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Sierra Club Releases 2015 Environmental Report Card
Legislature Moving Arizona Backwards, One Bill At A Time

May 5, 2015

credit: Mark Coryell

Sierra Club just released its 2015 Environmental Report Card for the Arizona Legislature and Governor. The first regular session of the 52nd Legislature wrapped up quickly – in only 81 days – which was a good thing as the session was focused on taking Arizona backwards, one bill at a time.

Legislators trashed local control by prohibiting ordinances to limit plastic bags and other “auxiliary containers” and banned cities from implementing energy-saving benchmarking, too – all in one bill. This makes Arizona the first state in the nation to ban plastic bag bans, a dubious distinction. To take the Grand Canyon state backwards further still, legislators passed four bills to seek control of federal public lands through various means and passed a memorial opposing protection of public lands around Grand Canyon.

This year’s Legislature tried exceedingly hard to move our state backwards on environmental safeguards, public lands, and conservation of endangered wildlife. Instead of taking actions to better fund and protect our parks and conserve wildlife habitat, Arizona will now be studying how to take over federal public lands, a concept that has been soundly rejected by Arizona voters and vetoed by a previous governor. Arizonans love public lands and do not want to see them sold off and developed. Public lands are a big part of our tourism economy and provide enormous benefits from watersheds to wildlife habitat to recreation.

Despite the anti-environmental bills that advanced, there was some really harmful legislation that failed to pass both houses. Legislators tried to prohibit native plant salvage requirements and tried to pass legislation to remove Clean Water Act protections from most of our rivers and streams, but those bills did not have the votes to advance thanks to efforts of all of you.

To review the full report card in English, click here and in Spanish, click here.

Thank you again for taking action throughout the legislative session to protect Arizona! Let me know if you have any questions about the Environmental Report Card. We know that this session was discouraging relative to several issues, but the good news is, you made a difference.

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Please note, we will be migrating these updates to a new system prior to next legislative session, so stay tuned for more details on that towards the end of the summer.

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.