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| Imagine sacrifice zone needed to transport desalinated water |
Our GOP legislators (with a small majority) are trying to bulldoze through voter suppression bills and other bad bills that will make it harder for Arizona to have an environmentally sound water supply and just transition to solar.
This week, the Governor shared a draft of his bill to establish the Arizona Water Augmentation Authority. It's terrible! The purpose is to seek water from other states or countries, including via desalination. It is really more of the same to continue unsustainable water policies and growth practices. In addition to that, the structure of the authority is undemocratic and gives the usual suspects all the power relative to water. The bill will likely be considered in the next two weeks.
The Arizona Legislature continues to move along bad public policy daily. Even though the number of bills to make it more difficult to register to vote, to register people to vote, and to actually vote has been whittled down and the Senate has rejected a few, there are still far too many out there advancing through the process.
One such bill is HB2492 voter registration; verification; citizenship (Hoffman: Blackman, Carter, et al.), which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines. This bill requires people who register to vote with a passport, birth certificate, naturalization certificate, or a tribal ID to submit additional documents proving residency. It includes new restrictions for federal-only voters, including that they may not vote by mail. It requires those who have previously registered to vote to provide additional identification. As if the bill itself was not bad enough, during the vote explanations in committee, the committee chair actually interrupted the only two people of color on the committee in the middle of explaining their votes. It was pretty outrageous. Call your senator and ask them to oppose HB2492!
There was some good news this week. SB1629 failed on the Senate Floor 13-15-2. SB1629 registration; verification; images; audits; boxes (Borrelli: Barto, Fann, Gowan, et. al), creates unnecessary, difficult hurdles for nonprofits and volunteers who register citizens to vote. There was a motion for reconsideration of the bill, so that means they can bring it back for another vote at any time. Keep those calls coming. Tell your senators to oppose SB1629.
HB2101 electric energy; reliability; public policy (Griffin: Abraham, Blackman, et al.) also failed on Senate Third Read 14-3-3, but will also be back as there was a motion for reconsideration. HB2101 repeals provisions in the law that create parameters for retail competition of electricity. We are opposed to the bill as we have concerns about how it will affect community choice aggregation of electricity overall and rooftop solar in Salt River Project (SRP) territory. Tell your senator to please vote No on HB2101. We could use some extra calls to Senators Alston, Gabaldon, and Rios.
Also, this week, the Senate Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee advanced both HB2055 and HB2411.
HB2055 Harquahala non-expansion area; groundwater transportation (Griffin: Bowers) allows private water companies such as EPCOR to import water from the Harquahala Valley and into the active management areas (AMAs) for development. Currently only cities can do that. This exacerbates making this area a groundwater depletion sacrifice zone. We also object to giving private water interests more control of water, something that is essential for life, as this bill allows.
Oppose Groundwater Pumping Sacrifice Zones!
https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/Arizona?actionId=AR0355357&id=70131000001Lp1FAAS
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