Stop bills that hurt the ACC's efforts to protect the environment -- or make it harder for us to vote

There are three bad bills being heard in committee. We may be able to stop them from moving forward by opposing them on the Request to Speak system (see bills below.)  Unfortunately, some other bad bills have already gotten through committee and are heading for a vote on the house or senate floor. You can help by calling your legislators and asking then to vote "No."  

If you are registered in the Request to Speak (RTS) system, please, sign in and oppose the following three bills before they go to a committee vote Tuesday at 9 a.m

If you had an account with RTS previously, it is still active. If you do not have an account, you can still set one up for future RTS actions.  Civic Engagement Beyond Voting can help you activate it by going to the Capitol for you. It usually takes a day.

Tuesday, February 23rd
Senate Committee on Appropriations at 9:00 AM

SB1119 technical correction; taxation; excess withholding (Gowan) will have a strike-everything amendment on attorney general; executive orders. The Sierra Club's legislative update says that it requires the attorney general to review executive orders issued by the President and recommend whether or not the state should ask for an exemption or challenge the order. 

According to Civic Engagement Beyond Voting  SB1119, is now subject to a striker that would allow any member of the Arizona legislature to demand that the Attorney General review a presidential executive order to possibly declare it constitutional.

Either way, this isn't good. SB1119 could prevent Arizona from benefiting from executive orders re-instating environmental and water protections - and cost the state money in the process.

They are also trying to silence the voice of the people by preventing them to vote.  

SB1485 elections; voting center tabulation (Ugenti-Rita) will have a strike-everything amendment on the permanent early voting list; eligibility that is identical to SB1069 and removes people from the Permanent Early Voting List if they did not vote early in two election cycles. OPPOSE.

SB1593 early voting; time limits; envelope (Gowan) reduces the early voting window from 27 days to 22 days; requires a third envelope - an envelope inside an envelope; requires a provisional ballot for PEVL voters that show up in person unless they bring the mailed ballot; and throws out any ballots not postmarked by the Thursday before the Election. OPPOSE.

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Some bad bills have already gotten through committee and are moving forward to a vote on the house  or senate floor. Please keep up the pressure and contact your legislators, ask them to oppose all four bills. Also consider a phone call to your legislators. You can find the legislators' numbers here.

The attacks on the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) and its clean energy rules are still in the mix and inching forward. HB2737 corporation commission actions; investigations (Parker: Barton, Biasiucci, et al.) is ready to go to the House floor. It would allow any legislator to challenge an action by the ACC, sending it to the attorney general who could take it directly to the Arizona Supreme Court. A successful challenge would result in a hit to the ACC budget, affecting its ability to fulfill its responsibilities to regulate utilities and other entities.

HB2248 corporation commission; electric generation resources (Griffin) is also ready to go to the floor.

This bill would prohibit the ACC from moving forward with the clean energy rules or other rule packages.

SB1459 agency decisions; administrative reviews (Petersen), is also advancing to make the ACC subject to the same administrative process as agencies. That is inappropriate as it is a separate branch of government, not just another agency. 

Again... Please keep up the pressure and contact your legislators, ask them to oppose all three bills. Also consider a phone call to your legislators. You can find the legislators' numbers here.

Urge your legislators to oppose bills attacking Arizona Corporation Commission and early voting

This past week saw a plethora of bad public policies advance in various committees -- attacks on voting rights, ballot measures, human rights, the Arizona Corporation Commission and clean energy, water, and more. 

The attacks on the Arizona Corporation Commission and its clean energy rules continued with HB2737 corporation commission actions; investigations advancing in committee and  HB2248 corporation commission; electric generation resources (Griffin) now ready to go to the floor. SB1175 corporation commission; electric generation resources is stalled in the Senate Rules committee.

Please keep up the pressure and contact your own legislators, even if you have previously done so, and ask them to oppose all three bills. If you have already emailed a couple of times, please try a phone call.  Use this link to send a message to your senator and two representatives. You can find the legislators' numbers here.

Please use this link or the button below to contact your Senator and ask them to oppose SB1069 permanent early voting list; eligibility (Ugenti-Rita). It removes voters from the Permanent Early Voting List if they do not vote an early ballot in two consecutive primary and general elections. This is a purge of the list and another way to suppress votes.

Request to Speak: On bills that impact the environment and citizen advocacy - ACT NOW for on those for Monday

This past week saw a plethora of bad public policies advance in various committees -- attacks on voting rights, ballot measures, human rights, the Arizona Corporation Commission and clean energy, water, and more. This week promises more of the same. 

REQUEST TO SPEAK ACTIONS

Directions: Sign into your Request to Speak account, click the blue Request to Speak button, click on New Request, then simply cut and paste the bill number (found below) into Search Phrase. (For example: HB2372) Push blue Add Request button, weigh in FOR or AGAINST, click "no" on do you wish to speak (in person), leave a short comment, and SUMMIT. Do it again for the next bill.  

Note: You might wanna go ahead and do Monday's RTS actions NOW - since you must weigh in before or while the are still in committee. 

If you had an account with RTS previously, it is still active. If you do not have an account, go ahead and set one up, but we will have to help you activate it as it requires going to the Capitol. Contact me directly about that or reach out to Civic Engagement Beyond Voting.

Coming Up This Week at the Arizona Legislature

Monday, February 15th House Committee on Military Affairs & Public Safety at 10:00 AM HB2309 violent; disorderly assembly; public order (Roberts: Barton, Biasiucci et al.) increases the penalties for acts committed during a violent or disorderly assembly, including blocking a roadway. It says they lose public benefits too. This is clearly intended to target Black Lives Matter protests. OPPOSE. . House Committee on Land, Agriculture, & Rural Affairs at 2:00 PM  HB2372 agricultural operations; nuisance; liability (Dunn) significantly increases the requirements for bringing a nuisance action against an agricultural operation -- must bring the action within one year of the facility beginning operation and the person must be the property owner -- and it preempts local ordinances relative to regulation of these facilities as a nuisance. This is likely in response to complaints and actions against large concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that have significant smell, noise, and excessive lighting. OPPOSE. HB2817 appropriation; hazardous vegetation removal (Lieberman) appropriates $2 million to the Department of Forestry for "hazardous vegetation" removal. Hazardous vegetation is undefined, so we are concerned that this could be used to do harm to habitat that might arbitrarily be deemed "hazardous." HCR2036 clean air act; agriculture; exemption (John: Cook, Dunn, et al.) asks the Congress to exempt agriculture from Clean Air Act requirements related to particulate pollution. Agriculture already has to do much less than other entities relative to its pollution and there are real public health issues associated with particulate pollution. OPPOSE. Senate Committee on Government at 2:00 PM. SB1102 electric vehicle omnibus; appropriations (Steele) directs the Arizona Department of Administration to conduct a two-year Electric Vehicle Ready Homes Pilot Program and Electric Vehicle Charging Station Pilot Program. It would also appropriate, $500,000 for each of these from the state General Fund. SUPPORT. SB1152 zero emission vehicles; plans; fleet (Steele) requires the Arizona Department of Transportation to develop a Zero Emission Vehicle Plan and a State Zero Emission Motor Vehicle Fleet Plan. Appropriates $500,000 from the state General Fund to acquire telematics technology to develop the State Zero Emission Motor Vehicle Fleet Plan. SUPPORT. SB1713 early ballots; identification; mailing (Mesnard: Ugenti-Rita) requires including date of birth or voter ID or driver's license number and additional ID to be inserted in the return envelope. This is unnecessary and will likely result in additional voters being disqualified. OPPOSE. Senate Committee on Transportation and Technology at 2:00 PM SB1650 transportation tax; election; gas tax (Livingston: Carroll) establishes a new 20-year transportation excise tax in Maricopa County subject to voter approval. Increases, beginning January 1, 2022, and ending December 31, 2045, the statewide gas tax by 1 cent annually and indexes the tax to annual inflation. Requires an annual tax on electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles. The fees on EVs are too high in this bill and not fairly established. OPPOSE. Tuesday, February 16th House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, & Water at 2:00 PM HB2691 groundwater permits; technical correction (Griffin) has a strike-everything amendment on ADEQ; water quality programs; WOTUS that creates an extremely weak surface water quality program that leaves out nearly all ephemeral waters such as desert washes and provides limited protections overall. OPPOSE. HCR2034 Arizona's outdoors; recreation; supporting (Cobb) is a resolution in support of outdoor recreation. SUPPORT. Senate Committee on Appropriations at 2:00 PM SB1384 state parks; lottery; heritage fund (Shope) appropriates $10 million from the state lottery funds to the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund for local parks, trails, and protection of historic and cultural resources. SUPPORT. House Committee on Commerce at 2:00 PM HB2716 licensing; building permits; temporary permits (Griffin) requires cities to approve a building permit within seven days if it is administratively complete and places additional limits on the cities. It would force approval of projects that need more work. OPPOSE. Wednesday February 17th House Committee on Government & Elections at 9:00 AM  HB2373 voter registration groups; forms; identifiers (Dunn) says that anyone who requests or receives 10 or more voter registration forms to place their unique identifier on each form. This will likely cause issues for those who register people more casually such as at high schools and in their neighborhood. It is unnecessary and punitive as it will make the registration invalid if someone forgets to include the identifier. OPPOSE. HB2543 state permitting dashboard (Wilmeth: John, Kaiser, et al.) establishes a state permitting director who would have undue influence on permitting decisions. It would also now refer those decisions to the Governor's Regulatory Review Council, an entity that is basically set up to favor big businesses. Agencies have already had their hands tied relative to ensuring that permits are strong or in actually denying one. We should oppose this new mechanism for making the process even less accountable to the public. OPPOSE. HCR2016 initiatives; supermajority vote requirement (Dunn: Barton, Biasiucci, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure to require a 60 percent vote to approve any ballot measure. OPPOSE. Senate Committee on Finance at 9:00 AM SB1309 property classification; gasoline manufacturing equipment (Shope: Borrelli, Contreras) is a new tax break for facilities that manufacture zero-sulfur gasoline from natural gas. Could we just stop subsidizing fossil fuels already? OPPOSE.  Senate Committee on Commerce at 2:00 PM SB1156 forfeiture of office; technical correction (Mesnard) will have a strike-everything amendment on solid waste; advanced recycling facilities. I am quite sure this will be a measure to promote pyrolysis, which is not recycling, but is exposing plastics to very high temperatures. This is making the rounds in other states. OPPOSE. Thursday, February 18th Senate Committee on Judiciary at 9:00 AM SB1459 agency decisions; administrative reviews (Petersen) seeks to treat the Arizona Corporation Commission, a constitutionally established branch of government, the same as other agencies when it comes to appeals of decisions to the courts. OPPOSE.

Send a message to Lowe's & Home Depot: Stop selling Roundup

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SumOfUS shared: Lowe’s and Home Depot know that glyphosate -- the main chemical ingredient in Roundup -- is linked to increased risk of cancer and reproductive problems. They know that glyphosate also threatens 93% of US endangered species with injury or death. But both mega hardware stores have refused to stop selling it.

That is why this week, SumOfUs is joining forces with partners across North America for a week of action to demand that Lowe’s and Home Depot #RejectRoundup now!

Send a tweet to demand that the two largest hardware store chains in the world take Roundup off shelves for good!

Not on Twitter? Post a message on the Lowe’s Facebook wall.

And on Home Depot’s Facebook wall.

Both the Lowe’s and Home Depot CEOs care a lot about preserving their brand reputation. They want customers to think of their stores as safe places where you can get everything you need to create a beautiful home and garden.

So this week we are taking out ads in newspapers, sending out Tweets, posting to Facebook, and mailing letters to make it clear that selling Roundup will seriously damage Lowe’s and Home Depot’s brands.

Help us create an avalanche of tweets on the Lowe’s and Home Depot Twitter feeds.

Not on Twitter or Facebook? That’s OK. Mail a letter to Lowe’s and Home Depot by printing out, signing, and sending these letters.

 TWEET

More information:

Common weed killer glyphosate increases cancer risk by 41%, study says, CNN, February 15, 2019
Glyphosate likely harms nearly all endangered species, Chemical & Engineering News, November 30, 2020

REQUEST TO SPEAK ACTIONS on (mostly) bad bills for the environment and citizens' rights

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This week at the Arizona State Legislature, some Senators are trying (again) to silence us by making it harder for us to vote or to get a citizens initiative passed. We need to protect our constitutional rights.  

Tuesday, in the House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, & Water, Griffin is sponsoring yet another bill (HB2691) to weaken rules protecting water quality. They are also hearing a bill (HB2737) that threatens the Arizona Corporation Commission - just when the ACC has approved a plan for utilities to get all of their energy from carbon-free sources like solar and nuclear energy by 2050.

Also, there are a couple of good bills to support: SB1009 state vehicle fleet; electric vehicles and SCR1046 Arizona's outdoors; recreation; supporting

Please, weigh in on these bills while they are in committee by signing into the Request to Speak system.

Sign on to Request to speak: https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon  

Sign up for a Request to Speak account here:  

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdjBMoAJrjHD57GGegmdUCKAowcr93K4vQA6a7_AjyElBtrQ/viewform        

Monday, February 8th

Senate Committee on Government at 2:00 PM.

• SB1106 voting residency; intent to remain (Mesnard) makes it a class 6 felony for someone to register another person to vote solely for the purpose of voting in an election and without intent to stay. This is ridiculous. People may plan to move in six months, but still should be able to vote in an election here and the person registering them should be considered a felon. OPPOSE. 
• SB1531 petition signatures; description; invalidity (Mesnard: Leach) voids the signature of any initiative or referendum petition signer that signs the petition without either hearing or reading the initiative or referendum description printed on the petition. This is another ridiculous requirement. What if you actually had read the measure. Why should you have to read or hear the description? OPPOSE.
• SCR1034 voter protection act; court determinations (Leach) allows the Legislature to amend, supersede or appropriate or divert funds created by an initiative or referendum measure approved by the voters if the measure is found to be illegal or unconstitutional by the courts. This would allow the legislature to throw out an entire measure, even if a small part was successfully challenged. OPPOSE.

Senate Committee on Transportation and Technology at 2:00 PM

• SB1009 state vehicle fleet; electric vehicles (Steele) requires state fleets to be electric vehicles starting in 2022. SUPPORT.

Tuesday, February 9th

House Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, & Water at 2:00 PM

• HB2691 groundwater permits; technical correction (Griffin). This bill will have a strike-everything amendment on it relating to a water quality program. Without strengthening amendments, it would be unacceptable as it leaves nearly all ephemeral waters unprotected. OPPOSE.
• HB2737 corporation commission actions; investigation (Parker: Barton, Biasiucci, et al.) allows any legislator to petition the attorney general to review any Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) decision that the legislator believes is beyond its constitutional mandate and allow the AG to force a review by the Supreme Court. If the Court disagrees with the ACC, the budget of the ACC would automatically be reduced by 10% for a year. This is clearly intended to chill actions by the ACC due to the threat of lost budget. OPPOSE.

Wednesday February 7th

House Committee on Government & Elections at 8:30 AM 

• HB2358 voter registration update; address change (Kavanagh: Bolick, Chaplik, et al.) mandates, rather than allows, the county recorder to use the national change of address system of the USPS and cancel registrations that have changed counties. This will purge a lot of otherwise eligible voters. OPPOSE. 
• HB2373 voter registration groups; forms; identifiers (Dunn) says that anyone who requests or receives 10 or more voter registration forms to place their unique identifier on each form. This will likely cause issues for those who register people more casually such as at high schools and in their neighborhood. It is unnecessary and punitive as it will make the registration invalid if someone forgets to include the identifier. OPPOSE
• HCR2016 initiatives; supermajority vote requirement (Dunn: Barton, Biasiucci, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure to require a 60 percent vote to approve any ballot measure. OPPOSE.

Senate Committee on Finance at 9:00 AM

• SCR1024 Initiatives; tax increases; vote requirement (Petersen) has a strike everything amendment on supermajority vote requirement; initiatives. The amendment is not posted, but we will certainly oppose any supermajority requirements for ballot measures. OPPOSE.

Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 2:00 PM

• SB1224 agricultural operations; nuisance; liability (Kerr) is the same as HB2372. OPPOSE.
• SCR1046 Arizona's outdoors; recreation; supporting (Engel: Alston, Bowie, et al.) is a memorial recognizing the value of outdoor recreation. SUPPORT.  

House Committee on Appropriations upon adjournment of Floor

• HB2394 appropriation; north-south corridor study (Cook) appropriates $5 million for a tier 2 north-south transportation study in Pinal County. More money for freeways. OPPOSE.

Complete Climate Action & Adaptation Plan Community Survey

Please, fill out the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan Community Survey.

Mayor Regina Romero is inviting the community to complete a survey to kick start the process of developing Tucson’s Climate Action Plan. She would like to find out your opinion on which environmental and climate sustainability actions should be prioritized in the city of Tucson.  This input will help create a roadmap to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and respond to and prepare for the increasing impacts of climate change. The goal is to improve the city’s environmental and sustainability practices while increasing Tucsonan’s quality of life for decades. Help us steer the city towards a healthy, equitable, and resilient future!

In Spanish: 
https://opentownhall.com/portals/310/Issue_10300

In English: 

https://opentownhall.com/portals/310/Issue_10299