|
|||
| Political Action |
Legislative Updates 2007Sierra Club 2007 Legislative Update #7 February 16, 2007 Hello Conservation Friends! It was an interesting and very long week at the Legislature. The House Environment Committee, after much pressure from the oil companies and gasoline stations, rejected a measure to clean up the air in Tucson -- Stage II Vapor Recovery Systems. The Environment Committee chair refused to hear the bill to limit the use leaf blowers in Phoenix. The House Government Committee passed six measures to undercut citizen initiatives and the Senate Judiciary Committee joined them in passing one. On the positive side, many of the renewable energy and energy efficiency bills continue to move forward Please call House members and ask them to support the following renewable energy and energy efficiency bills: HB2491 solar energy tax credit; application (Mason, Boone: Anderson, et al.) is merely a technical correction bill to clarify the commercial solar energy tax credit program established last year, so the credit can be claimed by a third party to support solar installation on state buildings, schools, etc. 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. HB2494 energy; water; savings loan fund (Mason, Aboud, O’Halleran, et al.) develops a grant fund of $20 million per year to assist existing schools in reducing their energy and overall utility costs via cost-effective energy and water saving projects in existing schools. The grant fund is administered by the School Facilities Board and would be available for five years. 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 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. HB2496 schools; energy and water savings (Mason, J. Burns, Aboud, et al.) creates an energy and water savings accounting mechanism which allows schools to use the cost savings in Maintenance and Operations portion of their budgets to pay for capital investments in energy or water saving measures. This provides an opportunity for schools to invest in cost-effective measures that save money, energy, and water over time. It also allows them to retain a portion of the cost savings. 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. The bill clarifies that the requirement to purchase cost-effective Energy Star or FEMP-designated products applies to all state agencies, universities, community colleges, and schools. HB2593 homeowners associations; solar panels (Ch Campbell, Gallardo, Kirkpatrick, et al.) states that homeowners associations can't prohibit solar panels, but they can have reasonable restrictions on placement of them provided the restrictions do not impair the function, unreasonably restrict the use, or adversely affect the cost or efficiency of the device. It provides for attorneys’ fees for a homeowner who files an action against the homeowners association. 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. 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. Please call House members and ask them to oppose all of the measures to undercut our rights to initiative and referendum. The initiative and referendum process in some form is older than our country itself — it dates back to the 1600's when via town meetings, communities voted on ordinances and other issues. The authors of the Arizona Constitution thought it was important to provide citizens with the initiative and referendum process to provide a check on the legislative branch and also to check the widespread corruption involving big business during this time. It is still an important check on legislative power. Ask them to reject the following measures: 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 besides, the big guys will just wait to invest until after the measure is filed and the petitions printed. It goes on to require that signature gatherers only be paid at a flat hourly rate. It states that the initiative measure must indicate whether the signatures were primarily gathered by volunteers or paid signatures when it is submitted to the ballot. This is a lot of hoops to jump through. 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, prior to the initiative being circulated. The Legislative Council staff generally does a good job with their current responsibilities, but the Legislative Council itself (made up of legislators) has already messed up the process for drafting an impartial analysis for initiatives. These analyses have resulted in numerous lawsuits after Legislators have successfully included biased language in the analysis. There is no reason to think this process would be any different and would only give the Legislature, already hostile to many of these measures, another shot at undercutting citizen efforts. HCR2002 initiatives; filing (Adams: Driggs) has a strike everything amendment to refer to the ballot a measure to require anyone who is filing an initiative to submit it to the Legislative Council to establish the official title and make recommendations for changes prior to the initiative being circulated, and so they can hold a public hearing. See all of the problems with HB2441. It also moves the signature filing deadline back by four months. This is another burden for grassroots organizations. Besides the voters just rejected a nearly identical measure in 2004. HCR2012 proposition 105 voter protection; limitation (Adams: Crandall) refers to the ballot a measure to gut the Voter Protection Act by authorizing the Legislature to repeal, amend or supersede by a simple majority an initiative or referendum four years after voter approval of the initiative or referendum. It is then supposed to be ratified by the voters, but in the meantime the legislative action is in place. This allows legislators to do what they used to do consistently immediately repeal or significantly amend voter-approved measures. The Voter Protection Act passed overwhelming in 1998 because legislators were consistently undercutting and attempting to take away funding for citizen approved measures. The bill goes on to allow a legislative repeal or major changes after the four year period for any measures that contain government programs. These would not have to go back to the voters for ratification. 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, likely violates the US Constitution, and makes it more difficult for grassroots groups. HCR2026 initiative; review; single subject (Adams) refers to the ballot a measure to further erode the single subject requirements for constitutional amendments and replace that standard with the standard for legislation. This means we will have more very long, multi-issue constitutional amendments. This is already a problem, considering recent court decisions. To email House members, go to http://www.azleg.gov/memberRoster.asp?Body=H. 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) 926-4221. Here is the schedule for this week: Tuesday, February 20 Senate Appropriations Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 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, operation, etc. of transportation projects. Sensitive business, commercial or financial information is exempt from disclosure. This would allow more private and even more unaccountable projects. OPPOSE. SB1193 DWR; general adjudications support; appropriation (Flake) provides $1 million for general adjudications support at the Department of Water Resources. This is the process where they determine the ownership of the water rights in streams and rivers. This is probably fine, although it would be nice to see more dollars going into protecting water resources and keeping our streams and rivers flowing. WATCH. For more information on these bills go to http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/. 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 Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |