"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
~Aldous Huxley

March 20, 2015

Grand Canyon Wolf courtesy: AZGFD

Dear Conservation Friends,

This was the last week to hear bills in committee in both the House and Senate, which means there were a lot of last minute strike-everything amendments. Some strikers were attempts to revive bills that had been rejected previously. Others were brand new bills. That includes a bill to prohibit local communities from requiring energy benchmarking -- imagine actually knowing the energy use of an apartment you rent -- and a prohibition on fees for plastic bags and other disposable containers, or as the bill defines them "auxiliary containers." See below to take action.

As expected, all of the public lands grab bills advanced in the Senate. Legislators indicated that they might combine a couple of these bills, before sending them up to the governor, however. They also advanced a bill to push for more roads through public lands and a bill to interfere with protection of rivers and streams under the Clean Water Act. Please take action on these bills below, even if you have already.

The House advanced an Arizona Game and Fish Commission bill, SB1466 livestock loss board; compensation fund (Allen, Barton, Bowers, et al.), that establishes a livestock loss board to compensate the livestock industry for livestock depredation by wolves. This measure is redundant and unnecessary as there is already a Mexican Wolf/Livestock Coexistence Council. Unlike the program in this bill, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service convened a diverse group of interests as the Mexican Wolf/Livestock Coexistence Council. It consists of livestock interests from Arizona and New Mexico, conservation groups (Defenders of Wildlife and The Conservation Fund), Native American tribes (San Carlos Apache Tribe and White Mountain Apache Tribe), and two coalitions that represent rural counties in New Mexico and Arizona. The Coexistence Council doled out $85,500 back in November.

You might ask why Game and Fish is focusing so much of its time and resources on livestock. Good question. This bill was also amended to add another Game and Fish bill and an unrelated issue. The amendment makes it a class 4 felony for someone to import and transport a threatened, endangered, or candidate species with the intent to disrupt development of public resources. This appears to be intended to continue their narrative that the wolf that made its way to Grand Canyon was planted by conservation interests (see letter-to-the-editor by the Game and Fish Commission Chair). They could have focused this amendment on invasive non-native species, which is a real problem, but instead want to continue their grim fairytale.

The bill to require unreasonable requirements in solar leases, SB1465 distributed energy generation systems (Lesko, Burges, Griffin, et al.), was further amended on the House Floor and the worst of the provisions were removed. It still seems unnecessary and it is just odd that such an anti-regulation legislature is trying to regulate an industry out of business. A gaggle of utility lobbyists has been working to get this bill through.

Please take the actions below to stop measures that will be harmful to our state.

Ask your legislators to support local control and providing information on energy use to local residents. Ask them to oppose prohibiting your community from reducing the use of plastic bags and other disposable containers.


Ask legislators to oppose prohibiting providing accurate information on building energy use and limits on plastic bags!


Ask legislators to stop wasting time on this public lands grab -- let them know Arizonans value public lands for watersheds, wildlife habitat, recreation, and more.


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


Keep Arizona rivers and streams protected!


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

credit: Tyler Kokjohn

Please help defeat this bill to attempt to get more user-created roads on public lands throughout Arizona. This will likely go to the full senate this next week.

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 still go to the House floor. Please keep up the pressure, even if they tell you the bill is dead.


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