Vote NO on all the props but one on November 5th

Civic Engagement Beyond Voting 2024 Propositions Guide:

https://cebv.substack.com/p/cebv-2024-propositions-guide?emci=159f4000-d25f-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&emdi=136d0ab3-f262-ef11-991a-6045bddbfc4b&ceid=13164082

Speak Up Against APS Gas Plant Expansion

  

Arizona Public Service (APS) is seeking a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) to add approximately 397 megawatts (MW) of new gas to its existing 1,060-MW Redhawk gas-fired power plant in the western portion of Maricopa County. This proposed expansion will consist of 8 additional gas-fired turbines.

Why is this concerning?

The Redhawk power plant expansion project would increase air pollution in a part of Maricopa County that already has poor air quality. There is a residential neighborhood located less than two miles from the Redhawk plant, and Arlington Elementary School and its community sports fields are located less than 2.5 miles from the plant. Air pollution from the project will harm the health of nearby residents, including children. Exposure to air pollutants produced by gas-fired power plants causes increases in lung diseases, heart diseases, and premature deaths. Residents who live near power plants are generally exposed to more air pollution and therefore experience worse health impacts on average. Learn more and find talking points here.

Sign the petition here.

https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/Arizona?actionId=AR0459334

2024 Environmental Report Card for AZ Legislature & Governor

Session Characterized by Inaction on Key Priorities – Water, Climate, and Environmental Justice

Phoenix, AZ – Today, Sierra Club, joined by Chispa Arizona and Arizona Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) for Equity, released the 2024 Environmental Report Card for the Arizona Legislature and Governor.

 

“The 2024 legislative session was disappointing as legislators again missed opportunities to act on climate, environmental justice, and water, and unfortunately passed water legislation that does more harm than good, failing to address groundwater issues for rural Arizona or protect any rivers or streams,” said Sandy Bahr, director for Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “As if that were not bad enough, legislators loaded up the ballot with referrals, including one to make it difficult to advance rules to protect our air and water, one to target immigrants, and one to hinder citizen initiatives.”

 

While nearly everyone seemed to agree that Arizona needed to take action on water, especially as wells in rural Arizona continued to be pumped dry by industrial agriculture and an assured water supply was no longer available in parts of the Active Management Areas. It turns out, however, that developers, big agriculture, land and water speculators, and private water companies were all interested in continuing business as usual with unsustainable sprawl development and pushing through bills that changed the rules to accommodate that. The rural water issues were left unaddressed as there was no agreement on doing something meaningful.

 

“How will our younger and future generations see us? To know that we continuously chose profit over one another, over our home, our water, and over the healthy future of our children and loved ones,” said Nile Bunger, climate justice director with Arizona AANHPI for Equity. “The one place they rely on to keep them safe. What will the children say? How will we respond? Will we feel confident in our responses? If we can’t fight to save our planet outside of earth day, how can we expect our children to? One of the biggest acts of love we can give to one another is protecting our water rights and environment for all; although, time and time ago we ignore the concerns that are negatively affecting our BIPOC, rural, and marginalized communities. Our youth and younger generations are learning how to be humans based on how we act as a human. The policies we create and support, the elected officials we vote into office, and if we hold them accountable or not when our voices and needs are being harmed over profit. A healthy environment and access to clean water should not be a privilege, yet it is. It is vital that we do not exclude the voices of the community and the future of Arizona’s water rights. Our rural areas and communities deserve better. And may we remember that we are all part of nature, so we must act as such.”

 

“The Arizona legislature holds great power and ability to make laws that impact us in our daily lives,” said Alondra Morales, climate justice program coordinator forAZ AANHPI for Equity. “This report card serves as a clear summary of which legislators have the community in mind and which legislators have other priorities. I hope this is helpful guidance to the people of Arizona to get to know their legislators!”

 

“It’s very clear that lawmakers who hold the majority at the legislature do not look out for the interests of the people of Arizona. Every step of the way during this legislative session we saw them ignore the will of the people and act in ways that benefit private interests,” said Vania Guevara, political and advocacy director for Chispa Arizona. “We will continue to work diligently to connect our people to their own power by showing up in this space because we belong there. We will keep partnering with legislators that are environmental justice champions to push this body to protect the air we breathe, our access to public lands, and our right to an easy and accessible democracy.”

 

One senator and 14 representatives earned an “A+” on the 2024 Environmental Report Card – they voted pro-environment and did not miss any votes. Unfortunately, all of the Republican caucus earned an “F” this year as they pushed a plethora of bad water legislation at a time when we desperately need strong protections for groundwater, as well as for our rivers and streams. They also voted for a large number of referrals that, if passed, would seriously harm efforts to advance clean energy, protect our air and water, and our democracy.

 

The 2024 Environmental Report Card  is available on the website in English here and Spanish here.

 

The Sierra Club is one of the largest and most influential grassroots environmental organizations in the U.S., with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person’s right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. The Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, representing 16,000 members, has a long history of advocacy at the Arizona Legislature.

 

Chispa Arizona builds the capacity of Latinx families to influence policy makers and pressure polluters to protect communities’ rights to clean air and water, healthy neighborhoods and a safe climate for generations to come.

 

Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) for Equity is a state-wide organization striving for equity and justice by building power through community directed organizing, increasing civic engagement, and empowering young leaders.

Trump's past actions and future plans regarding the environment

As some of you may be aware, I followed Trump's actions regarding the environment from the first day that he was in office - when he used his executive order to approve the DAPL pipeline to go through the Missouri River. Since then he and his Republican cabinet appointees (rich donors and fossil fuel execs) enacted over 100 actions that weakened environmental protections including: weakening the Air Pollution Policy; weakening the fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards for passenger cars and light trucks; eliminating the methane emissions standards for oil and gas facilities; weakening the rule meant to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas; rescinding water pollution regulations for fracking on federal and Indian lands; weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (one of the country’s most significant environmental laws); ending the automatic application of full protections for ‘threatened’ plants and animals (the classification one step below ‘endangered’ in the Endangered Species Act); and scaling back pollution protections for certain tributaries and wetlands that were regulated under the Clean Water Act.

See the list of over 100 actions against the environment here: 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

If Trump is re-elected, he will do even more damage. Here are the plans if Trump gets in office. 

TRUMP'S PROJECT 2025 ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Gen Z is more likely to consider climate change a legislative priority than past generations. Young Americans overwhelmingly want to see their government take action to protect the environment and mitigate the potential impact of climate change. Instead of taking this action, Project 2025 proposes rollbacks of environmental protections and aims to undo Biden’s pro-climate actions.

According to Project 2025, an incoming conservative administration would:

-Rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs

-Cease collaborating with and funding progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that advocate on behalf of climate fanaticism

-Repeal the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

-End the EPA’s focus on climate change and green subsidies

-Eliminate the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

-Eliminate the Clean Energy Corps by revoking funding and eliminating all positions and personnel hired under the program

-Direct the Department of Energy to “end the Biden Administration’s unprovoked war on fossil fuels, restore America’s energy independence, oppose eyesore windmills built at taxpayer expense, and respect the right of Americans to buy and drive cars of their own choosing” (page 286)

-Stop all federal grants to environmental advocacy groups

-Approve the 2020 Willow EIS, the largest pending oil and gas projection in the United States in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and expand approval from three to five drilling pads

-Withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement

-Reduce proposed fuel economy levels

-Rollback Biden’s executive orders on climate and energy, and reinstated the Trump-era Energy Dominance Agenda, which remove a series of environmental protections, including:

SO 3348: Concerning the Federal Coal Moratorium

SO 3349: American Energy Independence

SO 3350: America-First Offshore Energy Strategy

SO 3351: Strengthening the Department of the Interior’s Energy Portfolio

SO 3352: National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska;

SO 3354: Supporting and Improving the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Program and Federal Solid Mineral Leasing Program;

SO 3355: Streamlining National Environmental Policy Reviews and Implementation of Executive Order 13807, “Establishing Discipline and Accountability in the Environmental Review and Permitting Process for Infrastructure Projects”

SO 3358: Executive Committee for Expedited Permitting

SO 3360: Rescinding Authorities Inconsistent with Secretary’s Order 3349, “American Energy Independence;”

SO 3380: Public Notice of the Costs Associated with Developing Department of the Interior Publications and Similar Documents;

SO 3385: Enforcement Priorities; and

SO 3389: Coordinating and Clarifying National Historic Preservation Act Section GEN Z’S GUIDE TO PROJECT 2025 from Voters of Tomorrow Please, share this blog with your environmentally conscious friends.

Tucson Resilient Together Stakeholder Conversation AND volunteer opp to assemble Heat Relief Kits

City of Tucson Climate Action Hub banner

Tucson Resilient Together Stakeholder Conversation AND volunteer opportunity to assemble our first round of Heat Relief Kits!

Event Address:  Donna Liggins Center - 2160 N 6th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705 f

3:30-5:00PM Thursday, June 27^th 

Come and learn about the newly adopted Heat Action Roadmap and help us assemble heat relief kits to distribute to our unhoused neighbors.

Please, RSVP 

https://forms.gle/uTusk96CKtUgXCVr5

On June 4th, 2024, the Mayor and Council proudly adopted the City’s first-ever Heat Action Roadmap, paving the way for a safer, more resilient future in the face of extreme heat. In a bold and swift move, the Mayor and Council also introduced the City’s Heat Protection Ordinance for City Contractors. This historic milestone is further complemented by the implementation of an Administrative Directive, extending vital heat protection measures to City workers across all departments.  

Click the following link to access the Climate Action Hub and read the Heat Action Roadmap 

https://climateaction.tucsonaz.gov/

Arizona Legislature session ends but not without some damage

bye bye

Here is an update on the end of this legislative session from Sandy Bahr from the Sierra Club. 

Phew! The Arizona Legislature finally adjourned sine die last Saturday and we can all breathe a little bit easier. They did more than their fair share of harm before heading out, however, including a godawful budget that does little to prepare Arizona for the challenges we face, a plethora of bad water bills, and a couple more bad referrals.

I will provide a quick overview here, but look for our Environmental Report Card on the Legislature for a fuller picture.

In the last two days of the session, legislators sent nine water bills to the Governor's desk, she signed four of them and vetoed five of them. She should have vetoed them all as none of them make our water future more sustainable and none of them take the comprehensive approach she said she wanted relative to water. Read more about the bills here and here. There is some talk of a special session to address the 80 percent of the state that has no groundwater protections. Frankly, having seen what transpired during the session, I am not optimistic about a special session.

Unfortunately, the Governor also signed a bill to exempt more actions from the Arizona Power Plant and Line Siting Committee process that requires a certificate of environmental Compatibility. HB2003 replacement lines; structures; commission hearings (Griffin) allows a utility that previously received a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) to replace a cable or wire on a transmission line or an existing structure with a new structure without getting a new CEC, but it must be in compliance with the existing CEC. Unfortunately, it includes a big loophole for any lines that were sited prior to 1971. Utilities failed to provide any kind of information on what lines or how many would be affected. The bill could have been easily fixed and Senator Sundareshan offered an amendment to do so, but the proponents refused to remove the pre 1971 loophole. Those lines had no review by the Committee, no CEC, and no terms and conditions with which to comply. Modifications could have significant impacts to natural and cultural resources. This passed and was signed by the Governor.

In the good news category, the Governor vetoed HB2376 federal government; land acquisition; consent (Diaz: Hendrix). It mandated approval by the state legislature for any land sale to the U.S. Government. This was a measure to block acquisitions to protect lands around the headwaters of rivers and springs, inholdings, and to otherwise protect blocks of public lands or areas with special habitat or cultural resources.

HB2377 federal lands; state management costs (Diaz: Hendrix, McGarr) would have required the Auditor General and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee to complete a cost and revenue study of the annual costs to manage all federal public land in Arizona and all current revenue generated by federal lands. This measure did not include the indirect revenues and benefits for these public lands and would provide a skewed perspective on these important lands. This failed to go to a final read in the House, so died.

Also in the good news category was that none of the bad energy and transportation referrals reached the ballot. HCR2040, HCR2049, and HCR2050 all failed to get a floor vote in the Senate.

HCR2040 public monies; prohibited expenditures (Smith: Biasiucci, Carbone, et al.) would have placed 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 never came to the Senate Floor.

HCR2049 had a strike-everything amendment that would have referred to the ballot a constitutional amendment to prohibit any fees based on vehicle miles traveled. As we reduce reliance on gasoline and gasoline-powered vehicles, gas tax revenues will continue to decrease and other ways to fund road maintenance are needed such as looking at vehicle miles traveled. This never came to the Senate Floor.

HCR2050 energy source; restriction; prohibition (Griffin: Biasiucci, Bliss, et al) would have 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. This would have made it harder to protect our air, our water, our health, and our communities. It never came to the Senate Floor.

The legislature also failed to bring HCR2056 elections; foreign contributions; donations; certification (Montenegro: Biasiucci, Bliss, et al.), across the finish line. It would have referred a ballot measure to restrict voting accessibility, create more administrative burdens to the detriment of voters, and leave election officials with little to no support. It failed to reach the Senate Floor for a Third Read.

The bad news again is they did refer several bad measures that may appear on the ballot, including the following.

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 be hinder ballot measures as they could be challenged while people are still collecting signatures.

SCR1044 judicial retention elections (Gowan: Shamp) refers to the 2024 ballot a measure that eliminates terms of office for judges and allows them to continue to serve during “good behavior" and reduces the frequency of judicial retention elections.

HCR2060 Now: border; benefits; fentanyl; illegal entry (Toma) will be on the ballot for this fall, unless the constitutional challenge to it is successful. LUCHA is suing because the measure includes more than one subject and that is prohibited by the Arizona Constitution. This referral will make it easier for law enforcement to engage in racial profiling and to investigate and detain suspected undocumented individuals. It is very likely unconstitutional, would cost the state a lot, and, of course, is inhumane, seeking to criminalize people for seeking opportunities and reuniting with their families.

The budget, again, was not great on many levels, but certainly from an environmental perspective. Even during the best of times, environmental programs are underfunded. This budget included nothing for the State Parks Heritage Fund, no dollars for the Arizona Trail, no funding for Trees for Kids, and a lot of environmental fund diversions. It did include some funding for water quality programs at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and at least there was no funding for the Water Augmentation Fund -- that was intended for the big desalination project.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your support and actions throughout this session. You make a difference! You can see more bills we tracked here and look for the report card on the Legislature in the coming weeks.

See below for an interim committee at the Legislature.

Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Study Committee on Water Security Friday, June 28 at 1:00 PM

Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here:

https://www.azleg.gov/videoplayer/?clientID=6361162879&eventID=2024061051

 

AGENDA

1.	Overview of Amended SB 1221 – Senate Research Staff
2.	Comparison of AMAs, INAs, and BMAs – Dan Jones, Salmon Lewis & Weldon PLC
3.	Agricultural Perspective on Groundwater Management Act Origins – Ron Rayner
4.	Overview of Changes and Concessions Made from Introduced SB 1221 to Current SB 1221 – Stefanie Smallhouse, Arizona Farm Bureau Federation
5.	Significance and Value of Closing a Basin on Rural Economies, Groundwater Conservation, and Aquifer Protection – a.   Arizona Department of Water Resources b.   University of Arizona Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics c.   Bas Aja, Arizona Cattle Feeder' Association
6.	Agricultural Industry Testimony on Good Faith Negotiations – a.   Phil Bashaw, Arizona Farm Bureau Federation b.   Nicholas Kenney, Maricopa County Farm Bureau c.   Zach Fort, United Dairymen of Arizona d.   Rob VanHofwegen Jr., Paloma Irrigation & Drainage District e.   Robert Meddler, Western Growers Association f. Jadee Rohner, Arizona Cotton Growers Association g.   Patrick Bray, Arizona Farm & Ranch Group

 

Fate of Arizona's recent environmental legislation: 25 bills introduced, one new law

"Shape Your Transportation Future” survey

Pima Association of Governments (PAG), the greater Tucson region's metropolitan planning organization, has launched the “Shape Your Transportation Future” survey, which allows community members to share your transportation priorities and experiences, and where you believe PAG should apply its transportation funding resources for the next 30 years. Results will inform development of the 2055 Regional Mobility and Accessibility Plan, or RMAP. As the federally required metropolitan planning organization, PAG must update this long-range transportation plan every four years to annually secure millions of dollars in federal funding for essential transportation improvements in the region. Your input matters!

You can learn more and take the brief survey at www.PAGregion.com/2055. The survey, which is less than 10 minutes, is available in English and Spanish.