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| Political Action |
Legislative Updates 2008Sierra Club 2008 Legislative Update #9 “Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires." — Friedrich Nietzsche March 7, 2008 Hello Conservation Friends! Thank you to everyone who came to the hearing on the Clean Car standards. We had a good showing and a good counter to the auto industry nonsense. I also know a number of people submitted written comments. Thanks too for doing that. The Clean Car rule will go to the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council in May, so stay tuned for that as we will want strong support there and a good turnout. The news at the Legislature is not as good. This was a particularly tough week, but nothing bad has reached the Governor’s desk yet and there is still a chance to advance a few positive measures. It is more important than ever for people to speak up, however. HB2766 omnibus energy act of 2008 stalled this week because Representative Ray Barnes, Chair of the House Environment Committee, refused to hear it. It is not dead, but may need to be resurrected on another bill. While we are extremely disappointed in how they have weakened key provisions, the school and public building programs are still worth supporting in the bill. Our constitutional rights are under attack again by the Arizona Legislature. Of course, they cannot amend the constitution without our approval, but if they have their way, you will spend all day voting your ballot in the fall and many of the measures will be constitutional in nature. Here is just a small sampling of the bad constitutional amendments they are proposing. Meanwhile people continue to fret about what the people will refer to the ballot. Hmmmm, curious. HCR2033 legislators qualifications; technical correction (Nelson) was amended with a strike everything on trust land exchanges; wildlife conservation in the Natural Resources and Public Safety Committee 6-4. It refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to allow the State Land Department to trade state trust lands for public or private lands. While it indicates that the exchanges must be for wildlife, this provides little if any assurance that the end result will be good for wildlife. Land Exchanges are invariably driven by development, not wildlife conservation, and the public usually gets the short end of the stick when the exchange is consummated. Arizona voters have rejected similar land exchange bills six times since 1990. Most recently we voted down Proposition 100 in 2004, a measure that the proponents promoted as protecting open space and military airports. The voters are skeptical about land swaps and for good reason. Please ask your representatives to oppose this measure. HCR2037 constitutional rights; game and fish (JP Weiers, Adams, Barnes, et al) passed out of the House Natural Resources and Public Safety Committee on Wednesday 6-3-1. Despite opposition from the Arizona Game and Fish Commission and concerns about how it would affect its ability to manage wildlife, Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife supported the bill. It is hard to believe that this group would so cavalierly give up what Arizona hunters and anglers have fought to keep, a commission system that limits some of the direct day-to-day political influence. HCR2037 refers to the ballot a constitutional amendment to limit the authority of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to regulate and manage wildlife consistent with its duties and limits the rights of citizens to enact wildlife legislation by initiative. The Sierra Club is not anti-hunting, but this measure is really not about hunting, it is about undermining the rights of the people as well as the commission system relative to wildlife management. At a minimum, this proposal would create inconsistent provisions regarding initiative rights within the Arizona Constitution. Please continue to ask legislators to oppose this power grab. HCR2044 voter-protection; temporary budgetary suspension (Pearce, Barnes, Biggs, et al) refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the legislature to reduce appropriations for measures approved by the voters in any year where there was a projected budget deficit. This would eviscerate the Voter Protection Act. This passed out of the House Appropriations Committee 10-5-0-2. Please ask your legislators to oppose this one too. HCR2045 county officers; elections; technical correction (Adams) had a strike everything amendment on initiative and referendum. It refers to the ballot yet another constitutional amendment that provides for circulating an initiative based on a short paragraph description and requires that the signatures for it be turned into the Secretary of State on December 31 of the year before the election. It requires someone proposing an initiative to submit it to the Legislature for consideration. The Legislature can amend and adopt language as if it were any other bill or do nothing and it goes to the ballot. It changes the voting requirements from a 3/4 vote to a 2/3 vote relative to the Voter Protection Act, says it must further the intent of the people versus further the purposes and it allows changes to “correct problems.” You can only guess what the legislature might see as a problem. It mandates any constitutional amendment passed by the voters be resubmitted to the ballot after eight years. HCR2045 passed out of the House Government Committee 6-1-1. This would need a lot of work to be acceptable. Please ask your legislators to oppose this measure too. HCR2069 state budget; continuation (Murphy: Anderson, Pearce, et al) is yet another proposed constitutional amendment that says that the current budget continues if a new budget has not been enacted by June 30 and requires the agency to reduce its budget if the dollars are inadequate. This is another really ridiculous proposal that would make the budget even more of a nightmare. Please ask your legislators to oppose it. And now to shift gears a tad, while our state continues to have serious water issues, including in the Coconino plateau area, rather than step up to conserve, protect, and plan better, the Legislature is codifying mistakes in law. HB2772 groundwater transfers; drought emergency (Mason) had a strike everything ground transfers; Coconino plateau in the Water and Agriculture Committee. The groundwater code was established to try and limit groundwater pumping and to try to better manage our water resources in Arizona. It prohibits the transportation of groundwater across a groundwater basin boundary, except under limited exceptions, one of which was the terrible exception that Carol Springer got through to allow Prescott to pump groundwater in the Big Chino Sub-basin. This is an issue because it affects the flows of the Verde River. Unfortunately the code did not, and still does not, recognize the impacts of groundwater pumping and groundwater transfers on the surface water. HB2772 was introduced because the Town of Williams drilled two wells in the Verde Valley Sub-basin rather than the Coconino Plateau Basin apparently no one can read a map and they did not use GPS. Under current law, they could not transfer that water to the town. This bill ratifies this mistake and allows them to transfer the water. That is a bad idea and a truly bad precedent. We would like to see, at a minimum, the bill amended to say that this transfer can only occur provided that it is demonstrated that there will be no harm to the Verde River. We cannot rely on Salt River Project alone to protect the Verde it belongs to all of us and to future generations. The Legislature should reject this bill. Coming up this week: Tuesday, March 11 Senate Committee on Appropriations at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 JLBC update and projection on the State’s revenue shortfall SB1330 abandoned mines; safety; funding (Burns, Flake, Harper, et al) requires that one-third of domestic and foreign corporations’ annual report fees be deposited in the Arizona Abandoned Mines Safety Fund instead of the Arizona Arts Trust Fund. It repeals the Arizona Arts Trust Fund and the Arizona Arts Program. This is just mean spirited. Wednesday, March 12 Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Rural Affairs at 1:30 p.m. in SHR 109 HB2067 game and fish; guide license (JP Weiers) allow the Game and Fish Commission to revoke a guides license for a longer period of time based on the particular offenses. This is a good idea. HB2132 county water authority; Colorado river (McLain, Burges, Groe, et al) gives authority for delivery of additional Colorado River water for municipal use. This is to address issues in Mohave County. WATCH 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 |