Saturday, March 18, 2023

Stop AZ Legislature from bulldozing environmental actions

This week there are many bad bills being pushed through our state legislature. Please, sign in to oppose the bills on the Request to Speak System and use the 2 petitions provided by the Sierra Club to send a message to your own legislators.

Two bills to cut the public out of the process for certain transmission lines will likely go to the floor of the Senate soon. Find the petition below to send the message to our legislators. 

HB2437 transmission lines; applications; exceptions (Griffin) exempts a transmission line that is entirely on private land from being required to obtain a certificate of environmental compatibility from the Arizona Power Plant and Line Siting Committee, so there would be no environmental review. 

HB2496 transmission lines; definition (Griffin) changes the definition of a transmission line to include only those lines that are one mile longer. This means the siting of the lines that are less than one mile would have no review by the Arizona Power Plant and Line Siting Committee. We tried to get this amended to address our concerns, to provide a way to trigger review, but the bill sponsor would not even consider it.

Please contact your senator and ask them to oppose both HB2437 and HB2496!

https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/Arizona?actionId=AR0383834
The majority at the Arizona Legislature is actively working to undermine efforts to reduce traffic and support for public transportation and accommodation of bicyclists and pedestrians. This, despite the fact that reducing traffic and investing in programs for bikes and pedestrians helps clean up our air and make our communities safer.

Please contact your representatives and ask them to opposeSB1312, SB1313, SB1314, and SCR1018, all of which seek to in some way make it more difficult to reduce vehicle miles traveled and provide more support for other types of transportation. 

 Petition includes a description of bills. 

REQUEST TO SPEAK ACTIONS

Sign in here: https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon

Monday, March 20th

House Committee on Land, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs at 2:00 PM

  • SB1115 land sales; foreign entities; prohibition (Kern) prohibits selling state lands to foreign entities. This really is not the solution to the problem with groundwater pumping on state trust lands. We need limits on everyone, not just bar certain entities from buying them. SUPPORT with comment

House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure at 2:00 PM


SB1100 all-terrain vehicles; definition (Carroll: Gowan, Shamp, et al.) defines ATVs as being much heavier and increases the definitional weight from 2500 pounds to 3500 pounds. These heavier vehicles do a lot more damage to roads and the land. OPPOSE

 

Wednesday, March 22nd

Senate Committee on Government at 8:30 AM

  • HB2254 rulemaking; regulatory costs; legislative ratification (Wilmeth) It would require any rule that a state agency proposes that would cost over $500,000 within two years to be approved by the legislature. With the current majority, that means it wouldn’t be approved. That would include rules proposed by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. OPPOSE
  • HB2438 board of supervisors; powers; water (Griffin) authorizes a county to participate in water reuse and recycling programs and regional wastewater recharge projects and related infrastructure. SUPPORT

House Committee on Government at 9:00 AM

  • SB1139 government investments; products; fiduciaries; plan (Hoffman: Borrelli, Kern, et al.) requires a fiduciary to consider only pecuniary factors when evaluating an investment and prohibits consideration of environmental and social factors by the State Treasurer investments.   OPPOSE
  • SB1255 regulatory costs; rulemaking; ratification (Kern: Smith) It would require any rule that a state agency proposes that would cost over $500,000 within five years to be approved by the legislature. With the current majority, that means it wouldn’t be approved. That would include rules proposed by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. Even worse than HB2254 because it would make it more likely that the rules would become unenforceable. OPPOSE
  • SB1500 government investments; fiduciaries; pecuniary benefit (Carroll: Bennett, Gowan. et al.) is the same as SB1139.  (You might want to just copy and paste your comment!) OPPOSE
  • SCR1023 charter cities; repeal (Wadsack: Jones) Refers to the ballot a measure to repeal provisions in the constitution that allow for charter cities. This would repeal a provision of the Arizona Constitution that permits city voters to establish home rule that enables them to make their own rules on matters of local concerns, such as how the local government is set up and how and when to run elections. It would affect local planning for climate and other environmental protections. OPPOSE

Thursday, March 23rd

Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Water at 9:30 AM

Care about our democracy too?  Bills that promote the myth of election fraud while making it more difficult to vote can be found here:

https://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2023/03/bills-that-make-it-harder-to-vote.html

Please, consider signing onto the RTS system to weigh in on these bills while they are in committee. (Some are being heard as early as 2 p.m. Monday and some 2 p.m. Wednesday.) 
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