Request to Speak on Bills that Weaken Water Protections or Strengthen Fossil Fuels

How about some good news first. We had a fantastic Environmental Day at the Capitol 2025. This year we had more than 400 people participate, at least 35 groups -- 25 had information tables, students from five high schools and the youth programs with Chispa Arizona and Rural Arizona Action, students from community colleges and universities, and we met with more than half of the legislators. I personally ran into two of our legislators which inspired this action: If you haven't already, please take a minute to contact Sen. T.J. Shope and ask him to allow a hearing of the Rural Groundwater Bill, SB1425 in the Natural Resources Committee that he chairs.

Sen. Thomas "T.J." Shope, district 16, TSHOPE@azleg.gov (602) 926-3012

Coming up this week at the state legislature are more bills to hinder renewable energy and favor fossil fuels. Also, many bills that weaken water protections.

Don't forget to oppose or support (just one we support) the bills in the Request to Speak system. Note that you do not have to speak if you use the system, you can just sign in on the app with a position on the bills.

Since there were so many bad bills this week, I will be posting a separate Call to Action with the RTS actions for bills being heard in committee on Wednesday. Please check back tomorrow or Tuesday.

If you can't do any others, please, weigh in on HB2059 natural resources; federal law; requirements that prohibits the state, its political subdivisions, and any employee of the state from enforcing, administering, or cooperating, or using any resources regarding Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act provisions, and specifically from the Mexican wolf recovery effort. THIS IS JUST CRAZY!

NOTE: There are a lot of strike-everything (S/E) amendments. These are amendments that eliminate the original bill and replace it with a brand new one. It is very confusing to the public and generally does not serve the public interest.

Please weigh in on the following bills on the Request to Speak app anytime while they are still in committee. https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon

If you haven't signed up for the system, you can find the form here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdjBMoAJrjHD57GGegmdUCKAowcr93K4vQA6a7_AjyElBtrQ/viewform

Directions on how to navigate the system:

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

Monday, February 17th

Senate Federalism Committee at 1:30 PM

• SB1150 state land; exchanges (Gowan) Changes the approval for state trust land exchanges from the people to the governor. (They are assuming we will get a different governor.) OPPOSE
• SB1278 technical correction; self-service storage; notice (Finchem) has a strike everything amendment on s/e department of natural resources  creates a Department and Commission on Natural Resources to oversee acquisition and management of all state lands. It would require that private landowners give the state the right of first refusal on purchase if they are thinking about selling to the federal government. Basically creating a new department that's essentially under control of the legislature (4 of the 5 commissioners) that is responsible for natural resources including mining and logging. OPPOSE
• SCR1006 state trust land; land exchanges (Gowan) This is part of the implementation referred to in SB1150. It refers a proposed constitutional amendment to the ballot that would remove voter approval requirements for state trust land exchanges. This would eliminate important accountability. OPPOSE
• SCR1018 federal lands; supporting disposal (Finchem) is a resolution urging disposal -- sale or transfer -- of Bureau of Land Management lands and opposing the 30 by 30 initiative to protect 30 percent of our lands and waters in the United States by 2030 to help us be more resilient relative to climate change and to provide a lasting legacy. This is a short-sighted and uninformed resolution. OPPOSE

Senate Military Affairs & Border Security 

• SB1164 immigration laws; local enforcement (Petersen: Shope) establishes the Arizona Immigration, Cooperation and Enforcement Act and requires the state and local enforcement of federal immigration laws. This takes away local control of law enforcement. OPPOSE

Tuesday, February 18th

Senate Natural Resources Committee at 2:00 PM
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here

• SB1518 subsequent AMAs; groundwater portability (Dunn) Basically this allows the sale of grandfathered rights to irrigate to anyone in the AMA (not even on the same land) which is contrary to the intent of the AMA. OPPOSE
• SB1520 water protection; technical correction (Dunn) will have a strike-everything on rural groundwater  allows for establishment of Basin Management areas for Gila Bend, Willcox, and Hualapai Valley. It is so full of loopholes that it makes the Basin Management Area designation meaningless. OPPOSE 
• SB1530 groundwater storage facility; withdrawals; area (Petersen) The changes made in this bill don't guarantee that the water withdrawn from the recovery well is actually the water that was being stored. Another loophole. It weakens the requirements for recovering stored water in an AMA. OPPOSE
• SB1611 physical availability exemption credit; groundwater (Shope: Petersen) is a bill to accommodate development where water is no longer physically available, according to ADWR modeling. The provision allows a landowner who has an irrigation grandfathered right in an active management area to retire the land from irrigation, but retain a physical availability credit to non-irrigation use of the land. This specifically gets around assured water supply requirements for subdivisions in active management areas (AMA) and allows continued groundwater mining. OPPOSE
• SB1733 oil and gas commission; helium (Finchem) removes the Oil and Gas Commission from the purview of the ADEQ and also exempts Helium exploration and production from aquifer protection permits. Both of these are a bad idea. OPPOSE

House Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• HB2059 natural resources; federal law; requirements (Fink: Keshel, Powell) prohibits the state, its political subdivisions, and any employee of the state from enforcing, administering, or cooperating, or using any resources regarding Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act provisions, and specifically from the Mexican wolf recovery effort. This is just saying that they can extract anything they want and nobody can tell them what to do. OPPOSE
• HB2106 technical correction; supplemental environmental project (Griffin) has a S/E: establishment; advanced water purification permit allows ADEQ to establish a program for treating effluent to be used directly for drinking water. SUPPORT
• HB2527 corporation commission; electricity; reliability; management (Olson) prohibits the Arizona Corporation Commission from authorizing a power plant retirement unless there is a new plant with equal or greater power. It requires that all replacement resources for power plant retirements be thermal (gas, coal, or nuclear) and precludes them from being renewable resources. The effect would likely be to keep coal plants running longer costing ratepayers more dollars -- solar is cheaper than coal. Due to its rate impacts and the restrictions on the ACC, it is also likely unconstitutional. OPPOSE
• HB2574 small land subdivision; requirements (Griffin: Lopez) allows counties to approve small land divisions of 6-10 lots with lots of 2 acres or more, thus getting around subdivision requirements and assured water supply requirements. This creates yet another loophole. OPPOSE
• HB2738 electric utility customers; carbon reduction (Olson) states that when a utility declares a carbon emissions reduction goal to shareholders or commits to replacing coal and gas with wind and solar, its ratepayers can opt out and be served by a different provider. It is a weird version of retail electric competition and seeks to punish utilities that adopt more renewables and that are serious about carbon reduction. OPPOSE
• HB2774 technical correction; certificate; environmental compatibility (Carbone)  has a S/E: small modular reactors; co-location preempts counties from regulating the location of these small modular nuclear reactors if they are co-located with a large industrial electricity user. This allows them to bypass environment revues and certifications. OPPOSE
• HCM2010 air quality; ozone levels (Carbone) asks Congress to force the EPA to approve a state implementation plan for ozone despite the fact that we do not meet the health-based standards for ozone. It's asking the EPA to change their rules because they have too much economic impact. OPPOSE
• HCR2046 Colorado River; cause of decline (Griffin: Diaz, Lopez) says forest mismanagement and salt cedars are the principal cause of Colorado River depletion despite no evidence to support that. Climate change and the associated drought and over allocation of the river are the principal causes of depletion. OPPOSE
  
  Whew! We got through these! Remember to check tomorrow or Tuesday for the bills being heard in committee on Wednesday.