coffee, and juice will be provided.
Last year nearly 90 people participated. Let’s see if we can do even better this year. With your help, these efforts make a huge difference. To r.s.v.p. or to ask questions, call Sandy Bahr at (602) 253-8633 or email grand.canyon.chapter@sierraclub.org. Please respond by February 1, 2006 so we can plan accordingly. Thank you!
Thanks 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 legislators’ offices 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/ .
Sandy Bahr Back to 2006 Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |