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Legislative Updates 2009Sierra Club 2009 Legislative Update #1 “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. January 16, 2009 Hi everyone! They are off – in more ways than one. The legislative session kicked off on Monday with Governor Napolitano’s state of the state address. The extreme right-wing leadership in the legislature made it clear, however, that there was little in what she said that they would be considering and the budget discussions made it clear that there would be deep cuts, especially to education, but the environmental programs will not go unscathed. Our main goal in the budget will be to keep the Heritage Fund intact. Over 400 bills have been filed already – so much for focusing primarily on the budget – and many of them are bills we have seen before. Most of them undermine or weaken programs. There are bills to make it extremely difficult for cities and counties to impose impact fees, bills to undermine subdivision regulation, measures intended to preclude conservation-oriented individuals from serving on the Game and Fish Commission, and the list goes on. We are expecting some bad proposals on conservation of state trust lands as well. All is not dark, however, as there are some very good bills on renewable and energy efficiency. We shall see if they actually move any of those through the process. This week, please call and ask your legislators to keep the Arizona Heritage Fund intact in the Fiscal Year 2009 budget adjustments and in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget. To email legislators or find their direct phone numbers, click on HYPERLINK "http://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster.asp" Legislators or paste HYPERLINK "http://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster.asp" http://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster.asp into your browser. If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to HYPERLINK "http://www.vote-smart.org" http://www.vote-smart.org (You will need your 9-digit zipcode.) or call the House or Senate information desks. 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 them to connect you with your legislators. Correspondence goes to 1700 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890. The Heritage Fund provides dollars at state parks for a variety of programs and funding for wildlife programs at Game and Fish. The amount designated for the fund -- $20 million total – has never had any inflation adjustments since the voters approved the Heritage Fund overwhelmingly in 1990. Any cuts in the fund will have serious impacts on already stressed programs. Arizona State Parks faces two choices – allow our parks to deteriorate or close them altogether – if funds for proper maintenance and protection are not increased. Cutting them would truly endanger those parks so important to the state’s economy and that of many small communities. Cuts in wildlife funding will result in less federal funding for both non-game and game programs. Our state’s wildlife need solid, ongoing and predictable funding to withstand the ever-increasing pressures from development, road-building, and other activities that fragment and destroy habitat. You can read a sign-on letter we helped put together by clicking on HYPERLINK "http://azheritage.wordpress.com/about-the-heritage-fund/sign-on-to-protect-the-arizona-heritage-fund/" Protect Heritage Fund. There is also a link to a pledge that legislators can sign. I encourage you to make phone calls to legislators unless you already have a solid relationship with them and they are likely to read your emails. If you cannot make a call, however, please send a personalized email, tell them why the Heritage Fund is important to you, and be sure and mention in the first sentence that you are a constituent. It is also best to include your address with the email, so it is clear to your legislators up front that you actually live in their district. If at any time you would like to be removed from this list, please just send me a quick email and I will take you off the list. Later this year, I am hoping to switch over to a different system of distributing these and hope it will make it a little easier for you to link to other information and to take action. Also, don’t forget that the updates will all be on the website and we also have a legislative tracker where you can read more details on the bills. Thank you for caring and for taking action! Here is what is happening this week: Monday, January 19, 2009 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Tuesday, January 20, 2009 – Inauguration of Barack Obama. Hooray! Senate Appropriations Committee at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 109 Presentation by state treasurer and by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Senate Commerce and Economic Development at 1:30 p.m. in Senate Hearing Room 1 Presentation by the Science Foundation of Arizona House Environment Committee at 2:00 p.m. in House Hearing Room 5 Presentation by Wally Covington on forests. (It will be interesting to see what he is promoting and whether or not he trash talks environmentalists.) Wednesday, January 21, 2009 House Appropriations Committee at 1:15 p.m. in House Hearing Room 1 Presentation by state treasurer and by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Thursday, January 22, 2009 House Committee on Judiciary at 9:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room 4 HB2048 local elections; signature requirements (Reagan, Ableser, Barnes, et al) allows cities to require a minimum number of signatures for candidates if that city has a nonpartisan election. T his seems okay. House Committee on Water and Energy at 9:00 a.m. in House Hearing Room 5 Just introductions of members and staff (The Transportation Committee is also meeting at the same time and just doing introductions.) For more information on bills we are tracking, go to HYPERLINK "http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/" http://arizona.sierraclub.org/political_action/tracker/ To email legislators go to HYPERLINK http://www.azleg.gov/MemberRoster.asp. If you are not sure who your legislators are, please go to HYPERLINK http://www.vote-smart.org(You will need your 9-digit zipcode.) or call the House or Senate information desks. 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). Correspondence goes to 1700 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890. For more information on legislation go to HYPERLINK http://www.azleg.gov. |
2009 Legislative Updates Bill Tracker |
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