Request to Speak on the Bad Bills that Encourage Over-pumping and Discourage Clean Energy

Groundwater over-pumping brought to you by the AZ Legislature

This week at the Arizona Legislature, several bad water bills are being heard in committee as well as some bad energy and governance bills. Please weigh in on them on the Request to Speak app anytime before they are heard in committee. (Example: weigh in on HB2274 before it is heard Tuesday at 1:30pm.) 

Back again this week is HB2223 wind farms; construction; policies; procedures (Marshall: Blackman, Diaz, et al), which includes numerous new mandates for wind energy generation facilities that are clearly intended to stop wind projects from being sited. Please take action and send a message to your representatives asking them to oppose this anti-clean energy bill.

https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/arizona?actionid=ar0529742&id=70131000001iOuIAAU

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, March 18th Senate Natural Resource Committee at 1:30 PM Members of the public may attend in person or access a livestream of the meeting here. HB2274 NOW: water improvement district; Willcox basin (Griffin) authorizes Cochise County to call a special election for a water improvement district for water hauling and to develop a standpipe (a really big water tank).  Right now, the county is working on the new active management area and programs associated with it. This could potentially conflict with the AMA. While we appreciate that this bill includes water harvesting to improve infiltration, this bill doesn't do enough to address the underlying issue of overpumping of groundwater. OPPOSE HB2573 Now: groundwater; plants; wine grapes; nonirrigation (Griffin) provides a massive exemption for wine grapes – water for these is not considered irrigation and therefore is not subject to limits on pumping in an AMA. This is yet another big loophole proposed for the Groundwater Management Act and would be harmful and undercut groundwater programs in the new Willcox AMA. OPPOSE  HB2788 utility; resource plan; commission review (Olson) states that "if feasible" utilities can do a greenhouse gas emissions analysis, but it doesn't allow those greenhouse emissions to be used in the decision making process for keeping power plants in service or building new plants. It tips the scales in favor of fossil fuels. OPPOSE  HCM2014 corporation commission; reliable energy (Olson), with the amendment, asks the Arizona Corporation Commission to prevent regulated utilities from going "Net Zero" and shutting down dispatchable sources of energy generation and replacing them with “costly, intermittent and unreliable solar, wind and battery storage." First of all, this statement is false, they are not costly or unreliable, but they are intermittent. Solar, paired with battery storage is dispatchable, helping to address intermittency issues. Coal is more expensive to run than replacement with new solar. The memorial includes a lot of misinformation about renewables, including that the renewable energy standard has cost Arizona ratepayers. To the contrary, a 2020 report by Ceres found “more than $1.5 billion and $469 million in gross benefits for the public and customers of Arizona Public Service (APS) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP), respectively.” It also found savings of about 7,129-acre feet of water annually, and a 3% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. OPPOSE  House Natural Resources, Energy, & Water Committee at 2:00 PM SB1393 Now: groundwater replenishments; Pinal AMA (Shope) weakens the Assured Water Supply requirement for the Phoenix AMA and expands it to include Pinal. OPPOSE  House Regulatory Oversight Committee at 3:00 PM SB1432 prohibition; geoengineering (Farnsworth) deals with the wacky conspiracy theory on chemtrails. I am not sure what else to say about it, but I would suggest opposing it. OPPOSE Wednesday, March 19th House Ways and Means Committee at 9:00 AM SCR1009 revenue increases; administrative fee authorization (Mesnard) refers a proposed constitutional amendment to the ballot that would eliminate the legislature’s ability to authorize an agency to establish fees without a two-thirds vote. This would make it even more difficult to implement important programs to protect our health and environment. OPPOSE Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee at 1:30 PM HCR2057 initiatives; referendums; signature requirement; counties (Keshel) refers a proposed constitutional amendment to the ballot that requires a proportionate number of signatures from each county for statewide initiatives, constitutional amendments, and referenda. This just makes it harder for citizens to make their voices heard. OPPOSE House Federalism, Military Affairs, & Elections Committee at 2:00 PM SB1534 ballot measures; description; legislative council  (Kavanagh) shifts the responsibility for drafting the short description and ballot language for a ballot measure from the secretary of state and attorney general to the legislative council, which would further politicize it. OPPOSE House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at 2:00 PM SCM1002 vision zero; transportation planning (Werner: Angius, Carroll, et al) is a petty memorial objecting to vision zero transportation planning because it actually considers bicycles and pedestrians. OPPOSE