Be Part of Global Climate Strike Day • Sep 15th 2023

Join Arizona's youth across our state for Fridays for Future’s Global Climate Strike Day to demand strong and local climate action.

Show up to support and listen to young climate activists who are demanding climate solutions and action from our leaders. There will be information tables, speakers, and lots of committed activists.

• Tucson’s strike will be held at El Presidio Plaza in Downtown Tucson from 3-5pm

• Phoenix’s strike will be held in the amphitheater area of Wesley Bolin Plaza, east of 17th Ave, across from the State Capitol from 3-5pm

Young Tucson Protestors Demand an End to Fossil Fuels. September 17, 2023 by Larry Bodine

More than 75 youth climate activists in Tucson rallied to join student climate protesters around the world who are calling for an end to fossil fuels as the earth heats up. In Tucson, several youth activists spoke at El Presidio Plaza in downtown Tucson on September 15, 2023, to demand local action in the state of Arizona.

https://youtu.be/qW8YMcs6-Zs?si=3q9Y0fUUHs1drscK

AZ Legislature Update and Report Card

On Wednesday, August 30th, Sierra Club along with Chispa Arizona issued an Environmental Report Card for the Arizona Legislature and Governor. Once again, the highly partisan session resulted in most Republicans earning a failing grade on the report card. The good news is 32 legislators earned an "A" on the report card and voted time after time against anti-democracy and anti-environmental bills.

The 2023 Legislative Session was the longest session on record, officially spanning 204 days and finally wrapping up on July 31st. The session included significant breaks as there were vacancies, negotiations, and reluctance by some in the majority to adjourn as they wanted to keep an eye on the Governor. Very little of note was accomplished, however, and Governor Hobbs’ veto stamp got a workout as legislators sent up a slew of bad ideas.

The attacks on democratic processes this session were again significant and frequent with more than 200 bills introduced seeking to limit early voting, make voting more difficult, and limit the initiative and referendum process, and other efforts to hinder democracy. A measure to require a proportionate number of signatures from each legislative district for initiatives and referenda, SCR1015, was referred and will be on the ballot in 2024. If passed, it would make it extremely difficult to qualify a measure for the ballot.

2023 brought new attacks on transportation as the majority in the Arizona Legislature sought to put a stop to light rail expansion and really any substantial funding for transit, bicycle and pedestrian safety or anything that did not involve concrete or asphalt. Senator Jake Hoffman led the way in introducing anti-transit, anti-bike measures with five bills – SB1312, SB1313, SB1314, SB1697, and SCR1018 specifically targeting multi-modal transportation. All of these bills died in either the Senate or House.

Some positive highlights of the session included important provisions in the budget, SB1720, including $6 million for the State Parks Heritage Fund, $7 million for the Upper Verde State Park, $3.5 million for planning passenger rail service between Phoenix and Tucson, $300,000 for trees for schools, and $9 million for Economic Transition Resources for capital projects, economic sustainability developments, renewable energy projects and broadband projects located within twenty miles of the Kayenta Coal Mine.

Nearly all of the Republican caucus earned an “F” on the Environmental Report Card this session as they pushed and supported bills to limit transit, consideration of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues, and to hinder voting. There were 32 senators and representatives and Governor Hobbs who earned an “A.” 

The Sierra Club report card is available on the website in English here and Spanish here.

You can also view the news briefing we conducted on YouTube here.

Weigh in on Tucson's One Water 2100 plan by July 21nd

important take-away from WMG

We have one last chance to weigh in on the One Water 2100 (draft) plan. The deadline is July 21, 2023.

Sustainable Tucson's water committee is currently working on our organization's comments on the plan.  Some of us attended Watershed Management Group's letter writing workshop. They had some excellent recommendations for points to comment on. They suggest that we all submit individual comments as well. Please, consider checking out WMG'S recommendations and personalizing your comment so it doesn't sound like a petition or form letter. For example, you might include why it is important to you.

Here is a recording of the WMG meeting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6px9-2Yp_nc

Link to WMG's slide show presentation: slides:

  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Oe_qNYLZPm9zP238NprvwG1d3uXg8Ok9OwoYo8e3SHA/edit?usp=sharing

Link to the One Water 2100 plan and comment info: https://tucsononewater.com/plan-resource-page/

NOTE: The first 83 pages of the plan is background information on Tucson's water. Good information, but you might want to scroll past that to get to their plans for the future of Tucson's Water.

Support Historic Bill to Reform Destructive, Old U.S. Mining Law

A new bill has been introduced in Congress that would overhaul the 1872 Mining Law and at last bring the United States into the 21st century — ready to meet the demands of a clean energy economy while not repeating the mistakes of the past. Tell your elected officials to support this historic legislation, and help protect the Santa Ritas, Patagonia Mountains, and other Sky Islands from toxic hardrock mining. For 151 years, mining for copper, uranium, and other minerals has been governed by a gold-rush era law that promoted westward expansion and extraction at all costs. As a result, according to the EPA, 40% of western watersheds are now polluted. Hundreds of thousands of mines have been abandoned and left to taxpayers to clean up. And Indigenous tribes and other communities have been polluted with arsenic, mercury, and lead. This is unacceptable.  The Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act, introduced by Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), offers several solutions. It would: Establish environmental standards that don’t exist under the current law and make industry clean up their abandoned mines; Ensure a fair return to taxpayers with a royalty for mining on public lands; Create space for meaningful tribal consultation and improve siting/permitting with a leasing system and public process; and Give land managers power to protect sacred and irreplaceable resources.  Urge your elected officials to support this visionary bill and protect our public lands and water for future generations. Find Sky Island Alliance's action here:  https://skyislandalliance.org/2023/06/rosemont-mine-alert/

Tell EPA: Adopt strong carbon rule for coal & gas power plants

Included is the Sierra Club's update on happenings at the State Capital and the Arizona Corporation Commission. Please, find the call to action (below) urging the EPA to adopt the strongest possible carbon rule for coal and gas power plants.

The Arizona Legislature was not in session this week and won't be back until July 31st, but there was a lot of activity nearby, some of it good -- vetoes by the Governor -- and some of it bad -- a reversal by the Arizona Corporation Commission on two issues.

Starting with the good news, the Governor vetoed several harmful bills, including HB2618, a bill that would have impeded solar development, and SB1246, a measure that would have required referring a harmful transportation proposal in Maricopa County, limiting transit.

Please send a quick thank you to the Governor for these vetoes. You can send her a note here.

Meanwhile, down the road at the Arizona Corporation Commission, the Commission approved a harmful settlement with Arizona Public Service (APS) and reversed a decision to deny a certificate of environmental compatibility to massive power plant expansion at Coolidge. Read more about those decisions here.

In other news, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a  carbon rule for coal and gas power plants. This is an important opportunity to move us closer to our carbon emissions reduction goals and get us closer to being on track relative to stabilizing the climate. Please use the link below to take action on the carbon rule today. Tell EPA to adopt the strongest possible rule.

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/submit-your-comment-on-the-epas-proposed-cut-climate-pollution-plan/?source=az-sc

Urge Mayor Romero and City Council Members to Reject the Siting of a Waste-to-Energy Facility in Tucson

waste-to-energy plant in Europe

The Tucson Environmental and General Services department is studying over 10 project ideas for turning municipal waste into energy, fuel or fuel ingredients at the Los Reales regional landfill on the southeast side of the city.  No final decision has been made, but it is important to let City leaders know that waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities represent a false solution to our ever-growing solid waste problem. 

WTE facilities (e.g., combustion, pyrolysis, gasification and refuse-derived fuel) generate heat-trapping greenhouse gases and toxic fumes that can harm our health and planet.  These facilities also destroy valuable resources and work against the circular economy, which keeps materials in use for as long as possible. 

Much better upstream solutions exist for minimizing the generation of solid waste, including waste prevention, reuse/refill, product redesign, recycling and composting.  The City should make zero waste solutions the priority, not downstream waste management treatment facilities.  

You can sign a petition opposing a WTE facility at the Los Reales landfill on Change.org at: https://www.change.org/p/don-t-burn-it-tucson.

You can also send an email directly to Mayor Romero (Mayor.Romero@tucsonaz.gov) and your City Council member (www.tucsonaz.gov/gov/ward-maps).   

For more information on the problems with WTE technologies and more sustainable alternatives, please visit: https://sites.google.com/view/dontburnittucson/home.

Recording of Sustainable Tucson meeting: STGM Chemical Recycline with Veena Singla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeO913M_vCA&t=1s

Urge your legislators to support Prop 400 on public transit and oppose SCR1015 making enacting citizens' initiatives harder

After a couple of weeks off, the Arizona Legislature will be back on Monday. The rumor is that after addressing a few bills, they may recess again until August 1st. 

It sounds like they may have an agreement on an affordable housing bill that could advance, but there's still no agreement on

Writes Laurie Roberts, "Next time you’re sitting in traffic, wondering if you’ll make it home before your loved ones forget what you look like, know that it could be worse." Legislative hard-liners who obtusely refuse to accept that a modern metropolitan transit system should support all residents, not just drivers, are rejecting compromise after compromise offered by the Governor and the Maricopa Association of Governments. 

Maricopa County is the only county in Arizona that needs legislative approval and the governor’s signature to call an election for a transportation sales tax. Unfortunately, the legislature has refused to approve a clean version of a bill and instead has been trying to limit the dollars that can go toward transit. After 500 meetings and feedback from more than 10,000 residents, Mayors and other elected leaders agreed on a plan that includes transit.  Tell state legislators: Let voters decide their transportation future.

https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/Arizona?actionId=AR0392210&id=7013q000001ojTmAAI

Stop Attacks on Direct Democracy in Arizona!

It also looks like they are going to revive a referendum to require every legislative district to exceed a given percentage of signatures in order to put a citizen initiative on the ballot. That will make it a lot more difficult and more expensive and would allow one district to block an initiative. Ask your representative to vote NO on SCR1015 and to oppose efforts to make it more difficult to engage in citizen initiatives.

Use the Sierra Club’s action form.

https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/Arizona?actionId=AR0392209

HELPFUL HINT: It is always better to add a personal comment so it doesn’t seem so much like a petition. You can also get the contact information on the form and contact your legislators by email or phone. Some legislators are more inclined to read personal emails than group petitions.