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Legislative Updates 2003To: Conservation Friends From: Sandy Bahr, Conservation Outreach Director, Sierra Club Date: May 30, 2003 Re: Legislative Update #20 Thanks to all of you who have been phoning, emailing, and writing letters this session. It does help. Letting current legislators know your concerns, plus changing some faces at the Capitol in the next election are the only ways we will turn around these efforts to harm our air, water, and the land. If there is nothing to report in the next couple of weeks, I may skip the updates and then just send you a final update along with the legislators' environmental report card. It has been awhile since the Legislature extended its regular session into June -- it has now been extended until the end of next week. This is not good news for Arizonans. The longer the session goes, the more bad ideas that resurface. Now that there are actual budget negotiations, versus just a plan put together by the few in leadership, it is possible that they could get something together this week, but it is also possible that the session will go through the end of the month. I think we continue to be in big trouble on Heritage Fund, so I am urging you to call, write, email, and write letters to the editor. Let them know that the Heritage Fund plays a fundamental role in protecting our quality of life. We need parks, wildlife, and wildlife habitat as much as other public amenities. While they cut important programs like Heritage Fund, a program that benefits every legislative district in the state and provides public benefits to the state as a whole, I might add, they continue to subsidize so-called private enterprise including entities like Phoenix International Raceway, the livestock industry, and more. To help get the attention of legislators, we are doing a Heritage Fund call-in day. On Tuesday, June 3, please call your legislators and also the Governor and ask them to protect the Heritage Fund and to eliminate the proposed raids in the 2004 budget. If you're outside the Phoenix area, you can call your legislators' offices toll free at 1-800-352-8404 and in the Phoenix area call (602) 542-3559 (Senate) or (602) 542-4221 (House). To reach the Governor, call 602-542-4331 or toll free 1-800-253-0883. The Heritage Fund has already been hit hard by dwindling lottery revenues available to the fund (the multi-state lotteries like Power Ball do not provide funding for the Heritage Fund). The current budget takes $10 million directly, plus allows Parks to use any remaining dollars (probably a couple of million) for operation and maintenance. That means none of the Heritage Funds publicly approved programs would be funded at Parks. Since the Heritage Fund's inception over $200 million has been reinvested in our state. Between the Game and Fish and State Parks Departments there are currently almost 200 active grants statewide. Heritage Funds have benefited every Legislative District in Arizona. Almost 100 Game and Fish employees are funded via the Heritage Fund and the Department uses the fund to pay for up to 50% of all non-game wildlife programs. The Heritage Fund provides funding for approximately 40 positions at State Parks and funds programs such as the Site Stewards that has over 600 volunteers who donate thousands of hours monitoring archaeological sites. Next week, the Arizona Senate will be considering HCM2006 Healthy Forest Restoration Act (Johnson, Flake, L Gray, et al). While this measure is just a postcard (message) to Congress and has no real impact in law, there is an opportunity to inform a few of the members about the problems with the legislation and help them better understanding the forest issues we are trying to address. HCM2006 is an endorsement of the so-called "Healthy Forest Restoration Act," HR1904, in Congress. It is not about healthy forests or protecting communities. It is about cutting the public out of the process so big timber interests can once more control our forests and continue to create the conditions that have brought them to this point. HR1904 poses a major threat to environmental protection and public involvement in public land management. This measure does virtually nothing to protect homes and communities from wildfire. Rather than provide any new funding authorization or mechanisms for fuels reduction on public or private lands, the bill relies on scaling back environmental safeguards to reduce fire risk. The bill seeks to cut out the public from public forest management and give unprecedented latitude to agency managers to promote harmful logging projects across the public's forests. It promotes new subsidies for "biomass" logging, federal assistance for private forest owners and the ability of Forest Service managers to plan 1000 acre logging projects with the sparsest of environmental impact analysis. It even gives lawsuits challenging Forest Service projects priority over virtually all other civil and criminal litigation. HR1904 misses on all of the major components that a responsible, science-based, community protection plan should have. The US Forest Service Fire Research lab has found that the best method to protect homes from a forest fire is by creating defensible space 100 feet around a home and 500 meters around communities. HR1904:
SB1138 (NOW: outdoor advertising; electronic messages) (Martin, Blendu, et al.) is still lurking about, so we need to continue to watch the calendars for its re-emergence. The bill overturns 33 years of sound public policy by deleting the prohibition on electronic billboard displays adopted in 1970 Arizona Highway Beautification Act. The level of brightness of the proposed electronic message displays are not limited by the bill and as such will result in more light pollution in our night skies. Yes to seeing the stars, no to this bill. To email senators go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp and for house members to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/MemberRoster.asp#house. If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml or call the House or Senate information desks. If you're outside the Phoenix area, you can call your legislator's office toll free at 1-800-352-8404. In the Phoenix area call (602) 542-3559 (Senate) or (602) 542-4221 (House). Correspondence goes to 1700 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890. For more information on legislation go to http://www.azleg.state.az.us/. Sandy Bahr Page updated: 05/30/03 Back to 2003 Legislative Updates page Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter, 202 E. McDowell Rd, Suite 277, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 253-8633 |