Request to Speak on Bills that Hurt the Environment and Water

Among the bad bills in committee at our state legislature this week are some misguided bills that either distract from or exacerbate the problem with over-pumping water. Other bad bills prohibit banks from considering environmental or social issues when making investments.

Please, use the Request to Speak ap to OPPOSE the bad bills (below) and SUPPORT the good bills like HB2373 (that facilitates a faster transition to clean energy.)

Sign in to RTS system here: https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon

If you have not registered for the Request to Speak system to voice your position, we encourage you to do so now as it will take a day or two for your account to be activated at the Capitol. Here is a link for signing up. To learn more about how to use the Request to Speak System, you can sign up for one of the trainings sponsored by Civic Engagement Beyond Voting. Here is their sign up link.

 

Written directions for RTS here:

http://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2018/03/request-to-speak-time.html

There are also several bills designed to make it more difficult to vote. If you are interested in opposing those bills, a list can be found here:

https://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2023/01/legislative-update-and-request-to-speak.html

Weigh into the following bills before they go to a vote in committee. The dates and times are listed below. 

 Monday, January 30th

House Committee on Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs at 2:00 PM

• HB2376 agricultural land; foreign ownership; prohibition (Biasiucci: Bliss, Cook, et al.) prohibits selling, leasing or subleasing agricultural state land to any foreign entity. This seems to miss the point of the problem regarding over pumping water on state trust lands. It’s not just the Saudi’s that are over pumping. Big ag and development are using up water too. SUPPORT with a comment regarding domestic over-pumping

Senate Transportation and Technology at 2:00 PM

• SB1100 all-terrain vehicles; definition (Carroll, Gowan, Shamp, et al) increases, from 2,500 to 3,500 pounds or less, the maximum weight of an all-terrain vehicle. The bigger vehicles do even more harm to trails and the land. OPPOSE
• SB1122 transportation tax; election; Maricopa county (Farnsworth: Cook) directs Maricopa County to hold an election for the sales tax for transportation and prescribes how much it will be and what it will be used for, including that 80% will go to freeways. Shouldn’t public transit options be included to get people off of freeways?  OPPOSE

Tuesday, January 31st

House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 2:00 PM

• HB2444 natural resource conservation districts; revisions (Griffin) establishes a Natural Resource Conservation District Commission and sets up a whole system for them to get more money. Most of these entities represent industrial agriculture. OPPOSE.

House Committee on Commerce at 2:00 PM

• HB2472 social credit; use; prohibition (Montenegro) says a state cannot require the use of a social credit score for bank lending. Again, this would limit requiring banks to look at the environmental harm or public health impacts of the dollars they loan. OPPOSE

Wednesday, February 1st

Senate Committee on Government at 8:30 AM

•  SB1103 administrative review; approvals; developments (Petersen: Borrelli, Kavanagh, et al.) provides for no hearing on certain aspects of development, including plats, development plans, etc. and also for expedited review. Encourages rushed development when we really should be cutting back on development because there isn’t enough water. OPPOSE
• SB1115 land sales; foreign entities; prohibition (Kern: Rogers) prohibits sale or lease of state land to foreign entities. They focus on foreign rather than the over pumping of water from domestic users as well. SUPPORT with comment
• SB1138 banks; discrimination prohibition; social criteria  (Hoffman: Borrelli, Kern, et al.) says banks can't discriminate based on social credit, environmental, social, governance, or other impact criteria. That would mean a bank could not say no to a developer based on the harm of that development. OPPOSE
• SB1139 government investments; products; fiduciaries; plans (Hoffman: Borrelli, Kern) requires the state treasurer to post investments and prohibits any investments to consider social implications. OPPOSE
• SCR1015 initiative; referendum; signatures; legislative districts (Mesnard: Bennett, Kaiser, et al.) refers to the ballot that would require a proportionate percentage of petition signatures from each legislative district to put a measure on the ballot. This would be extremely difficult and expensive and put ballot measures more in the hands of the wealthy. OPPOSE

House Committee on Regulatory Affairs at 2:00 PM

• HB2373 permits; automated permitting platform (Biasiucci: Contreras, L. Hernandez, et al.) allows for online solar permit compliance and removes requirement for a diagram when using it. Facilitates a faster transition to clean energy.  SUPPORT

House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure at 2:00 PM

• HB2411 water supply; elimination; reduction; damages (Cook: Martinez, Toma, et al.) tries to make Scottsdale liable for termination of water service to Rio Verde. What they really should be doing is tightening regulation, not proposing this kind of bill to reward wildcat development. OPPOSE

Thursday, February 2nd

Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 9:30 AM

• SB1224 state parks; lottery; heritage fund (Shope) restores the $10 million from lottery dollars for the State Parks Heritage Fund for trails, protecting cultural sites, education, etc. SUPPORT
• SB1257 water resources; assistant director (Petersen) requires the Department of Water Resources director to appoint an assistant director that only works with the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority on augmentation (external water sources, like desalination in the Gulf of California). This would put even more resources into augmentation versus conservation. Why not have this person focus on that? OPPOSE