Another week, another batch of bad bills to oppose on RTS

 

This week there are even more bad bills than last week. Please, push back by weighing in on as many as you can using the Request to Speak system. There are bad water bills, measures to undermine wind and solar, and bills to try to limit land conservation. There is even a message bill to repeal the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, a widely and strongly supported designation that protects lands around the Grand Canyon from future uranium mining and development. I know it’s a lot. Please, do what you can. You might want to do the bills being heard in committee on Monday and Tuesday first and then do the bills for Wednesday and Thursday in a second pass.

Sign onto the RTS app:
https://apps.azleg.gov/account/signon

Review RTS directions:
https://desktopactivisttucson.blogspot.com/2018/03/request-to-speak-time.html

Monday, February 12th

Land, Agriculture, & Rural Affairs Committee at 2 p.m. 

• HB2865 natural resource conservation districts; board (Griffin: Diaz, Dunn) establishes the State Natural Resource Conservation Board and transfers oversight of natural resource conservation districts from the State Land Commissioner to a board of district officials and citizens that will make all the decisions regarding natural resource conservation. While it sounds like a good way to ensure local input in practice it will create more bureaucracy that will prevent effective action to protect natural resources. OPPOSE
• HCM2004 federal land acquisition; acreage return (Smith: Biasiucci, Carbone, et al) is a message to Congress and the President, asking them to enact legislation that requires the federal government to give to a state or county one acre of federal land for every acre the federal government reserves from the respective state or county. This is an anti-public lands protection message. OPPOSE
• HCM2005 federal lands; transfer to states (Smith: Biasiucci, Carbone, et al) asks the Congress and President to pass legislation to convey 30 percent of public lands to the states. Arizona has 9.2 million acres of state trust land that it cannot seem to manage properly -- it is not equipped to do so. Besides, it's pretty clear the intent with this is to have more land to exploit. OPPOSE
• HCM2006 federal lands; natural resources; permission (Griffin) asks Congress to enact legislation to prohibit the federal government from establishing, authorizing or declaring any new national monument, national park, wildlife refuge, conservation area, area of critical environmental concern, wild and scenic river, wilderness, wilderness characteristic area or any other federal reservation or special use designation in Arizona and from withdrawing or reserving any additional federal mineral, land, water or other national resource rights within Arizona's border. This is just more anti-conservation propaganda. OPPOSE
• HCM2007 Grand Canyon Footprints monument; repeal(Biasiucci: Carter, Chaplik, et al) asks the President to rescind or revoke the designation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni - Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument and not to do any more monuments or special protections unless the legislature agrees to it. OPPOSE
• HCM2008 urging Congress; Antiquities Act; repeal (Gillette: Biasiucci, Cook, et al) asks the Congress and the President to repeal the Antiquities Act, which is the act that authorizes the President to establish national monuments. OPPOSE 

Transportation, Technology, & Missing Children Committee at 2:00 PM

• SB1282 highways; bicycle paths; walkways; prohibition (Hoffman: Wadsack, Chaplik, et al) prohibits the Arizona Department of Transportation from accepting federal monies conditioned on, planning, designing or constructing bicycle paths or pedestrian walkways that are parallel to and separate from a highway or state route. OPPOSE

Finance and Commerce Committee at 2:00 PM

• SB1665 municipal development; permits; review (Gowan) allows for private review of building permits if the city does not act in 15 days. Makes it much easier for developers to push through permits without adequate review by municipalities.  OPPOSE

Tuesday, February 13th

House Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee at 2:00 PM
Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here.

• HB2018 subsequent irrigation non-expansion area; removal (Griffin) requires the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) Director to review all subsequent irrigation non-expansion areas (INA) periodically to determine whether the areas continue to meet the criteria for INA designation and to remove the subsequent INA designation if the ADWR determines the area no longer meets specified criteria. INAs limit additional agricultural acreage from being irrigated. This bill raises the bar for establishing a new INA by petition, requiring it be signed by 10% of the voters in the area who also receive their drinking water from that basin. The problem with this is that it disenfranchises those who have already been harmed by over pumping of groundwater, whose wells may have dried up, and who are hauling water to meet their drinking water needs. It allows the big pumpers to petition for removal of an INA, requiring just 25 irrigation users to petition. This bill is clearly intended to make it more difficult to establish additional INAs and to also make it easier to remove them. OPPOSE
• HB2030 cities; towns; water service; audit (Griffin) This is an anti-Tucson bill. It is requiring Tucson Water to be audited by a third party as a result of their conservation measures. The city must pay for an audit that will tie up city staff to answer these unnecessary questions. OPPOSE
• HB2061 subsequent active management area; removal (Griffin) It makes it way too easy for a small percentage of people to petition for removal of AMA protection. You only have to get 10 percent of the voters to go for it. They could easily reverse the new Douglas AMA.  OPPOSE
• HB2127 assured water supply certificate; effluent (Griffin) allows a subdivision in an AMA to use effluent from the subdivision to meet its assured water supply designation. The problem is that effluent can’t completely replace the amount of water withdrawn, so it’s not an assured water supply. OPPOSE 
• HB2646 power plants; public service corporations (Bliss) Includes unworkable requirements for closing fossil fuel power plants and requires the attorney general to be engaged in opposing any federal rules that expedite the closure of fossil fuels plants. OPPOSE 
• HCR2003 groundwater management; technical correction (Griffin) Strike everything: sale housing. This is asking for a ballot initiative to gut the management requirements for an AMA. They are allowing developers to build without having enough groundwater. OPPOSE
• HCR2050 energy source; restriction; prohibition (Griffin: Biasiucci, Bliss, et al) refers to the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit a city, town, county or any other political subdivision of the state from restricting the use of any source of energy. This is a fossil fuels protection act. OPPOSE
• HCR2051 rural communities; groundwater; tools (Griffin) resolves that the legislature will continue to provide rural Arizona with an "abundance of tools" to manage groundwater. Except they aren't. This is pure propaganda and misinformation. OPPOSE

Wednesday, February 14th - Happy Statehood Day!

Senate Committee on Government at 9:00 AM

• SB1472 prohibited uses; public monies (Kern) prohibits using any public money on diversity, equity, and inclusion. OPPOSE

House Government Committee at 9:00 AM

• HB2788 United Nations; sustainable development: prohibition (Jones: Biasiucci, Bliss et al.) prohibits cities, towns, and counties or the state or any political subdivision of the state from spending funding on adopting or implementing any of the sustainability goals included in the United Nations 2030 Goals for Sustainable Development. OPPOSE
• HCM2002 national guard; mobilization; border (Montenegro) asks the governor to deploy national guard to the border, promoting militarization of the border. OPPOSE 

House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee at 1:30 PM

• HB2866 electric vehicles; registration fee (Cook) imposes a $135 registration fee on electric vehicles. This is an excessive fee. OPPOSE

House Regulatory Affairs Committee at 2:00 PM

• HCR2052 rulemaking; legislative approval (McGarr: Gillette, Griffin, et al.) refers to the ballot a measure that would require the legislature to approve any rulemaking. This is an attempt to impede efforts by the governor. It also has some separation of powers issue. OPPOSE

​​​​Thursday, February 15th

Senate Natural Resources. Energy, Water Committee.
Members of the public may access a livestream of the meeting here.

• SB1041 groundwater savings certificate; assured water (Hoffman: Kern, Wadsack, et al) appears to be another way around the assured water supply requirements. It requires the Arizona Department of Water Resources to issue a groundwater savings certificate for development with a gray water system. The bill does not require the savings from gray water to be equal to the groundwater extraction. OPPOSE
• SB1241 tax credit; gray water systems (Shope: Kerr) establishes a tax credit of up to $5,000 for installation of a gray water system. It caps total tax credits for this program at $25 million per year. SUPPORT
• SB1243 groundwater sales; online exchange (Wadsack: Bolick, Hoffman, et al) allows those in the Phoenix, Pinal, and Tucson active management areas who have grandfathered water rights to sell, lease, or convey the water or the rights to others in any of these active management areas. It requires a cut to the aquifer of 35 percent. There are several issues with this bill. It could exacerbate over pumping in certain areas and could result in increased pumping. OPPOSE
• SB1430 wind farms; location limits (Rogers) prohibits wind farms from being located within six miles of property that is not owned by the entity that owns the land on which the wind farm is being erected unless the property owner gives their permission. This is just a measure to stop wind power generation. There is no such requirement for polluting gas and coal plants. OPPOSE
• SB1649 misbranding; misrepresenting; food products (Bennett) limits labeling products as "meat" if they don't come from animals. OPPOSE
• SCR1038 Arizona state parks heritage fund (Kerr: Shope, Carbone, et al) refers to the ballot a measure to fund the Arizona State Parks Heritage Fund from the state lottery for $10 million per year. This basically is reinstating the original funding for this program. SUPPORT