"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." —Abraham Lincoln

February 13, 2015

Credit: Rick Resnick

Dear Conservation Friends,

A long list of truly wacky bills is advancing at the legislature. This next week, the agendas are appalling as they contain bills to persecute Mexican wolves – and, by the way, to say Arizona wants them recovered in Mexico (see Tuesday's agenda for Senate Committee on Rural Affairs and Environment), bills to take over federal public lands (see Thursday's agenda for House Agriculture, Land, and Water Committee), and measures to attempt to remove any Clean Water Act protections for most of our rivers and streams (see Monday's agenda for the Senate Water and Energy Committee). If you have signed up for the Request to Speak system, we urge you to register your opposition to these bills. For details on that, see below.

There are also a lot of strike-everything amendments on bills this week. A strike-everything amendment is a mechanism that uses an amendment to totally eliminate the original bill and replace it with a new bill, many times a totally unrelated measures. It is often used to introduce bad legislation when the deadline for introductions is past. As you might guess, it is also quite confusing for the general public.

HB2175 public rights of way; claims (Finchem, Thorpe: Barton, et al.) asserts claims to "rights-of-way" across public lands. This is an issue that arises every few years in an attempt to get roads through parks and other public lands. This measure, at a minimum, will create confusion regarding rights-of-way throughout our state and, if lawfully implemented, would cost counties thousands of dollars and harm important protected lands including national parks, national monuments, and wilderness areas.


Ask your representatives to vote NO on HB2175 and to protect our public lands!


SB1185 appropriation; wolf recovery; litigation costs (Griffin, Allen, Burges, et al.) is advancing through the Senate and will likely go to the floor this next week. It passed out of both Senate Appropriations and Natural Resources. The bill appropriates $250,000 to challenge any expansion of the Mexican wolf recovery program in Arizona. This is just wrong as it seeks to hinder recovery of these highly endangered animals.


Ask your state senator to vote NO on SB1185 – it would hinder wolf recovery.


SB1134 renewable energy; definition (Smith) may also come to the floor this week. It includes nuclear power in the definition of renewable energy. If you have to mine the fuel for an energy source, it is not renewable!


Ask your senator to vote no on SB1134 and reject defining nuclear power as renewable.

Credit: Mark Coryell

• SB1386 wildlife transportation and release prohibition (Pierce, Allen, Pratt, et al.) makes it a class 4 felony for a person to knowingly and without lawful authority to import and transport a species of wildlife that is listed as threatened, endangered, or candidate under the Endangered Species Act. It is a class 2 felony if the person was trying to fraudulently establish the presence of the species in an area not currently known to be occupied by that species. The bill includes federal government in the definition so may be intended to hinder recovery programs but also is clearly a bill in search of a problem. The chair of the Game and Fish Commission speculated that a wolf could not travel hundreds of miles so gave credence to a myth, based on no factual evidence, that someone had placed the wolf there. This is so unnecessary. OPPOSE.
• SB1387 recreational user immunity; access (Pierce, Allen, Pratt, et al.) indicates that payment for access to private land by a state agency is not considered an admission fee. This is to limit liability. MONITOR.
• SCR1015 state authority; nonnavigable, intrastate waters (Pierce) is a proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution to limit the application of the Clean Water Act to most of Arizona's waters. It states that Arizona has exclusive jurisdiction to any nonnavigable, intrastate waters and waterways "to ensure that adequate water supplies are available, developed, maintained and delivered." This is a measure from the Goldwater Institute in an attempt to allow for further destruction of Arizona's rivers and streams through dams, diversions, groundwater pumping, mining, and industrial agricultural. OPPOSE.

• HB2067 independent expenditure disclosures; aggregate percentage (Mesnard) changes the disclosure requirements for independent expenditure committees. Instead of the top three large donors, it requires the disclosure of those that contributed an aggregate of 25 percent or more to the total. MONITOR.
• HB2081 clean elections; cash contributions prohibited (Petersen, Mitchell: Fann) prohibits the collection of cash for the qualifying contributions for clean elections. This is a way to hinder broader participation in the clean elections system. OPPOSE.
• HB2407 referendum and recall provisions (Stevens) requires strict compliance and all kinds of additional technical requirements that would serve to make it nearly impossible to have a successful referendum or recall effort. It is already extremely difficult. Strict compliance already results in most local referenda being disqualified and allows for measures to be dismissed because of merely technical reasons. This takes power away from Arizonans. OPPOSE.
• HB2534 ballots; defects; notice; cure (Clark, Andrade, Steele, et al.) requires county recorders to inform those who vote early ballots if their ballot has some kind of defect that will cause it to not be counted and then to have an opportunity to fix the defect. SUPPORT.

• HB2541 technical correction; presentation of claim (Finchem) has a strike-everything amendment on flexible fuel vehicles; definitions; requirements, which is not yet posted.
• HB2581 prescribed burns liability study committee (Campbell) establishes a committee to collect information on the effectiveness of prescribed burns for fire fuels management, habitat improvement, and watershed protection. The committee will also examine existing liability requirements for the use of prescribed burns and review insurance mechanisms and liability provisions in other states that allow for the use of prescribed burns on private land. The committee will determine what statutory changes needed to allow prescribed burns to occur on private land. This seems like it could be a positive committee, especially if it looks at the benefits of fire for certain ecosystems. MONITOR.
• HB2636 closure; underground storage; technical correction (Bowers) will have a strike everything amendment on underground storage tank program; eligibility. It is not yet posted.

• SB1007 technical correction; trust lands; access (Burges) will have a strike everything amendment on state implementation plan; carbon emissions. The strike-everything amendment establishes a special legislative committee to review any plan submitted by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) for reducing carbon emissions from existing power plants. It also authorizes ADEQ to submit a plan. Unfortunately, the parameters this legislative committee will review are all intended to frame the Clean Power Plan as a liability. This does not appear to be a measure to encourage a strong plan for Arizona. We would like to see this amended to discuss the benefits of a Clean Power Plan state implementation plan.
• SB1462 water supply development fund; committee (Ward) will have a strike everything amendment on water infrastructure finance authority; board makes a minor change to allow appointment of a person from a slightly larger community. MONITOR.

• Presentation by Craig Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change - This will be entertaining, perhaps, but not informative.

• SCM1002 technical correction; department of agriculture (Griffin) will have a strike-everything amendment on urging congress; rights-of-way asks Congress to allow the state control of RS2477 roads and rights-of-way on federal public lands. This is a bad idea as they are trying to make sure our public lands are riddled with roads, many of them user-created and many that are causing damage to waters and wildlife. There are plenty of roads out there, closing a few dozen does not unduly hinder "access." OPPOSE.
• SCM1003 technical correction; urging the president (Griffin: Shooter) will have a strike-everything amendment on Mexican wolf; urging USFWS contains inaccurate information on wolves and ask the US Fish and Wildlife Service to focus recovery in Mexico. Last I checked, Mexico is a sovereign nation, plus this is part of a misinformation campaign to convince people that wolves do not belong in Arizona. OPPOSE.
• SCR1012 primary freight network; supporting ADOT (Worsley, Farley, Coleman, et al.) states that the Legislature supports the Arizona Department of Transportation's comments on Primary Freight Corridors. It includes language about the I-11 corridor being designated as a Primary Freight Corridor. As we have huge concerns about this proposed I-11 corridor, we are reviewing this to determine the intent. MONITOR.

• SB1147 water protection; technical correction (Griffin) will have a strike-everything amendment on the water protection fund: appropriation. The amendment is not yet posted.
• SB1466 livestock loss board; compensation fund (Allen, Barton, Bowers, et al.) establishes a livestock loss board to compensate the livestock industry for livestock depredation by wolves. It also allows for a pay for presence system. It is clearly intended to hinder the Coexistence Council efforts and to reward those who are most irresponsible relative to their livestock operations. OPPOSE.

• SCR1012 primary freight network; supporting ADOT (Worsley, Farley, Coleman, et al.) See above. MONITOR.

• HCM2004 Mohave County radiation compensation act (Cobb, Borrelli, Ward, et al) asks that Congress include Mohave County in the affected areas regarding the fallout from nuclear weapons testing, so the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act will apply there as well. SUPPORT.

• HB2368 sovereign authority; executive orders; DOJ (Thorpe, Finchem: Barton) prohbits the state from using any personnel or resources to comply with any executive order issued by the president, unless that order has been approved by Congress and enacted into law. This is ridiculous. OPPOSE.

• SB1266 clean elections act amendments (Kavanagh) makes numerous changes to Clean Elections, which appear to be consensus changes. We are evaluating it. MONITOR.
  
• SB1345 government purchase of private property (Griffin) requires any government entity that purchases private property to sell property equal in value, so there would be no net increase in parks or other land protection at the state and local level. OPPOSE.

• HB2318 transfer of public lands compact (Barton, Finchem: Bowers, et al) seeks to establish and adopt a multi-state compact for the states to gain control of federal public lands, including national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and more. OPPOSE.
• HB2321 public lands; conveyance and taxation (Barton: Thorpe) says that the U.S. shall extinguish title to all public lands in Arizona by December 31, 2016. It includes provisions for then selling those lands. This is similar to the bill that was vetoed by Governor Brewer in 2012. OPPOSE.
• HB2658 federal lands; transfer; study committee (Barton, Gray, Thorpe, et al.) establishes a study committee to examine processes to transfer, manage and dispose of federal lands within this state. OPPOSE.
• HCM2005 federal lands; devolution to Arizona (Barton, Gray, Shope, et al.) asks the US government to immediately and not later than December 31, 2016 dispose of all public lands within Arizona's borders directly to the State of Arizona. It also asks Congress to engage in good faith communication, cooperation, coordination and consultation with Arizona regarding the immediate disposal of public lands to the state. OPPOSE.

• HB2365 off-highway vehicles; enforcement (Thorpe: Cardenas) allows Game and Fish and the sheriffs to enforce off-highway vehicle provisions on protected federal public lands. Two years ago, Game and Fish and the sheriffs asked for the limitation. Now they want to eliminate it. We hate to say, "we told you so," but we told you so. SUPPORT.

• HB2570 municipalities; vegetation requirements; prohibition (Mitchell) prohibits municipalities from adopting an ordinance requiring the salvage of native plants and also prohibits them from requiring any kind of vegetation. OPPOSE.