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Legislative Updates 2009Sierra Club 2009 Legislative Update #9 “Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.” March 13, 2009 Hi all! A good week at this Legislature is one where the Environment Committee does not meet, nor do most of the others. It looks as if the House will be doing floor work and the Senate will continue to work on the budget behind closed doors. On this past Thursday, they passed another budget “fix” for 2009 in the House and Senate, after almost no public input or consideration. This was to address legal issues in the previous 2009 budget fix. This past week the House also passed the rule making moratorium (HB2240) – no new rules until June 30, 2010 unless there is an “imminent” threat to public health and safety. So, if the rule is to protect you from something that might kill you more slowly, then forget it, the legislature says it must wait. They also passed the bill that establishes the Administrative Rules Oversight Committee (HB2401), which is just another opportunity for legislators and others to thump their chests against rules they do not like, which often are the rules that implement environmental and public health and safety protections. This is more of the nonsense that in tough economic times we should just let big business run the state. Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? Please call your representatives in the Arizona House of Representatives and ask them to oppose HB2352 aquifer protection permits; natural gas (Mason). HB2352 exempts Class I and Class II injection wells for natural gas storage from getting aquifer protection permits. The list of exemptions for the aquifer protection permit program is far too long already – it has grown over the years as special interest after special interest has sought to relieve themselves from the protective requirements of the program. This exemption is bigger and has much more significance than those previous exemptions, however. It will allow millions of gallons of briny water to be pumped into a deep aquifer thus writing off that aquifer for drinking water in the future. Arizona’s Aquifer Protection Permit (APP) program was a landmark program when passed in 1986 as part of the Environmental Quality Act. Rather than focus on remediation – trying to clean up a mess after the fact – and enforcement, it focuses on prevention. The program is aimed at keeping pollutants out of our precious aquifers. This is both more environmentally responsible and cheaper in the long run. It is especially important as it is often the public (the taxpayers) that has to pick up the tab for clean up. Arizona also decided at that time that all of its aquifers are important and should be designated as drinking water aquifers. Never before have we just written off an aquifer. This bill does that, but does so in a less than forthright manner. If Arizona does want to change the designation of an aquifer, there is a process for doing so. It is a very public process, involves studying the aquifer, and it allows for public comments and requires a public hearing. HB2352 will write off those aquifers without the proper findings and without the public notice and input. That is just plain wrong. Arizona’s water and future are too important to write off so cavalierly. The company, Multifuels out of Houston, Texas, that is seeking this new exemption in our law is doing so in order to secure its financing. They want to do this project in Pinal County, but the exemption applies statewide. Is it worth risking Arizona’s aquifers and future drinking water supplies to allow them to get financing for this project? To email your House Members or find their direct phone numbers, click on Arizona House or paste http://www.azleg.gov/memberRoster.asp?Body=H into your browser. If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to http://www.vote-smart.org or call the House information desk. If you're outside the Phoenix area, you can call your legislators’ offices toll free at 1-800-352-8404. In the Phoenix area call (602) 926-4221 (House) and ask them to connect you with your legislators. For those of you signed up for the Request to Speak system, I just wanted to remind you that you can only register your support or opposition when a bill is scheduled to be heard in committee and prior to it actually being heard in committee. You also must have first set up an account on one of the kiosks at the legislature. Again, let me know and I can help you with that. Finally, if you register, but do not want to speak and are not planning to be there, just indicate “no” where it asks if you wish to speak. If you do accidentally hit “yes” it is not a problem. They will just call off your name in the committee and if you do not step forward to speak, they will move on to the next one. I hope that helps clarify a tad, but feel free to give me a call, if it is still unclear. HB2088 NOW: public conservation monies; transfer; parks (Nichols) is still hanging out there and the bill sponsor is still trying to peel off enough votes with promises of returning dollars or focusing it more on parks. The bill diverts $20 million from the Public Conservation Account in the Land Conservation Fund established by the voters in 1998 when they approved the Growing Smarter Act referred to the ballot by the Arizona Legislature. The dollars are diverted to a variety of purposes – everything from water banking to parks to workshops. This amendment is clearly unconstitutional as it in no way furthers the purposes of the “Growing Smarter” measure that went before the voters in 1998. By diverting dollars from this fund, the Legislature hurts both conservation efforts and education – dollars from the Land Conservation Fund go into the Trust to benefit the Trust beneficiaries. The primary beneficiary is public education. Providing adequate funding for parks and other programs is important, but this is not the appropriate way to do so. The best avenue is to restore those funds directly and to establish a more stable funding source for our state parks. The voters approved the Voter Protection Act, because they were fed up with the Legislature undercutting, repealing, and diverting dollars from voter-approved measures. This bill demonstrates why it is needed more than ever. I wanted to thank everyone again for your calls on HB2235 game and fish commissioner; appointment, the measure that required appointees to the Game and Fish Commission to have a hunting license or a combined hunting and fishing license for five years. Your efforts made a huge difference! Again, there is not too much happening in committee this week as the Senate is still pretty much stalled over the budget and the House is likely to be moving bills to the floor. Monday, March 16, 2009 Senate Committee on Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Public Debt at 1:30 p.m. SHR 109 Arizona Department of Transportation – Review of Federal Stimulus Presentation by the Arizona Mine Inspector For more information on bills we are tracking, go to http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/ . Thank you!
Sandy Bahr |
2009 Legislative Updates Bill Tracker
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