Fight HB2124 that encourages over-pumping of groundwater

This legislative session is finally nearing an end...thankfully. This year has seen so many bad water bills! 

HB2124 is scheduled for a vote in the House of Representatives, likely Wednesday.

HB2124 agricultural operations; water; protection; definition (Smith) would punish plaintiffs for filing suits against someone who is using too much groundwater or taking another user's water by reclassifying those suits as "nuisance lawsuits" and requiring them to pay lawyers fees. This would make it much harder to prevent deep-pocketed large agricultural water users from taking too much water. 

Ask House Members to Oppose HB2124 that benefits big groundwater pumpers to the detriment of small homeowners, farmers, and individual businesses.

To find out who your Representatives are, find your district here:

https://irc-az.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/lookup/index.html?appid=424810a4667049388ef6df4f0c73098b

Use that district to find contact info on your Representatives:

https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/

Last chance to stop dirty bills

Dirty Cholla Coal plant still in operation in Arizona Before shutting things down, the Senate passed several bad bills, but did reject some as well, including a harmful bill promoted by Rep Kolodin to allow "brackish groundwater" to help developers get around the assured water supply requirements. That was HB2186. The Senate passed HB2646 power plants; public service corporations (Bliss) 16-11-3 with only Republicans voting yes. This is a bad bill that would extend the life of outdated, expensive, dirty coal plants at the expense of utility ratepayers, setting out-of-reach parameters for their closures, and requiring the Attorney General to be engaged in opposing federal rules that would expedite their retirement. HB2646 seeks to prop up fossil fuel plants in an effort to rescue plants that are incredibly costly to keep in operation. Keeping fossil fuel plants operating longer is at the expense of ratepayers, who are kept on the hook to pay for expensive plants to remain in operation when it is more cost effective to transition to renewable energy like wind, solar, and storage.   Please ask Governor Hobbs to veto HB2646.

The AZ Senate also passed HB2002 power plants; transmission lines; definition (Griffin). It excludes switchyards and substations from review by the AZ Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee (Committee). The Committee is one of the few entities that considers environmental factors relative to siting and utilities are chipping away at what it applies to both at the Legislature and the Arizona Corporation Commission. This has not yet been transmitted to the governor, but will likely go to her next week. Ask Governor Hobbs to veto this too.  You can call the Governor at (602) 542-4331 or use the Governor's website. While you're at it, you can also thank the Governor for vetoing HB2788 United Nations; sustainable development; prohibition. It states that Arizona or any of its political subdivisions cannot adopt the sustainable development agenda of the United Nations. Apparently, the Legislature did not want to support ending poverty, achieving food security, ensuring healthy lives, achieving gender equality, and protecting the planet and our ability to live on it. We're glad the governor does. You can read her veto message here. Below are the potential ballot measures that the Legislature may refer for a vote. These were previously Request to Speak actions but, if you have not done so already, please contact your legislators about opposing them. HCR2032 voting centers; precinct voting (Jones: B Parker, Smith, et al.) would put a measure on the 2024 ballot that prohibits boards of supervisors from establishing voting centers to accommodate additional voting for a specific election as needed. It also eliminates no-excuse mail-in voting, limiting a method of voting used by 80% of Arizonans. If approved, this would result in lower voter turnout. This awaits action in Senate Committee of the Whole. HCR2040 public monies; prohibited expenditures (Smith: Biasiucci, Carbone, et al.) is another one of those referrals. It would place a measure on the 2024 ballot to prohibit the state or any political subdivision, including universities, to spend any public dollars to reduce global temperatures, have a climate action plan, participate in anything related to reducing meat consumption, do anything to address impacts of racism, etc. It wraps this up with a bow related to prohibiting "furthering Marxist ideologies." This awaits action in the Senate Rules Committee. HCR2050 energy source; restriction; prohibition (Griffin: Biasiucci, Bliss, et al) would put on the 2024 ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit a city, town, county or any other political subdivision of the state from restricting the manufacture, use or sale of a device based on the energy source that is either used to power the device or consumed by the device. Device is not defined, but this is clearly intended to preclude any limits on fossil fuel "devices," including gas. This will make it harder to protect our air, our water, our health, and our communities. It awaits action in the Senate Rules Committee.   HCR2058 legislative districts; population; census; citizenship (Heap: Chaplik, Gillette, et al) would put a measure on the 2024 ballot to require a state census that the Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) must use to determine legislative districts based on citizenship population. This is a direct attack on the IRC and would subvert US census data to dilute and attack communities, as well as being an expensive replication of the work done by the US Census Bureau. If successfully referred and approved, it would impact minority districts disproportionately. This awaits action in the Senate Rules Committee. SCR1041 ballot measures; challenges (Mesnard) refers a measure that allows challenges to proposed ballot measures by any person and earlier in the process. This would hinder citizen ballot measures as they could be challenged while people are still collecting signatures. This awaits action by the House Rules Committee. To find out who your legislators are, find your district here: https://irc-az.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/lookup/index.html?appid=424810a4667049388ef6df4f0c73098b Use that district to find contact info on your representatives: https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/ Use that district to find contact info on your senator: https://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster/?body=S

Urge Governor Hobbs to veto HB2788 that prohibits Arizona from doing anything in the UN Sustainable Development Goals

HB2788 United Nations; sustainable development; prohibition (Jones: Biasiucci, Bliss, et al.) has passed both houses of the legislature on a party line vote and is going to the governor's desk for approval. It prohibits Arizona or any of its political subdivisions from adopting the sustainable development agenda of the United Nations, which means they are objecting to support for ending poverty, support for achieving food security, ensuring healthy lives, achieving gender equality, and protecting the planet and our ability to live on it by objecting to action on climate change and promoting water sustainability. Effectively, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) apply to all functions of government so, if the governor doesn't veto this bill, state and local governments would be prohibited from spending funds on nearly everything they currently do. As just one example, if state and local governments could not act on target 6.4 of the SDGs, that would make the Groundwater Management Act unenforceable and effectively end water conservation measures in Arizona. It's quite obvious that the partisan legislators that passed this bill don't have any understanding of the SDGs - they just wanted to show their opposition to anything that is "green" or "woke."

Here is the list of UN Sustainable Development Goals showing how broad their scope is.

For more detailed descriptions of the SDGs, targets, and indicators - as well as a wealth of information about global progress (or lack thereof) in achieving the goals, check out the UN's Sustainable Development Goals website.

Please contact Governor Hobbs to encourage her to veto HB2788 before Monday.

Stop bills that make it harder to vote from going on the ballot

No new bills will be heard in committees, so there will be no Request to Speak this week. For a lot of the bad environmental bills, it looks like it will be mostly party line votes and hopefully, a veto by the Governor. Sadly, there are few positive bills moving. Legislators never heard bills to advance environmental justice, bills to limit groundwater pumping, bills to protect rivers and streams, bills to help address climate change, and bills to protect our air and water.  

Key concerns at this point in the session are measures that bypass the Governor and go directly to the ballot. There are several of those outstanding, including HCR2032 voting centers; precinct voting (Jones: B Parker, Smith, et al.). It would put a measure on the 2024 ballot that prohibits boards of supervisors from establishing voting centers to accommodate additional voting for a specific election as needed. It also eliminates no-excuse mail-in voting, limiting a method of voting used by 80% of Arizonans. If approved, this would result in lower voter turnout.
 

HCR2058 legislative districts; population; census; citizenship (Heap: Chaplik, Gillette, et al) would put a measure on the 2024 ballot to require a state census that the Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) must use to determine legislative districts based on citizenship population. This is a direct attack on the IRC and would subvert US census data to dilute and attack communities.
 

Please call your senator and ask them to vote no on HCR2032 and HCR2058!
You can find numbers for senators here.

More info. here:

GOP wants to scrap Arizona early voting. The plan is 1 vote away from the November ballot