By Jim Nintzel
POLLUTERS, PRIVATE schools and PACs won big at the Capitol last week, as state lawmakers scurried to ram their legislation through committees.
Bills were dead if they weren't heard in their chamber of origin by the end of the day Friday, Febuary 15, so, with over 950 bills to finish hearing, lawmakers had plenty of work to do.
That meant long hours for the House Environment Committee, which had a lengthy list of bills with plenty of vocal opposition eager to spend time testifying.
Despite the testimony--dismissed by the Republicans on the committee as the standard griping by disgruntled "enviro-Dobermans," as committee chair Russell Bowers (R-Mesa) likes to call 'em--lawmakers on the committee passed almost all of the bills before them.
Among the bills surviving the week:
• House Bill 2196, which eliminates the right of citizens whose property is damaged as a result of lax enforcement of environmental law to sue the state.
• House Bills 2425 and 2364, which raid the Heritage Fund (See related story on page 9).
• HB 2274, which eliminates the requirement for environmental education, which is funded by a portion of the funds from those fancy environmental license plates. Rumor has it that Bowers has an amendment ready which would give all the funds to Natural Resource Conservation Districts, which are made up of ranchers.
The enviro committee capped the week by passing HB 2229, which would force cities and towns to follow a bureaucratic review process. Sponsored by Speaker of the House Mark Killian, the bill plants the seed for the private property takings legislation rejected by the voters in the form of Prop 300 last November.
Although in its current form it does little more than inflict an expensive and cumbersome process on local municipalities, the bill easily could be amended to include some of the more vile aspects of Prop 300, including stipulations that would utterly disable state regulators.
The only real pro-environmental legislation to make it out of committee was Tucson Rep. Andy Nichols' bottle bill, and even as they were voting "aye," Republicans on the committee were rubbing their hands in glee over plans to strike all the language from the bill and use it as a vehicle for alternative legislation.
Meanwhile, the Senate Natural Resources Committee passed SB 1290. Dubbed the Environmental Audit Bill, it would eliminate penalties and provide a shield of secrecy for companies confessing to polluting. Whistleblowers who leak information about the secret reports would be fined up to $10,000.
The bill drew immediate criticism from such diverse sources as Department of Environmental Quality Director Ed Fox, Attorney General Grant Woods and Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, all of whom dismissed the idea of allowing polluters to hide behind a veil of secrecy as vile and outrageous.
Earlier this week, the increasingly arrogant Senate leadership placed the bill on the consent calendar in their chamber, which means that it automatically passes the full Senate unless it's challenged by a senator.
Environmentalists weren't the only ones taking a beating. Over in the Senate Government Reform Committee, lawmakers voted to scrap most of the state's campaign regulations, including the limits on individual and PAC contributions--laws instituted by the voters themselves on the 1986 ballot.
"Where's the mandate for this?" asks Dana Larsen, director of Arizona Common Cause, who emerged from the committee meeting disappointed but not surprised. "I don't recall hearing any public decrying of the campaign finance laws. The voters in Arizona overwhelmingly enacted those contribution limits. If the legislators or Gov. Symington really think there's a problem, they should get out on the streets with petitions and clipboards and start gathering signatures themselves to see if there's a massive movement to have unlimited campaign contributions."
Two school voucher bills survived the week as well. HB 2177, sponsored by Tucson Rep. Dan Schottel, provides $2,500 grants to 2 percent of Arizona's kids, while SB 1360 is a four-year plan granting $1,500 to 8,000 low-income kids. Do you suppose these meager sums will come near covering the cost of clothing, transportation, tuition and books for any decent private schools?
Gov. J. Fife Symington III celebrated the 83rd anniversary of statehood by signing his first bill of the session. Senate Joint Resolution 1003 ensures Arizona's participation in the much-ballyhooed Conference of the States, which will bring together representatives from many states to loudly bitch about federal mandates and generally foment revolution. The state's unorganized militias were no doubt firing automatic weapons in celebration.
No report from the legislature would be complete without a mention of Rep. Jeff Groscost. A Mesa Republican who has introduced a whopping 117 bills, including putting a bounty on wolves and licensing gila monster dealers, Groscost successfully struck all the language from HB 2150 and replaced it with an amendment forcing state employees "to cancel and repudiate any cooperative agreement regarding the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973."
The real endangered species these days is common sense.
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