How to Advocate for Water & Other Request to Speak actions

This week is dedicated to WATER!  We will be discussing How to Advocate for Water at the AZ Legislature during Sustainable Tucson's Water Committee meeting this Monday at 7pm. It will include information on current water laws and upcoming bills. Also, how to advocate in person or using the Request to Speak app. 

Water Committee Meeting
Monday, January 26 · 7:00 – 8:30pm
Time zone: America/Phoenix
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/ani-wqxn-jat
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 916-905-1996‬ PIN: ‪879 450 407‬#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/ani-wqxn-jat?pin=9761932595923

The Sierra Club will also be hosting an online meeting on January 29th at Noon - Learn About Arizona Water – Register Here.

This week we have several bills that relate to water including four we support. One bill (HB2641) that prohibits the use of firefighting foams with PFAS (like the ones that poisoned Tucson's water) was actually sponsored by Dems! And HB2185 prohibits HOAs from requiring reseeding and watering lawns during a drought. 

Please weigh in on the Request to Speak app while they are in their respective committees. 

Sign into the Request to Speak system: 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

This week the Sierra Club legislative report recommended that we oppose the following bills that prop up cryptocurrency because crypto requires huge power and water inputs - similar to data centers. Please use the Request to Speak app to oppose them before they are heard in committee at 1:30pm Monday. 

https://unu.edu/press-release/un-study-reveals-hidden-environmental-impacts-bitcoin-carbon-not-only-harmful-product

The Sierra Club report also asked us to oppose the bills propping up the beef industry that is one of the worst drivers of climate change. Weigh in before these bills are heard at 2pm on Monday. 

Monday, January 26th

Senate Finance Committee at 1:30 P.M. 
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• SB1042 public monies; investment; virtual currency (Rogers) allows the state to invest up to 10 percent of the public monies under its control in virtual currency holdings. OPPOSE
• SB1043 state agencies; payments; cryptocurrency (Rogers) authorizes a state agency to enter into an agreement with a cryptocurrency service provider to accept cryptocurrency as a payment method. OPPOSE
• SB1044 property tax; exemption; virtual currency (Rogers) conditional on approval of the measure below, would exempt virtual currency from property tax. Who does this tax exemption serve? The crypto bros? Certainly not us.  OPPOSE
• SCR1003 property tax; exemption; virtual currency (Rogers) refers a measure to the ballot that if approved would exempt virtual currency from property tax. This doesn't even make sense.  OPPOSE

House Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs Committee at 2:00 P.M. 
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• Sunset Review of the Arizona Beef Council
  
  
• HB2155 Arizona beef council; continuation (Diaz) continues the Beef Council until 2034. Do we really need a state entity that is promoting more beef consumption to the detriment of our water, lands, and the climate? OPPOSE
• HB2156 livestock compensation fund; appropriation (Diaz) appropriates $250,000 for the livestock compensation fund for payment to the livestock industry for wolves eating livestock, etc. The people on this board have huge conflicts of interest, so we are inclined not to support this. Besides, we have limited general fund dollars in this budget year and they are seeking to have wolves removed from the Endangered Species list. OPPOSE
• HB2162 game and fish commission; membership (Diaz) requires that one member of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission be a rancher. Ranchers already have undue influence on the Game and Fish Commission and also have huge conflicts as they advocate for the killing of various animals -- wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, and more. OPPOSE
• HB2791 cell-cultured protein; sale; prohibition (Diaz) prohibits the sale of cell-cultured protein for human consumption. Why would you prohibit something that has less of a harmful impact on the environment and on animals? And whatever happened to consumer choice and free markets? OPPOSE 

House Public Safety and Law Enforcement Committee at 2:00 P.M.
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• HB2641 PFAS; firefighting foam; prohibition (Ligouri: Biasucci, Fink, et al) bans the use of firefighting foam with PFAS in it. PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" that cause serious health issues. Limiting them in firefighting foam is an important public health issue for firefighters and will help limit contamination of lands and waters. SUPPORT 

Tuesday, January 27th
 

Senate Natural Resource Committee at 1:30 PM 
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• SB1041 appropriation; Arizona trail fund (Rogers) appropriates $500,000 from the general fund for the Arizona Trail. SUPPORT
• SB1197 subsequent AMAs; groundwater portability (Dunn) allows those who have Irrigation Grandfathered Rights (IGFR) in subsequent active management areas -- currently Douglas, Willcox, and Ranegras Plain (the new AMA) -- to sell, transfer, or lease the IGFR. This allows landowners who have these rights to transfer them away from the land they are associated with -- that is not currently allowed. Our concern is that this will actually increase groundwater pumping as lands that are no longer irrigated would be replaced by other irrigated lands. Really weakens AMA protections.  OPPOSE
• SB1198 Arizona beef council; continuation (Dunn) continues this entity to promote beef here and around the world until 2034. (Same as the House bill HB2155 above)  OPPOSE
• SCM1004 clean air act; EPA powers (Carroll: Angius, Gowan, et al) denies that the climate is changing due to greenhouse gas emissions and says EPA does not have the authority to regulate them. It asks Congress to limit EPA authority relative to regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. OPPOSE 

House Natural Resources, Energy, & Water Committee at 2:00 PM 
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• Presentation: Arizona Department of Water Resources, ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke
• HB2055 brackish groundwater recovery program (Griffin: Lopez)  establishes a fund for a brackish groundwater study (brackish groundwater is water that is not usable due to high concentrations of salts and minerals). While groundwater pumping is always a concern, this project appears to have sufficient guardrails to prevent over-pumping and environmental degradation from brine disposal. Increasing regional water supplies makes a lot more sense than outsourcing water from external sources, like the Missouri River or the Gulf of California. SUPPORT
• HB2056 appropriation; brackish groundwater; feasibility study (Griffin: Lopez) appropriates $100,000 for the pilot program established in HB2055. SUPPORT
• HB2185 homeowners' associations; lawns; drought (Willoughby) prohibits homeowners associations from requiring the overseeding or watering of lawns during a drought year. SUPPORT
• HB2328 municipal corporations; water supply; rates (Marshall: Heap) limits city water companies from charging residents who live outside the boundaries of the city a higher rate for water than residents living within the city boundaries. This is squarely targeted at the City of Tucson for charging those in the county more. Serving urban sprawl costs a lot more, so it is not unreasonable to charge more. OPPOSE
• HB2758 McMullen Valley; eligible entities; groundwater (Griffin: Blackman) allows the state, any political subdivisions of the state, and private water companies to engage in the interbasin transfer of groundwater from the McMullen Valley in La Paz County to elsewhere in La Paz County or to an active management area. This further facilitates creating these sacrifice zones for groundwater pumping. They are allowing a decline of up to 10 feet a year in the depth to groundwater. That's a lot. The aquifer will be drained in no time! OPPOSE
• HB2798 appropriation; Arizona geological survey; study (Carbone) appropriates an unidentified amount of money from the general fund to the Arizona Geological Survey to conduct a study of all minerals and metals, including thorium, that are needed for new generation nuclear reactors. Mining companies have plenty of money, we do not need to be subsidizing yet another activity for them. OPPOSE

Wednesday, January 28th

House Federalism, Military Affairs, and Elections Committee at 2:00 PM
Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here.

• HCR2016 voting centers; precinct voting (Keshel: Carter P, Chaplik, et al) prohibits the Board of Supervisors from authorizing the use of voting centers, removes language allowing a County Recorder to establish on-site early voting locations, and limits the size of election precincts to a maximum of 2,500 registered voters. All of these will hinder and not help people voting early.  OPPOSE

State of the State! Weigh in on Water Bills and Bad Governance

Litigating for our share of the Colorado River

This past week, Governor Hobbs kicked off the legislative session with her State of the State address, where she again focused on water and taking action by establishing the Ranegras Plain Active Management Area in La Paz and Yuma Counties, an area with severe groundwater depletion and subsidence. She highlighted the inaction by the Legislature on water. Governor Hobbs also outlined a program for charging data centers more for water and a plan for helping people save on their energy bills. She mentioned the impasse on the Colorado River negotiations and the need to plan for litigation dollars. You can read a transcript of the speech here or watch it here. 

The week wrapped up with the Governor vetoing the first bill of the session dealing with tax conformity -- the version the Legislature sent her would likely mean big cuts in programs. She also released her budget which contains funding for water and air quality programs, a million dollars for the State Parks Heritage Fund, funding for park rangers, an allocation for helping people with high electric bills, and funding for extreme heat relief, among other funding. The Governor's budget is a starting point and does not reflect what the final budget will be, but it does lay out her priorities. Watch the budget presentation here.

Did anyone have an issue with Request to Speak last week? It said that the site wasn't secure, but we were able to bypass that and submit our positions. Wanted to let you all know that it is operating properly again, so you should be able to sign in on the bills we list below. 

Please, weigh in on the bills on the Request to Speak system before they are heard in their respective committees. 

This week we are supporting these bills: SB1041, HB2096 and HB2116.  

Sign into the Request to Speak system here: 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

Tuesday, January 20th

Joint Appropriations Committee at 10:00 AM
Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here.

• Presentation of the Executive (Governor) Budget Proposal

Senate Natural Resource Committee at 1:30 PM

• SB1041 appropriation; Arizona trail fund (Rogers) appropriates $500,000 from the general fund for the Arizona Trail. SUPPORT 

House Natural Resources, Energy, & Water Committee at 2:00 PM
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• HB2030 water conservation grant fund; education (Griffin) eliminates education and research on how to reduce water use from the list of eligible activities for a water conservation grant. Research and education are important components of water conservation and there is no good reason to eliminate it. OPPOSE
• HB2096 forgivable financial assistance; cesspool remediation (Griffin) allows the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) to provide funding to counties for remediating, replacing or closing cesspools that present risks to water and public health. Funding for cleaning up these cesspools that threaten waters and health is important. SUPPORT

Wednesday, January 21st

Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee at 1:30 PM

• SCR1001 citizenship; identification; contributions; early voting (Bolick) refers a measure to the ballot to limit early voting -- all ballots have to be returned the Friday before the election and requires those who want to vote early to provide proof of citizenship each time they want to vote early, thus eliminating the active early voting list and no longer allowing for signature matching for verification. It would no longer allow ballots where there was a question on the signature to be verified after Election Day, which would disenfranchise large numbers of voters. If passed by voters, this would make it much more difficult for voters to vote and to vote early and would disproportionately and negatively affect rural and Tribal voters. OPPOSE

House Appropriations Committee at 2:00 PM
Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here. 

• Joint Legislative Budget Committee – Baseline
• HB2116 appropriation; Colorado River litigation fund (Griffin) appropriates $1 million for litigation relating to Colorado River allocations. We need funding to defend our Colorado River rights. SUPPORT
• HB2148 noncustodial federal monies; appropriation (Griffin) gives the legislature more power by authorizing them to appropriate these noncustodial funds from the federal government. We are concerned these dollars would not get to where they are needed. For example, dollars for wildlife or air quality. OPPOSE

House Federalism, Military Affairs, and Elections Committee at 2:00 PM

• HM2001 withdrawal; United Nations; urging Congress (Powell) Urges the President and Congress to withdraw from the U.N. to better serve this country's interests. OPPOSE 
• HCR2001 citizenship; identification; contributions; early voting (Kolodin: Chaplik, Heap, et al) includes provisions similar to SCR1001 above. House version of the same bill. OPPOSE

Thursday, January 22nd at 6:00 PM

• Learn About Climate and Clean Energy - RSVP Here. Sierra Club training to prepare for Environmental Day at the Capitol. 

Arizona Legislature Back in Session: Time to Weigh in on the Request to Speak app or In-person

Floor of the Arizona House photo by Sandy Bah

The Arizona Legislature is back in session starting Monday. That means lots of bad bills are coming our way. Look out for our weekly Request to Speak actions. Generally, we concentrate on bills that relate to environmental issues. Though we do include some governing bills because it makes it difficult to advocate for the environment if you can't vote or do citizens initiatives. Find this week's bills below.

Another way to advocate for better bills is to attend Environmental Day at the Capitol on  Wednesday, February 11, 2026; 8:30 AM - 2:00 PM. This is an opportunity to express your concerns with your Reps or be there to support other advocates. This is also a great way to see how our Arizona government works in person! 

If you haven't already, you can sign up here: 

https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po000019vMfuIAE

I will be conducting a brief presentation on Advocating for Water at our next Water Committee meeting, 7pm Monday, January 26th online. Learn about some of the Water bills coming down the pike at the Arizona Legislature and how to advocate for the good ones. Hope you can join us! 

Video call link: https://meet.google.com/ani-wqxn-jat
Or dial: ‪(US) +1 916-905-1996 PIN: ‪879 450 407#

To prepare for Environmental Day, the Sierra Club provides one-sheets on bills they support and simple online training. Sign up for these learning opportunities and get them on your calendar.

• January 15th at 6PM - Democracy Voting Rights - RSVP here.
• January 22nd at 6PM - Learn About Climate and Clean Energy - RSVP Here
• January 24th at Noon - Lobby Day Training for Spanish Speakers - RSVP Here
• January 27th at 6PM - Environmental Justice - Register Here.
• January 29th at Noon - Learn About Arizona Water – Register Here.
• February 5th at 6PM - Extreme Heat and Policy -- RSVP Here.  
• February 6th at 6PM - Bills, Bills, Bills! - Learn a bit more about a few of the bills we will be lobbying on - Register Here.

Request to Speak Actions for this week... 

You can use the Request to Speak app on their website to push back on bad bills and support the good bills. This week we actually have one we support! Keep an eye out for HB2053. 

Please, weigh in on the bills on the Request to Speak system before they are heard in their respective committees. 

Sign into the Request to Speak system here: 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, January 12th

Opening Day
State of the State Address at Approximately 2:00 PM

https://www.azleg.gov/videoplayer/?clientID=6361162879&eventID=2026011017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQpbrdHo5v0

Tuesday, January 13th

House Natural Resources, Energy, & Water Committee at 2:00 PM 
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• Presentation by Chelsea McGuire, Water Infrastructure Finance Authority
• HB2053 appropriation; stormwater recharge mapping; sites (Griffin) appropriates $100,000 for mapping of stormwater recharge sites. These sites are in areas around the state where stormwater would otherwise be lost to evaporation and that have soil types that lend themselves to infiltration of stormwater for groundwater recharge. This type of effort is currently underway in Pima County for accelerating the recharge of the aquifer in Tucson. SUPPORT 
• HB2097 irrigation non-expansion areas; withdrawal; maximum (Griffin) While it is good that this bill establishes a groundwater limit of 6 acre feet per acre per year, the bill also creates a new loophole by allowing irrigators to transfer pumping to new land. OPPOSE

Wednesday, January 14th

Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee at 1:30 PM
Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here.

• SB1038 cast vote record; public record (Finchem: Rogers) requires county recorders to turn over the names, voter ID number, and party affiliation of everyone who voted within one hour of the polls closing. This is an unreasonable time frame. OPPOSE
• SB1040 voter registration rolls; internet access (Finchem: Rogers) requires public access to voting rolls via the Internet. This could result in discouraging people from registering to vote, if they know all of their information will be out there on the Internet. In the current environment that could open people up to harassment. This completely reverses the current law that makes it illegal to post that information publicly.  OPPOSE
• SB1060 voter registration; temporary absence (Rogers) takes away US citizens' eligibility to vote if they have never resided in the US. This could potentially affect military or civil service dependents who have resided overseas with their parents. It makes no sense that they keep further restricting who can vote. OPPOSE