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.