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| Political Action |
Legislative Updates 2007Sierra Club 2007 Legislative Update #11 March 16, 2007 Hello Conservation Friends! Tuesday is Environmental Day at the Legislature at the Capitol on the House lawn from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. If you have not let me know you are coming, please do so right away. We are trying to make sure we have enough packets for everyone. Please come for all or part of it if you can. Thanks! The Legislature moved a few bills forward this week, some of them good, some of them bad, some of them so-so. On a positive note, the House passed two energy bills — one that promotes use of solar energy by commercial entities and one that allows schools to re-invest savings on utilities into capital projects to promote efficiency and renewables. They also passed a bill to limit well-drilling in areas where there is treatment occurring for contaminated groundwater. The water adequacy bills moved forward. These bills have some problems, but will help a bit in places like Coconino County where the supervisors can probably agree to pass an adequacy provision unanimously. Elsewhere, it is questionable. Finally, in the bad news category, the House passed one of the anti-initiative bills, HB2338 initiative and referendum; disclosure (Adams: Anderson, Crandall) by a vote of 32-27-1. It requires a political committee to disclose its major funding sources at the bottom of the initiative or referendum petition sheet. This sets up another double standard for citizen initiatives or referenda. Legislative referrals are not required to include the major funding from various lobbying interests that pushed them through the legislature nor do candidate petitions require that they include their major funders on the petitions. Ballot measures already must disclose major funding sources on campaign materials. It goes on to require that signature gatherers be paid at a flat hourly rate and that they be employees. Why can’t these businesses hire independent contractors like other businesses? This aspect will put the initiative process more in the hands of wealthy interests. It states that the initiative measure must indicate on the ballot whether the signatures were primarily gathered by volunteers or paid gatherers. Considering the number of signatures that is now required and all the barriers for gathering signatures (many places do not allow it), there are few if any initiative campaigns get the majority of signatures with volunteers. This, along with the other measures in this bill, creates more technical requirements that will likely result in more citizen measures being thrown out. We oppose measures that erect impediments to citizen participation in direct democracy via the initiative process without solving any real problems. OPPOSE. Please thank the following representatives for opposing HB2338: Ableser, Alvarez, Bradley, Brown, Cajero Bedford, Ch. Campbell, DeSimone, Farley, Garcia, Gallardo, Hershberger, Kirkpatrick, Lopes, Lopez, Lujan, McGuire, Meza, Miranda, Pancrazi, Prezelski, Rios, Saradnik, Schapira, Sinema, Thrasher, Tom, and Ulmer. HB2443 NOW: user fee; off-highway vehicles (JP Weiers) establishes a user fee for off-road vehicles. While we support increasing funding for law enforcement and the safety provisions in the bill as well as the language that prescribes where these vehicles are allowed and where they are not allowed, we still have some concerns about the legislation. Our main concern continues to be the allocation of the 60 percent of the dollars that will go to grants administered by Arizona State Parks. These grants can be used for various activities including designating, constructing, maintaining, managing and acquiring land for OHV recreation facilities. We think it is very likely that these dollars will be used primarily for this, to open new areas to OHV activities, and to promote a use on the land that is decimating wildlife habitat, destroying vegetation, promoting soil erosion, and contributing to negative impacts on water and air quality. Please call members of the Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee and ask them to support an amendment that limits the use of these dollars to existing use areas and that directs a specific grant percentage to restoration and mitigation. Members of the committee include Senators: Aguirre, (602) 926-4139, aaguirre@azleg.gov ; Arzberger, (602) 926-4321, marzberger@azleg.gov ; Blendu, (602) 926-5955, rblendu@azleg.gov ; Flake (Chairman), (602) 926-5219, jflake@azleg.gov ; Chuck Gray, (602) 926-5288, cgray@azleg.gov ; Johnson, (602) 926-3160, kjohnson@azleg.gov; and Landrum Taylor, (602) 926-3830, llandrumtaylor@azleg.gov . Here is what is coming up in Committee this week: Monday, March 19 Senate Government Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 3 HB2369 NOW: temporary signage; preemption; abatement (Robson) preempts municipalities from regulating garish and unsightly advertising schemes via sign walkers on and along our public rights-of-way while at the same time mandating a permitting system whose proceeds would not cover the cost of service delivery but would rather be deposited in a "beautification" fund. OPPOSE. Tuesday, March 20 Environmental Day at the Legislature on the House Lawn from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Senate Transportation Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 3 HB2682 blue ribbon transportation committee (Biggs) establishes a committee made up entirely of legislators to make recommendations on transportation for the next legislative session. This does not require a bill the speaker could just appoint one besides, it seems like they could use a little diversity in this process. WHATEVER. Senate Appropriations Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 They may adopt budget bills. Wednesday, March 21 House Environment Committee at 1:30 p.m. in House Hearing Room 5 SB1112 toxic fire response (Landrum Taylor, Miranda, Rios, et al.) sets up the Arizona Chemical Fire Response Coordination Task Force in order to better limit the exposure of the public and first responders to hazardous chemicals during an emergency. It requires that the task force establish a hazardous material tracking process program for municipalities to identify buildings that use or have hazardous materials on site. It requires coordination of public health protection and risks associated with a chemical or toxic fire event. SUPPORT. SB1455 low sulfur diesel fuel standards (Allen) establishes standards for low and ultra low sulfur diesel. SUPPORT. SB1552 air quality program (Allen, Huppenthal) includes very limited provisions to improve air quality including some minimal regulation of leaf blowers, alternative work hours, and no burn expansion provisions. We support adding an amendment that will protect public health by expanding the nonattainment area, requiring developers to do more to limit dust via emissions impact fees, requiring agriculture to limit tilling on bad air days, and placing further limitations on leaf blowers; as well as measures limiting ozone pollution. SUPPORT. Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 Confirmation of Tracey Westerhausen to the State Parks Board HB2020 county purchasing; technical correction (McClure) will have a strike everything on railroad siting authority. It is not yet posted. WATCH. HB2309 solid waste; statewide planning (Barnes: Anderson) will have a strike everything on bioldiesel labeling requirements. It appears to be okay, but we will monitor. WATCH. HB2443 NOW: user fee; off-highway vehicles (JP Weiers) See above. HB2482 sanitary district; conversion; reorganization (Mason, Brown, O’Halleran, t al.) will have a strike everything on roads; county improvement districts. HCM2013 railroad rights-of-way (Pancrazi, Ableser, Alvarez, et al) asks that Union Pacific Corporation work with local communities and participate in town halls and local meetings to ensure that any new or proposed railroad, right-of-way does not devastate the local economy and that alternate routes are considered if proposed alignments have the potential to displace prime agricultural lands. This seems like a reasonable ask. Thursday, March 22 House Water and Agriculture Committee at 10:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room 1 SB1119 water; overlapping service area providers (C. Gray, Aguirre, Harper, et al.) prohibits water providers (primarily municipalities) in an area that overlaps with an irrigation district from limiting a landowner’s right to use water that is supplied by an irrigation district. This bill will significantly hinder cities’ water conservation efforts, drought plans, efforts to address groundwater contamination, and more. It includes a provision that says the irrigation districts have to abide by conservation requirements from the Arizona Department of Water Resources. That is easy to do as these irrigation districts are exempt from nearly all conservation requirements. OPPOSE. 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 not enforced. This would allow backsliding on water conservation in the AMAs. OPPOSE. For more information on bills we are tracking, go to http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/. To email legislators go to http://www.azleg.gov/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 |