Don't let our legislators tip the scale towards fossil fuels

Our legislators (well, those in the majority) are tipping the scale towards fossil fuels by making it illegal to install solar or wind within 4 miles of homes (HB2267) and requiring 85% of energy to come from fossil fuels (HB2331). Please use the Sierra Club's petitions to send a message to your legislators to oppose these harmful bills. 

There are no Request to Speak actions this week. But we've included an update from Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club on the status of some of the bills we have weighed in on. 

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE Next week is known as cross-over week at the Legislature, where they start to move a lot of bills from one chamber to the other. The list of 2,118 bills that legislators introduced has been whittled down after the last day of committee hearings -- that means a lot of bills are dead, including nearly all of the minority party's bills and most of the bills we were supporting.  And remember that the legislature can revive a dead bill by adopting a strike-everything amendment. (This is an amendment that takes a bill and turns it into a brand new bill. It can be on the same topic or a totally different one. Confusing, I know.) Among the bills killed was the portable solar bill. Representative Gail Griffin heard testimony and then held it from a vote in the House Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee. Two bills we supported did survive the week, including HB2342 homeowners' associations; shade structures (Travers: Weninger, Willoughby). It passed out of the House Commerce committee. It prohibits Homeowners Associations (HOAs) from erecting unreasonable impediments to shade structures in backyards. The strike-everything amendment on SB1571 -- affordability; utilities; marketing expenses  -- also advanced out of committee. It limits monopoly utilities from passing through any costs to a customer that are associated with marketing, partnerships, advertising, community relations, sponsorships or any other similar activity. Utilities, of course, are trying to kill it. Sadly, four Democrats (C Hernandez, L Hernandez, Tsosie, and Volk) helped the Republicans pass an awful water bill this week. HB2758 (McMullen Valley; eligible entities; groundwater) allows private water companies to engage in the interbasin transfer of groundwater from the McMullen Valley in La Paz County to the Phoenix area. This bill benefits a private hedge fund -- Water Asset Management -- and private water companies, as well as developers. It will feed unsustainable urban sprawl. Read about this bad deal for rural Arizona here. HB2267  is very likely to come to the floor of the House this week. It establishes that any utility-scale solar or wind project that is built within four miles of a residence is automatically considered a public nuisance, meaning these are automatically considered harmful. It would also define other renewable energy projects as public nuisances, regardless of location, unless they obtain a certificate of environmental compatibility from the Arizona Corporation Commission, but at least they removed the prohibition on private residential solar that was in the initial bill - we think our RTS comments made that happen.   If you have not done so already, please use this link to send a message to your two representatives and ask them to vote NO on HB2267!

Also, likely to come to the House floor this week is HB2331, a bill that is making the rounds in several states. HB2331 (electric service providers; energy reliability) as amended requires that 85% of generation for utility retail customers be from "reliable" sources. The bill creates its own definition of reliable and defines it as a generation resource that is dispatchable. Battery storage would be excluded, even though it is dispatchable, as it is not a generation resource. The definition would exclude most forms of renewable energy and effectively requires that 85% of generation capacity for utilities has to be from fossil fuels such as coal and gas. Utilities are already building massive amounts of gas generation -- they don't need a mandate! This mandate could result in even higher utility rates. Fossil fuels are heavily subsidized and still are more expensive than clean renewable energy, especially as renewable energy does not have ongoing fuel costs. HB2331, if enacted, would virtually ensure that customers would pay higher utility rates.   Please use this link to tell your representatives to Vote NO on HB2331!

And as if the many attacks on clean energy and democracy were not enough this session, legislators have quite literally targeted Mexican gray wolves. Please send a message to your representatives asking them to oppose bills that seek to weaken protections for wolves and other wildlife. Use this link to learn more and take action.

Dan and I would like to invite you to join Sustainable Tucson's Water Committee online this Monday for our monthly meeting: Rainwater Harvesting and Keeping Cool with Storm to Shade. 

Dan Stormont, Water Committee member and Certified Water Harvesting Practitioner, will give a brief background of the history of water in Tucson, the current water situation, and how you can reduce your household water use with harvested rainwater. Then, Xochitl Coronado-Vargas, the City of Tucson's Storm to Shade Public Outreach Coordinator, will provide background on the Storm to Shade program and the current status of these neighborhood projects using harvested stormwater to make our neighborhoods cooler. 

With looming cuts in our Colorado River allocation there has never been a better time to think about where our water comes from and the steps we can take in our homes and our neighborhoods to conserve our precious water.

Water Committee Meeting
Monday, February 23rd · 7:00 p.m. 

For meeting link, email: Jana@sustainabletucson.org