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Legislative Updates 2008"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." - Alexander Hamilton Sierra Club 2008 Legislative Update #14 April 11, 2008 Hi all! The Legislature was up to mostly no good this week. There was a series of strikers to make it more difficult to promote energy efficiency and to reduce greenhouse gases, plus one to limit the use of the law’s public nuisance provisions to protect the public. The last one failed, but the others are moving along. Arizona’s business community appears to be stuck in the last century when it comes to environmental protection and energy issues. They brought out all the big guns to push through HB2017 to undercut the Governor’s efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile they are also busy figuring out a way to tax us to build more roads and freeways. It seems like it is TIME for some new voices and real leaders. Please call Senators and ask them to oppose HB2017 joint underwriting and reinsurance organizations (Konopnicki). Tell them you want cleaner cars, cleaner air, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. HB2017 will undercut Clean Car and clean air programs and significantly restrict the Governor’s ability to act to limit greenhouse gas emissions as well as other pollutants. The striker, Greenhouse emissions; regulations; fuel economy, restricts implementation of programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions unless they are expressly authorized by federal law, consistent with federal law, and no more stringent than federal law. This is unnecessary and unwise. It will bring the Clean Car Rule, which is on its way for final approval, to a screeching halt and also make it impossible for the Governor to effectively participate in the Western Climate Initiative. OPPOSE. To find your senator’s contact information just click on Senators or you can call (602) 926-3559 or outside the Phoenix area 1-800-352-8404 and just ask to be connected to your senator’s office. Call House members and ask them to oppose SB1491 subdivision reports; notice (Gorman, Blendu, McCune Davis). This is a truly ugly bill and would sanction the worst developments possible. It is an effort to circumvent the subdivision laws and ratify unlawful activities. This is being promoted by a group of plaintiffs that lost a lawsuit with the Arizona Department of Real Estate. The plaintiffs own property within the Cave Creek/Carefree area that was illegally subdivided. An amendment adopted in Homeland Security and Property Rights Committee would exempt these illegally subdivided lands from the statutes regulating new subdivisions including the Assured Water Supply requirements through the end of 2008. The current proposal limits it to Maricopa County, but it is my understanding they will try to apply this statewide to ensure it is constitutional. OPPOSE. To find your House members’ contact information just click on HOUSE or paste this website into your browser http://www.azleg.gov/memberRoster.asp?Body=H or you can call (602) 926-4221 or outside the Phoenix area 1-800-352-8404 and just ask to be connected to your senator’s office. Most of the committee work is done, although there are some gubernatorial nominations that are supposed to be heard in the Senate and the Appropriations Committees continue to meet. Coming up this week: Tuesday, April 15 Senate Committee on Appropriations at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 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. The Voter Protection Act was enacted in 1998 after years of the legislature diverting dollars and undermining citizen initiatives. You only need to look at measures that do not have this protection to see what can happen. OPPOSE. Wednesday, April 16 House Committee on Appropriations at 1:30 p.m. in House Hearing Room 1 SB1192 perjury; classification (C. Gray) will have a strike everything amendment on abandoned mines safety funding. I expect this is to swipe money from the arts, but it was not posted. Here is an update on a few bills we are following: HB2078 manufactured housing office; powers (Konopnicki) was defeated in the Senate Commerce and Economic Development Committee 2-4-2. It had a strike everything on public nuisance; limitations that limits product liability actions under the nuisance statutes. This is a bad idea as nuisance provisions allow cities and towns and others to get at more of the environmental concerns. OPPOSE. HB2221 county subdivisions; notification (Paton) had a strike everything on Green Building in the Senate Government Committee and passed out 4-3. It limits the ability of cities and towns to implement green building programs and requires them to prepare a green building impact analysis that includes documentation that they examined a range of alternatives, explanation and basis for the preferred alternative, estimated materials costs, estimated water and energy savings, and impact on new home buyers and low income homes. It pre-empts them from requiring green building as a condition of land use. We should be promoting green building not erecting roadblocks. OPPOSE. HB2235 administrative rules oversight committee (DeSimone, Burns, Cheuvront, et al) passed out of the Senate Government Committee 4-3. It reestablishes the Administrative Rules Oversight Committee (AROC), a committee that has oversight on rules and consists of 10 legislators and a representative from the governor’s office. This committee was not an effective mechanism for addressing concerns when it existing previously and just adds more bureaucracy to an already cumbersome process. There were good reasons that Governor Hull vetoed the bill that would have kept the AROC and that no one has really missed it since. An identical bill in the House, SB1255, went through Committee of the Whole in the House and awaits a Third Read. OPPOSE. HB2614 renewable energy valuation; expiration extension (Mason, Miranda, O’Halleran, et al) passed out of the Senate Finance Committee 5-1-2. It extends the date for the property tax incentive for the valuation of renewable energy equipment from 2011 to 2040. SUPPORT. HB2615 NOW: solar construction permits (Mason, Ableser, Reagan) passed out of the Senate Government Committee 7-0. It specifies that counties and municipalities adopt standards for issuing permits for the use of solar photovoltaic systems and creates the Local Government Solar Equipment Permit Process Improvement Study Committee. SUPPORT. HB2766 omnibus energy act of 2008 (Mason, Ch Campbell, McClure, et al.) passed out of the Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee 6-1. It promotes energy efficiency and clean renewable energy in Arizona. It requires school districts to reduce their energy consumption by 10% by July 1, 2011, 15% by July 1, 2015 and 20% by July 1, 2020; and it requires that school districts, universities, community colleges, and state agencies purchase 10 percent of their energy from renewable and nonpolluting energy sources. The bill gives schools flexibility to use the dollars they save on utilities to pay for capital investments that would help save energy. It requires state agencies to reduce energy use by 20% by 2015 and 30% by 2020. (The baseline year remains fiscal year 2001-2002.) HB2766 also makes changes to Arizona’s procurement code to provide for Energy Performance Contracting and requires the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in cooperation with the Department of Weights and Measures to conduct a study on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fuels. It includes a statewide standard to reduce idling of vehicles with diesel engines and a section to limit school bus idling. SUPPORT. HB2772 NOW: groundwater transfers; Coconino plateau (Mason) passed out of the Senate Natural Resources and Rural Affairs Committee 6-1. It allows the Town of Williams to transfer water from one basin to another – from the Verde Valley Sub-basin to the Coconino Plateau Basin, thus codifying a mistake into law and granting a special exception to the groundwater code. This bill ratifies a mistake and sets a bad precedent. Every time someone drills a well in the wrong location, will they be able to expect special legislation? In an age when we have much better mapping, GPS coordinates, and all kinds of ways to verify locations, this should not be happening. OPPOSE. SB1027 elections; conflicting amendments (now: municipal incentives; technical conforming changes (Tibshraeny) passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee 4-3-1-2. It had its second strike everything amendment on toll roads; public highway authorities which resurrects a bill that provides the authority for toll roads. On the floor of the senate, Senator Gould indicated that they needed toll road authority to build roads such as the I-10 Bypass and the I-17 alternative, both of which would be devastating from an environmental perspective. OPPOSE. SB1167 NOW: user fee; off-highway vehicles (L. Gray) awaits action by the full Senate. It provides funding for law enforcement and mitigation and restoration of areas damaged by off-road vehicles, plus limitations on where new trails can be built with the grant dollars. It is a step in the right direction to help better protect important public and private lands from irresponsible off-road vehicle activities. SUPPORT. SB1288 NOW: local stormwater pollution prevention programs (Flake, Rios: Barnes) passed out of the House Environment Committee 7-1-1-. It authorizes establishment of local pollutant discharge elimination system stormwater programs (county, town or agency of the state), collection of fees, and authorizes, but limits penalties for violations. It includes language that says the program can be no more stringent than the Clean Water Act and also any new ordinances or changes in ordinances can only comply with the “minimum requirements” of the Clean Water Act. This gives no flexibility to local communities to work to address local conditions that might require more protective standards. For example, many of our important washes and ephemeral waters have limited protection under the Clean Water Act. OPPOSE. Thank you for taking action on these important issues! 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 |