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Legislative Updates 2007Sierra Club 2007 Legislative Update #6 February 9, 2007 Hello Conservation Friends! There are a record number of bills again and this week they are attempting to finish up hearing the ones they plan to address this session of course they can always do strike everything amendments or extend the deadlines if there is something they feel compelled to revive. Because it is supposed to be the last week to hear bills in committee in the house in which they originated, the agendas are very long and so is this update. Sorry. SCR1015 referenda and initiatives; legislative restrictions (C. Gray, Allen, Bee, et al.) would have undercut the voter protection act by authorizing the Legislature to repeal, amend or supersede an initiative or referendum five years after voter approval of the initiative or referendum. This was defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is no time to sigh with relief however. This week there are at least five bills to undercut initiatives. SB1552 air quality program (Allen, Huppenthal) was gutted in the Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee via an amendment promoted by some of the big dust producers like agribusiness, construction interests, etc. All they left in the bill was the leaf blowers, alternative work hour, and the no burn provisions. There will be a group getting together to work on this bill and the Governor and Senator Allen have made it a priority. To encourage this effort to protect public health, please call your legislators senator and house members and ask them to support strong clean air provisions, including measures which require agriculture to limit tilling on bad air days, measures to impose development impact fees for emissions, to limit leaf blowers, and to require vapor recovery for the Tucson area. Ask them to support the Governor and Senator Allen in crafting the strongest air quality bill possibility. Also, ask House members to support: HB2334 air quality; vapor recovery; Tucson (Farley, Ch Campbell, Saradnik, et al.) requires vapor recovery for Area (Tucson). This is a maintenance measure to limit deterioration of air quality in Tucson and to protect public health. Stage II Vapor Recovery Systems are capable of preventing the release of 95% of gasoline vapors. Phoenix already uses these systems as do many other states. HB2648 leaf blowers; nonattainment areas (Sinema, Ableser, Gallardo, et al.) prohibits landscapers from using leaf blowers from November 1 through March 31 each year and prohibits anyone from using a leaf blower on any day for which a high pollution advisory or a no burn restriction is issues. Please also call members of the House Government Committee and ask them to oppose the following anti-initiative and referendum measures: HB2441 initiative measures; legislative council review (Adams) requires anyone who is filing an initiative to submit it to the Legislative Council so they can hold a public hearing and muck around with it. The Legislative Council (made up of legislators) has already messed up the process for drafting an impartial analysis for initiatives. This would just give them another shot at undercutting citizen efforts. HCR2012 proposition 105 voter protection; limitation (Adams: Crandall) refers to the ballot a measure to undercut the voter protection act by authorizing the Legislature to repeal, amend or supersede an initiative or referendum four years after voter approval of the initiative or referendum. HCR2014 initiative and referendum: signature distribution (Adams, Mason: Anderson, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure to require signature collection from at least three different counties for any statewide initiative or referendum. This creates more hoops to jump through and makes it more difficult for grassroots organizations. HCR2026 initiative; review; single subject (Adams) refers to the ballot a measure to require a citizen initiative to be submitted to the Legislative Council for review and to establish the official title for the initiative. See the problems in HB2441. It also further erodes the single subject requirements for constitutional amendments. The committee includes the following Representatives: Kirk Adams, Ray Barnes, Tom Boone, Rich Crandall, Mark DeSimone, Steve Farley, Martha Garcia, Warde V. Nichols, Lena S. Saradnik, and Jim Weiers 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). Here is the schedule for this week: Monday, February 12 House Ways and Means Committee at 1:30 p.m. in House Hearing Room 4 HB2493 energy production; tax credit (Mason, Burton Cahill, Flake, et al.) provides a new individual and corporate income tax credit through December 31, 2011, for a taxpayer who produces and sells electricity from Combined Heat and Power (CHP). The credit is equal to one and a half cents multiplied by the total kilowatt hours of electricity or one and one tenths cents multiplied by the total horsepower hours of power. It includes an overall cap of $2 million dollars and a limit of $100,000 on the maximum tax incentive for any single installation. The tax credit for a 1 megawatt (MW) project would amount to about $100,000. SUPPORT. Senate Judiciary Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 1 SB1319 clean elections; expenditures; invoices; reporting (Allen) creates a penalty if a person knowingly contributes to a clean elections candidate to influence the election and requires clean elections candidates to account for payments to persons providing goods and services. WATCH. SCR1021 proposition 105; two-thirds vote (Huppenthal) refers to the ballot a measure which changes the voter protection act to require a 2/3 vote rather than a æ vote of the legislature in order for them to change a voter approved measure. It also changes the language which says it has to further the purposes to it does not substantially change the purposes of the measure. This second part is a problem. OPPOSE. Senate Government Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 3 SB1022 qualified immunity; public entities’ employees (Harper: Groe) has a strike everything amendment on state trust lands that says land used for an airport cannot be used for other purposes. It is unconstitutional. OPPOSE. SB1223 records redaction; officials; officers (L. Gray) would remove addresses for many officials, including elected officials. That is a problem. There is supposed to be an amendment to address that, however. WATCH. SB1602 city permits; waste regulation (Gould: Gorman, Harper, et al.) is an emergency measure that limits a city, town, or county’s authority in regulating the competition of solid waste services. OPPOSE. SCR1028 corporation commission; districts (Gould: Harper) refers to the ballot a measure to establish 5 districts that contain 5 contiguous legislative districts. Currently commissioners are elected at large. Why change it? It seems like this is just furthering the efforts of former legislators to find another place in government once they have to leave due to term limits. WATCH. Tuesday, February 13 House Government Committee at 1:30 p.m. in House Hearing Room 4 HB2338 initiative and referendum; disclosure (Adams: Anderson, Crandall) requires a political committee to disclose its major funding sources at the bottom of the initiative or referendum petition sheet. This is probably not a huge problem, but considering how cleverly people disguise their major funding sources, it is relatively meaningless. WATCH. HB2441 initiative measures; legislative council review (Adams) See above. HB2497 public buildings; energy savings goals (Mason, Aboud, O’Halleran, et al.) expands the existing goals for state facilities to increase energy efficiency and to reduce the costs associated with their energy consumption. Currently, the law sets the goals at 10% reduction in energy use per square foot by 2008 and 15% by 2011. HB2497 adds a new goal of increasing the energy savings to 20% by 2015. It also includes community colleges in the state facilities. SUPPORT. HB2690 clean elections; amendments (Reagan, Boone, Kirkpatrick, et al.) clarifies a few things for clean elections. OKAY. HCR2002 initiatives; filing (Adams: Driggs) requires initiatives to be filed 135 days before an election rather than the current four months. This basically changes it by 15 days and is probably not a huge deal. WATCH. HCR2012 proposition 105 voter protection; limitation (Adams: Crandall) See above. HCR2014 initiative and referendum: signature distribution (Adams, Mason: Anderson, et al.) See above. HCR2026 initiative; review; single subject (Adams) See above. House Counties, Municipalities & Military Affairs Committee at 1:30 p.m. in HHR5 HB2668 lot splits; military bases; prohibition (Nelson, J. Burns, Cajero Bedford, et al.) prohibits lot splits of five or fewer lots (wildcat subdivisions) in accident potential zone one or an accident potential zone two for military airports. SUPPORT. HB2713 railroad right of way; hearings (Pancrazi, Gallardo, Sinema et al.) requires notice of acquisition of a railroad right-of-way and requires the board of supervisors of the county in which the right-of-way has been acquired to conduct a public hearing regarding the impact of the railroad right-of-way acquisition on the residents of the county. SUPPORT. Senate Transportation Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 1 SB1585 HOV lane conversion; toll lane (Gould, Gorman: Harper) requires the Arizona Department of Transportation to issue a request for proposal to convert the high occupancy vehicle lanes to toll lanes. OPPOSE. SB1587 transportation: innovative partnerships program (Gould: Blendu, Harper) allows the Arizona Department of Transportation to establish the “innovative partnerships program” for the planning, acquisition, financing, development, design, construction, reconstruction, replacement, improvement, maintenance, management, repair, leasing and operation of transportation projects. Sensitive business, commercial or financial information is exempt from disclosure. This would allow more private and even more unaccountable projects. OPPOSE. SB1635 FAST lanes (Gorman: Gould) allows conversion of the HOV lanes to acceleration lanes. This will not help air quality and will mean we have another congested lane. Besides it removes the incentive for carpooling. OPPOSE Senate Appropriations Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 SB1175 agricultural protection fund; revenue source (Flake, Aguirre, Arzberger, et al) allocates up to four million dollars for this fund from dollars received from sale of abandoned property and other sources. These dollars can be used to purchase agricultural easements, among other things. NO POSITION. Wednesday, February 14 House Natural Resources and Public Safety Committee at 9:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room 1 HCM2008 urge protection; Kofa herd (JP Weiers, Nelson, Aguirre, et al) is a “postcard” to congress asking them to affirm that Game and Fish should be able to kill mountain lions in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. They are trying to once again blame the decline in bighorn sheep on lions, despite no evidence to support that. While these postcards do not change law, it is a bad idea to just let this inaccurate information stand. OPPOSE. Senate Commerce and Economic Development Committee at 9:00 a.m. in Senate Hearing Room 3 SB1323 antifreeze; aversive or bittering agent (Leff) requires a bittering agent be added to anti-freeze that is a good thing but it removes all liability for injury, death, environmental or natural resource damage, related to the bitterant. Children, wildlife, and domestic pets have been harmed or killed from drinking antifreeze, which has a sweet taste. We need to further evaluate the liability issue in this bill, however. WATCH. SB1423 municipal development fees; procedures (Bee, McClure) requires cities to jump through more hoops to impose impact fees. It is already difficult to get them to impose fees that really cover the costs of services. OPPOSE. House Environment Committee at 1:30 p.m. in House Hearing Room 5 HB2334 air quality; vapor recovery; Tucson (Farley, Ch Campbell, Saradnik, et al.) See above. HB2369 county emergency services; permit moratorium (Robson) prohibits issuing a building permit unless there are fire and emergency services. They should expand this moratorium to other infrastructure needs as well. SUPPORT. HB2606 state buildings; energy conservation (Ch. Campbell, Ableser, Farley, et al.) increases the energy saving goal for state buildings to 30% by 2020. It also requires that all state agencies, universities, school districts and community college districts purchase at least 10% of their energy requirements from green sources by July 2012. Green sources in this bill means renewable and nonpolluting energy sources including solar, wind, landfill gas and low impact hydroelectric generation. SUPPORT. HB2648 leaf blowers; nonattainment areas (Sinema, Ableser, Gallardo, et al.) See above. Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 SB1455 low sulfur diesel fuel standards (Allen) establishes standards for low sulfur and ultra low sulfur diesel. SUPPORT. SB1508 water resources; regional planning (O’Halleran) requires additional information for a city’s water resource element as part of the general plan. It requires cities and towns that are not required to adopt a general plan to cooperate with, collaborate with, assist and provide information to other cities and towns and the county as necessary to achieve regional integration of the water resources element in the general and comprehensive plans. It requires the planning entity to reevaluate and assess the validity of the data and assumptions that were used in developing the water resources element within five years of adoption or readoption. SUPPORT. SB1557 water; municipal conservation requirements (Flake) eliminates specific conservation requirements for certain municipal water providers under the non-per capita program located within Active Management Areas (AMAs) and instead requires them to adopt Best Management Practices, which are generally unenforceable and are not enforced. This would appear to allow backsliding on water conservation in the AMAs. OPPOSE. SB1570 critical water area pilot projects (Arzberger) will have a strike everything amendment to establish a study committee. I think we have studied this issue to death the death of the rivers that is. We know that groundwater pumping is killing the San Pedro River. We know that the proposal by Prescott and Prescott Valley to pump water in the Big Chino Sub-basin will affect the flows of the upper portion of the Verde. What we lack is action to address it and save these remaining flowing rivers and streams. NO POSITION. SB1575 water adequacy amendments (Arzberger, Aguirre, Landrum Taylor, et al.) has a strike everything amendment which authorizes cities and counties outside of active management areas to require that any new subdivisions have a determination of water adequacy from the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR). There are numerous exceptions including that a county can allow development of water supplies for a twenty year timeframe and it can allow for water hauling by truck or train. It prohibits a city or town that is within a county that has adopted the adequacy provision to approve a subdivision unless ADWR has determined that the subdivision has demonstrated an adequate water supply or has obtained a written commitment of service from a city, town, or private water company that has been designated as having an adequate water supply. While the bill provides additional consumer protection, it does not provide any additional protection for surface water rivers, streams, springs, etc. THIS NEEDS TO BE AMENDED TO PROVIDE SOME PROTECTION FOR SURFACE WATER FLOWS. SB1603 air quality measures; tax credit (Flake, Allen, Burns, et al.) provides a tax credit for monies paid to pave or otherwise place a permanent hard surface over exposed soil or gravel in a nonattainment area for particulate pollution. It’s hard to feel good about subsidizing paving. Besides, there are no limits in it. Can you say “alternative fuels”? This has potential to go bad very quickly. WATCH. SB1608 water supply development; urban; rural; fund (Flake) establishes a water development revolving fund for the purpose of providing financial assistance to water providers for water supply development. It does not provide any protections for stream or river flows and therefore could be used by Prescott or Prescott Valley to pipe from the Big Chino and dry up the upper portion of the Verde River. Furthermore, it is likely to promote development where there is not adequate infrastructure. OPPOSE. SB1609 water; adequacy program provisions (Flake) will have a strike everything on multi-county water conservation districts. The striker is not yet posted. SB1638 well impacts; contamination (Arzberger, Garcia, Hale, et al.) prohibits the drilling of a well if it will likely cause the migration of contaminated groundwater from a remedial action site to another well. It extends the prohibition that currently exists in rules that apply to non-exempt wells within Active Management Areas (AMAs) to all wells outside of AMAs and exempt wells within AMAs. This is to help some concerns about groundwater pumping in the Payson area where they have significant groundwater contamination and are spending dollars to contain and remediate it. SUPPORT. SJR Lower Colorado basin; forbearance authority (Bee, Arzberger, Flake) allows the director of the department of water resources to forbear Arizona’s rights to the use of certain quantities of intentionally created surplus and domestic surplus from the Colorado river that would otherwise be available for use within the state. MONITOR. Senate Finance Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 1 SB1603 air quality measures; tax credit (Flake, Allen, Burns, et al.) see above. House Committee on Appropriations at 1:30 p.m. in House Hearing Room 1 HB2569 highway expansion fund; growth cities (Biggs) allocates $20 million dollars in the fund for street improvements in cities with a population growth of at least fifty per cent in the immediately preceding five years. OPPOSE. HB2570 railroad right-of-way acquisition (Biggs) directs the director of the department of transportation to deposit $650,000 in a special account to acquire a railroad right-of-way deemed by the director to accommodate future freight or passenger rail service. MONITOR. Thursday, February 15 House Water and Agriculture Committee at 9:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room 1 HB2485 well water; Colorado: Santa Cruz (Mason: Bradley, J. Burns, et al) adds some provisions relating to the Santa Cruz Active management Area and the consistency with the management goals. It also deals with wells along the Colorado Rivers. This needs further examination. WATCH. HB2495 schools; energy performance standards (Mason, Aboud, Bee, et al.) implements energy and water performance standards which are approved by the School Facilities Board. All new school projects approved after June 30, 2007, must meet these new standards. It requires the School Facilities Board to consider Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards for new schools. The LEED standard was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council and offers four levels of certification certified, silver, gold, or platinum. Six categories are evaluated under the LEED standard. They include: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality. LEED has been adopted nationwide by federal agencies, state and local governments, and private companies. SUPPORT. HB2625 water supply; residential property sales (Groe) requires a real estate broker or salesperson to provide to the buyer of any residential property notice of the water supply status of that property as designated by the department of water resources. SUPPORT. HB2638 local energy plans (Cajero Bedford, Bradley, Mason, et al.) adds an energy element to cities’ general plans and counties’ comprehensive plans to encourage and reward efficient use of energy and at a minimum address construction standards for commercial and residential buildings and community development patterns. SUPPORT. HB2674 electricity consumption tax; solar rebates (Farley, Mason, Clark et al.) establishes an electricity consumption tax for residential customers and commercial or industrial electricity consumption. It does not apply to electricity generated from renewables. These dollars will be used as part of a solar rebate program. SUPPORT. For more information on these bills go to http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the issues and to contact your legislators. 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.gov
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