Home > Legislative Tracker > environment; citizen suits

Other Legislation:
environment; citizen suits

Our Position: support
Bill Number: HB2369
Sponsor: Sinema: Gallardo, Kirkpatrick, et al
Legislative Session: 2006 Legislative Session

HB2369 reinstates Arizona's citizen suit provisions that were part of the 1986 Environmental Quality Act, a measure that had strong bipartisan support and brought together a broad range of interests — business, environmental agricultural, etc.— to establish many of our current environmental laws in Arizona.  The provisions in HB2369 allow the public to take action if the state government refuses to enforce environmental laws passed by the Arizona Legislature. Effective enforcement is essential to fulfilling the goals of any statute the Arizona Legislature passes.

Status

Action Needed

It would be nice to reinstate this so we could hold the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality's feet to the fire relative to enforcement.  We will try again next year.

More information

Contact

Background

The citizen suit provisions in HB2369 were in place in Arizona from 1986 through 1995 and during that time, only four citizen suits were filed including one to stop the Los Abrigados resort from polluting Oak Creek.  (As a result, a sewer was installed.) Two other suits dealt with an individual who lived outside of Kingman and raised goats, horses, and other livestock.  Facilities upstream from her were consistently causing sewage sludge to flow across her property — this included excessive amounts of fecal coliform and heavy metals. 

HB2369 makes it clear that a suit can only be filed after a notice of 60 days has been given to both the director of the agency and the alleged violator.  If the attorney general or county attorney is diligently prosecuting the action then a suit cannot be filed.  If the court determines the suit was frivolous it can award court costs and attorneys' fees to the defendant.  The burden of proof in these actions is on the plaintiff.  There are plenty of checks in place to limit frivolous actions.

Under HB2369, any dollars collected as civil penalties do not go to the plaintiff.  They come back to the state and would go to either the Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund or to the Air Quality Fund, depending on whether it was the air or water quality statutes that had been violated.

Congress has long recognized the important role citizens play in enforcement of our laws and first included them in federal environmental legislation when it enacted the Clean Air Act, and subsequently, in the Clean Water Act, "to both goad the responsible agencies to more rigorous enforcement of the anti-pollution standards and, if the agencies remained inert, to provide an alternative enforcement mechanism."[1] 

The citizen suit provisions authorize people to be "private attorneys general" to protect our air and water when our own Arizona Department of Environmental Quality or Attorney General fails to act.  The laws permit citizens to stand in for the ADEQ to stop pollution if the agency is unwilling to do its job.