"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." ~Nelson Henderson

March 13, 2015

credit: Bill Thornton

Dear Conservation Friends,

As most of you know, the legislature passed a budget last weekend, finishing up on Saturday morning. There were no significant improvements for environmental programs -- or much of anything else. In addition to the bills they sent up to the governor, legislators also referred a measure to the ballot to take dollars from the sale of State Trust Lands to fund administration and disposition of state trust land. It remains to be seen what else they will refer.

This past week we saw a flurry of bad legislation advance and move from the House to the Senate. Next week, a lot of these same bills will be in committees in the Senate, plus it is the last week to hear bills in committee, so please sign in and register your opposition! Also, stay tuned as there are likely to be more bills added and more agendas posted throughout the week.

SB1185 appropriation; wolf recovery; litigation costs (Griffin, Allen, Burges, et al.), the bill that appropriates $250,000 to challenge any expansion of the Mexican wolf recovery program in Arizona, is likely dead, but I did hear they will use the new $1 million federalism slush fund at the Attorney Genera;'s office to litigate on this.

The public lands grab continues as the House passed all of the bills and it does appear that all of them are being heard in committees in the Senate.


Please protect our public lands – ask your state senator to vote NO on bills to grab the public lands.


Legislators also advanced bills to oppose the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule to ensure that most of Arizona's rivers and streams have protections provided by the Clean Water Act.


Ask your state senator to oppose HB2055, a bill that could harm our rivers and streams.

credit: Rick Resnick

There is a memorial and a bill to attempt to get more user-created roads on public lands throughout Arizona. These are still in play as it is unclear if they are going to reject any of these bad ideas.

Ask your state senator to oppose more user-created roads in our national forests, national monuments, and national parks!


The measure to prohibit cities from requiring salvage of native plants or the planting of native plants is still in play and could go to the House floor at any time.


Ask your state representatives to oppose HB2570. Protect our native plants!

Credit: Mark Coryell

• Executive Nominations - AZ Game and Fish Commission Appointment Recommendation Board - William Lane, Donald Johnson
  
•  HCR2028 civilian conservation corps; recognition (Saldate, Cardenas, Coleman, et al) recognizes the Civilian Conservation Corps. SUPPORT.

• SB1182 candidate petition signatures; electronic qualification (Ward) allows statewide and legislative candidates to collect all of their signatures electronically. This is ironic because at the same time they are doing this, they are making it harder and harder to initiate ballot measures. MONITOR.
• SCR1001 clean elections repeal: education funding (Pierce, Mesnard: Biggs)  refers to the ballot a measure that eliminates the Citizens' Clean Elections Fund and transfers it to the Department of Education. OPPOSE.

• SB1007 NOW: state plans; carbon dioxide emissions (Burges) authorizes the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to adopt and enforce a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. It also establishes a legislative committee to evaluate various aspects of the plan, none of which are related to emissions reduction and public health. NEUTRAL.

• Executive Nomination - Residential Utility Consumer Office, David Tenney
• HB2316 small water systems fund (Barton, Borrelli, Bowers, et al.) says the fund can be used to replace infrastructure.

• SB1339 public records; unduly burdensome requests (Shooter) establishes an "unduly burdensome request" as a defense relative to an appeal of denial of a public records request. It is already hard enough to get public records. OPPOSE. 

Tuesday, March 17th
Senate Committee on Rural Affairs and Environment at 9:00 a.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109

• Executive Nomination - Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund Advisory Board, George Van Velsor Wolf
• HB2176 NOW:  federal land relinquishment; payments (Thorpe) directs the State Land Commissioner to annually ask that most federal public lands be conveyed to the state via sale or to the state land trust prior to December 31, 2025. It directs the attorney general to initiate proceedings against the United States to force relinquishment of these lands. OPPOSE.
• HB2318 transfer of public lands compact (Barton, Finchem: Bowers, et al) seeks to establish and adopt a multistate 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, 2019. It includes provisions for then selling those lands. This is similar to the bill that was vetoed by Governor Brewer in 2012. OPPOSE.
• HB2636 NOW: underground storage tank program; eligibility (Bowers) will have a strike everything amendment on underground storage tank program. It is not yet posted. MONITOR.
• HCM2005 federal lands; devolution to Arizona (Barton, Gray, Shope, et al.) asks the US government to immediately and not later than December 31, 2019 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. Arizona cannot care for the lands it has, how would it care for our public lands? OPPOSE.

Senate Committee on Federalism, Mandates, and Fiscal Responsibility at 9:00 a.m. in Senate Hearing Room 3

• 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 national parks, national forests, and other public lands. The variety of lands that could be subject to rights-of-way claims brought under RS 2477 is significant. A right-of-way exists, irrespective of who currently owns the land over which it crosses, so long as the property was within the “public lands not reserved for public uses” when the right-of-way was perfected. If this bill could be lawfully implemented, which we doubt, it would cause enormous damage to lands throughout Arizona. 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.
• HB2368 sovereign authority; executive orders; DOJ (Thorpe, Finchem: Barton) prohibits the state from using any personnel or resources to comply with any executive order or policy directive issued by the president, unless that order or directive has been approved by Congress and enacted into law. This is ridiculous. OPPOSE.

Senate Committee on Transportation at 2:00 pm. in Senate Hearing Room 1

• HB2211 autocycles; motorized quadricycles (Petersen) will have a strike everything on retail sales; motor vehicle manufacturers, which, I believe, will be a measure to allow Tesla to sell its cars directly in Arizona. The striker is not yet posted.

• SCM1001 NOW: national monument designation; opposition (Griffin) asks the president not to establish Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument, asks Congress to oppose it, and ask that all monuments have congressional and state approval. Under these conditions, nothing would ever be protected. OPPOSE. 
• SCM1002 NOW: urging Congress; rights-of-way (Griffin) asks Congress to give the state authority over "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. OPPOSE.
• SCM1003 NOW: Mexican wolf; urging USFWS (Griffin: Shooter) states that the Legislature opposes additional introductions of these endangered wolves in Arizona and wants US Fish and Wildlife Service to focus reintroductions in Mexico. It further asks the US Fish and Wildlife Service to turn over management of wolves to Arizona Game and Fish. Why would the Service even consider turning over management to the state, when the legislature and commission have expressed so much opposition to their recovery. OPPOSE.

• SB1345 NOW: private land acquisition; study committee (Griffin) establishes a committee to study the impacts of public lands, which is generally framed as being negative. OPPOSE.
• 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 appears to be intended to compete with the Coexistence Council efforts and will reward poor stewardship. OPPOSE.
• SCM1004 NOW: waters; definition; urging Congress(Griffin: Shooter) asks Congress to oppose an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that helps to clarify what waters are protected under the Clean Water Act. OPPOSE.