Sierra Club Email

Explore, Enjoy and Protect the Planet

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."
~ Anatole France

April 3, 2015

credit: Mark Coryell

Dear Conservation Friends,

The Arizona Legislature finally adjourned sine die (without day) early this morning. The House and Senate did not even get that right as the Senate adjourned while the House was still voting on bills. The good news in that is that several really awful bills died in the process. SB1339 NOW: ballot collection; voted; early; prohibition was one of those bills. It would have made it a made it a Class 6 felony for a person to collect more than two early ballots from another person during a two-year election cycle. This measure would have suppressed voting by limiting door-to-door canvassing to help collect ballots.

Another bill that died, was SCR1001 clean elections repeal; education funding. This bill would have referred to the ballot a measure to repeal the Clean Elections campaign finance program and give the dollars in the fund to the Department of Education. It was a cynical attempt to try to eliminate Clean Elections in the name of helping to fund education.

Unfortunately, we were not so lucky with several other bills. SB1241 NOW: auxiliary containers; regulatory prohibition; reporting passed out of the House 37-23 and the Senate 19-11. It was mostly along party lines, with Democratic Senators Begay and McGuire and Democratic Representatives Espinoza and Bolding voting yes, and Republican Representative Campbell voting No. The bill undermines local control relative to energy benchmarking and efforts to limit plastic bag and other container waste via ordinances that implement deposits or other measures. Please thank your senator and representatives, if they voted no and please express disappointment to those who voted yes. Click here to find contact information for all representatives and senators. Also, take action right away to ask the Governor to veto SB1241.

Ask Governor Ducey to support local control and the ability of your city, town, or county to implement programs to provide accurate information about energy use to local residents. Ask him to oppose prohibiting your community from reducing the use of plastic bags and other disposable containers. Plastic bags in the cities' recycle streams cost us all as they jam up recycling equipment.

Please ask Governor Ducey to veto bill prohibiting providing accurate information on building energy use and limits on plastic bags!

Ask him to also veto bills that waste our state's time and money on a public lands grab. Let him know that Arizonans value public lands for watersheds, wildlife habitat, recreation, and more.

Please protect our public lands. Ask Governor Ducey to veto bills to grab public lands.

credit: Sandy Bahr

There is one more bill we would like to see rejected. It seeks to allow more user-created roads on public lands throughout Arizona. Some of these "roads" cause enormous damage to vegetation, wildlife, and rivers and streams, not to mention cultural sites.

Ask Governor Ducey to veto HB2175. Stop more user-created roads in our national forests, national monuments, and national parks!

Also on the Governor's desk is HB2407 referendum and recall provisions. It requires strict compliance for petitions regarding referendum and recall. While courts may generally use strict compliance, it is not required in the constitution or in statute. Strict compliance allows for measures to be tossed for purely technical reasons. It is already extremely difficult to implement a successful referendum or recall effort statewide. There have been a handful of statewide referenda in the last 20 years and very few successful recall efforts for state officials. Why was this bill necessary?

Thank you for taking action throughout the session to protect Arizona! We know that this session was discouraging relative to several issues, but the good news is, you made a difference. Without your efforts and the work of groups and individuals throughout Arizona, legislators would have passed a bill to limit native plant salvage. They would have passed bills to try and weaken Clean Water Act protections for our rivers and streams. They would have repealed provisions to notify parents about pesticide spraying in schools.

I look forward to working with you in the coming year to do even more to stop the assault on environmental protection and turn this around so we can implement laws and programs that help to safeguard lands, waters, wildlife, and our health.This is the last legislative update for this session. We will send you one more with information on the environmental report card for legislators and the governor and will send out updates if there are any special sessions. Look for a message from time to time on key federal bills as well.

If you no longer want to receive these updates, just zap me an email or unsubscribe by clicking on "Manage Preferences" at the bottom of the message.

Again, thank you so much for all that you do.

Warm regards,
Sandy Bahr

Chapter Director
Sierra Club – Grand Canyon Chapter
(602) 253-8633
http://arizona.sierraclub.org

To call your legislators, click on Member Roster and find their phone numbers. 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) 926-3559 (Senate) or (602) 926-4221 (House) and ask to connect with your legislators.