Support Coal Ash Water Protections & the Energy Bills Relief Act

Protect Our Water – Don't Let EPA Weaken Coal Ash Protections

Retired Cholla Coal Plant photo by Sandy Bahr

For more than a century, coal companies have dumped billions of tons of their toxic coal ash into leaking ponds, landfills, and ground pits across the country. Here in Arizona there are five coal-fired power plants, some of them now retired, with coal ash ponds or landfills.  Coal ash is toxic waste that poisons our water, air, and communities. After decades of advocacy, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  finally established and strengthened coal ash regulations in 2024. Now the EPA wants to roll back these life-saving standards. We cannot go backward.  Trump’s EPA is moving to gut these hard-won protections that safeguard our water, health, and communities from this dangerous waste. Our health, our environment, and our most vulnerable communities depend on maintaining strong coal ash protections. Join us in demanding that the EPA protect people, not polluters.  Written comments to EPA must be submitted by June 12, 2026. Submit a written comment HERE.  Take Action to Support the Energy Bills Relief Act!  Right now our energy bills are skyrocketing and the climate crisis is only getting worse. Fortunately we have the solution right at our fingertips with affordable solar and wind power! Clean energy delivers. People want abundant, reliable energy and lower electricity bills. The only way to achieve that is with clean energy. We need to tackle the climate crisis now, not later – and we need less pollution, cleaner air, more jobs and cost savings for families. That’s why we're asking Congress to support the Energy Bills Relief Act which will lower costs by making it easier to build clean energy. Thank you to Representative Yassamin Ansari, Representative Adelita Grijalva, and Representative Greg Stanton for being original co-sponsors of the bill. We need to build on their support to make sure this bill moves when the time is right. Here’s what the Energy Bills Relief Act will do: Modernizes and strengthens our electrical grid. Takes steps to protect us from data centers driving up energy costs. Stops propping up expensive, dirty fossil fuel power plants ready for retirement. Helps people save money through energy efficiency. Expands LIHEAP so low-income families don’t see their heat or air conditioning shut off. Restores the clean energy tax credits that Republicans eliminated in 2025. Sign on to support the bill and send a strong message to Congress!

Bad bills that just won't die!

Kill these Zombie Bills

Legislative Report

The Arizona House and Senate came back for a couple of days this week, sending a few bills to the Governor and moving a few others along in the process. Legislative leaders still revealed nothing about when we will see the budget and what it will contain. As we have noted before, passing a budget is the only thing they absolutely have to do each session. We are now hearing it may happen next week. Stay tuned. We are asking legislators to keep tax incentives for clean energy and to eliminate all of the tax breaks for data centers, plus fund the Arizona Heritage Fund, heat centers, and the Water Quality Fee Fund.

Please take action against these bad bills that just won't die! 

SB1418 corporation commission; small modular reactors (Carroll) preempts counties – except Maricopa and Pima – from regulating the location of small modular nuclear reactors if they are co-located with high-load factor electricity user such as data centers. We have data centers locating here in our communities indiscriminately and using enormous amounts of water and electricity, plus providing very few sustainable jobs.    Ask your representatives to say no to lax siting for nuclear and data centers. Please take action on SB1418 even if you have previously. It is likely to be voted on next week. Note that this is a new alert form.   SB1332 Now: light rail expansion; feasibility review (Kavanagh) advanced this past week and could go to a Third Read vote next week too. SB1332 requires a biased study of light rail and attempts to pit it against other forms of transportation. Requiring an analysis that compares light rail and autonomous or semiautonomous vehicles is an apples to oranges comparison and provides no real beneficial information or benefits to our communities. Light rail is not in competition with other forms of transportation but rather augments them and is especially important to coordinate with buses, plus it is a key component of our transit system in the Phoenix area. Please speak up for light rail, even if it does not affect you directly.   Tell Your Representatives to Oppose SB1332! We know the majority in the Arizona Legislature want to refer something to the ballot and we expect that these twin referral bills may be on the list. SCR1001 citizenship; identification; contributions; early voting (Bolick) and HCR2001 citizenship; identification; contributions; early voting (Kolodin: Chaplik, Heap, et al) refer identical measures to the ballot to limit early voting and require all voters (even those voting mail ballots) to "show valid government-issued proof of identity." These bills would give the legislature the authority to shut down early voting too!    Ask your legislators to vote NO on SCR1001/HCR2001!

SB1280 Public monies; Mexican wolf; Prohibition (Farnsworth) would prohibit the Arizona Game and Fish Commission from transporting Mexican gray wolf puppies into Arizona and also from spending any money for transporting wolf puppies into the state.    Tell your representatives to vote no on SB1280!

HB2758 McMullen Valley; eligible entities; groundwater (Griffin: Blackman) is among the worst water legislation moving through the process. The bill allows private water companies and a New York hedge fund, Water Asset Management, to engage in the interbasin transfer of groundwater from the McMullen Valley in La Paz County to elsewhere in La Paz County or to an active management area -- basically the Phoenix area.   Please ask your Senator to Vote NO on HB2758!

HB2975 state lands; solar score; maps (Heap: Marshall) prohibits the State Land Department from using solar score maps or other similar types of evaluation of state trust lands for its appropriateness for solar energy generation. This removes transparency and is contrary to the good planning. It is intended to be punitive of solar.  Note, we are also watching the State Land Department continuation bill for harmful provisions on wind and solar. We will have more on that next week.   Please ask your senator to vote no on HB2975!

2026 bill tracker here.  UPDATE: Thanks to Gov. Hobbs for vetoing SB1280, SB1281, SB1332, SB1418 & HB2873. SB1280 Public monies; Mexican wolf; Prohibition (Farnsworth) would have prohibited the Arizona Game and Fish Commission from transporting Mexican gray wolf puppies into Arizona and also from spending any money for transporting wolf puppies into the state.  SB1281 federal government; land acquisition; consent (Farnsworth) required the State Land Department to provide a new catalog of federal public lands, including the natural, scenic, historical or cultural value, species, ecosystem, habitat or characteristic to be protected, and whether the land protection – national park, national monument, wilderness area, national forest, etc. –  is the smallest necessary to protect these resources. These are unreasonable requests, especially without additional funding, and are clearly intended to try to make a case for removing protections that are “too big.” SB1332 Now: light rail expansion; feasibility review (Kavanagh) required a biased study of light rail and attempted to pit it against other forms of transportation. Requiring an analysis that compares light rail and autonomous or semiautonomous vehicles is an apples to oranges comparison and provides no real beneficial information or benefits to our communities. Light rail is not in competition with other forms of transportation but rather augments them and is especially important to coordinate with buses, plus it is a key component of our transit system in the Phoenix area. SB1418 corporation commission; small modular reactors (Carroll) would have preempted counties – except Maricopa and Pima – from regulating the location of small modular nuclear reactors if they are co-located with high-load factor electricity user such as data centers. We have data centers locating here in our communities indiscriminately and using enormous amounts of water and electricity, plus providing very few sustainable jobs.  HB2873 NOW: municipalities; referendum petitions; withdrawal (Weninger) would have allowed anyone who files a referendum petition with a city or town to withdraw the petition in writing at any time before it qualifies for the ballot. There are numerous problems with this, but the biggest one is allowing one person or one entity to disenfranchise every person who signed the petitions -- people who in good faith signed to have an opportunity to vote on the issue -- would now not have an opportunity to do so merely because an entity or person did not plan well or got cold feet. You can send a thank you note to Governor Hobbs by using her online form here. The Governor also vetoed HB2013 relating to air quality and HB2113 relating to the Residential Utility Consumers Office. You can see a full list of the bills Governor Hobbs signed and vetoed today here.