By Jim Nintzel
THE INFAMOUS HOUSE Environment Committee gets back to work late this week, as it hears testimony on the environmental audit bill passed by the Senate earlier this session.
As regular readers know, the environmental audit bill allows a polluter to escape penalty if the company secretly reports environmental violations to the state Department of Environmental Quality ( DEQ) and agrees to clean up the mess. The report is sealed and whistleblowers who leak word of the violations are subject to hefty fines.
It's a bill that has raised the hackles of groups like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, but insiders say the House Environment Committee is likely to pass the legislation along to the full House. After all, the committee has already flushed environmental education, tried to raid the Heritage Fund and eliminated a citizen's right to sue if the DEQ fails to take action against polluters. Committee members will no doubt love the environmental audit bill.
Elsewhere in the House, the State Mandates Committee (or, as we like to call it, the State Madness Committee) heard testimony on Senate Bill 1265, which would cut all ties between the attorney general's office and the Constitutional Defense Council (CDC), which was created last year to sue the federal government in pursuit of states' rights.
CDC member Ralph Pew turned up at the hearing and assured lawmakers the CDC was taking aim only at the feds. Pew said the group had never discussed the notion of suing individual citizens--a story that began to fall apart when other witnesses at the hearing produced minutes from the first CDC meeting, where Gov. J. Fife Symington III urged the council to use the money to sue environmental groups who attempt to slow mining and timber operations.
Still, Pew said that was just talk--the CDC was only going to sue the federal government, and probably real soon. Expected target: federal laws regulating air quality and prison conditions.
Rep. Ruben Ortega added an amendment to SB 1265 which would make the CDC subject to the procurement code. But guess what? Legal fees are exempt from the procurement code anyway, so his amendment was completely meaningless.
At least one lawmaker is happy with the CDC. Sen. Tom Patterson wants to give the council another $500,000, even though they've barely touched the $1 million they got in start-up costs last year.
In another great moment during the S&M committee meeting, Mesa Republican Jeff Groscost complained that citizens vote for U.S. senators.
"We lost our 10th Amendment rights when we (the legislature) stopped appointing federal senators," griped Groscost, who would no doubt love to watch John McCain and Jon Kyl grovel before the legislature for their jobs.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in the House are also tossing around Senate Bill 1333, which would create a study committee (not unlike the Spanish Inquisition) to delve into the finances of non-profit groups.
"Who are we sending Darth Vader after?" asked minority leader Art Hamilton at a recent meeting. "Certainly not the Girl Scouts."
Bill sponsor Ernie Baird (R-Phoenix) admitted the bill was actually aimed at the hospitals who sponsored the successful tobacco tax proposition on last year's ballot. It appears the bill's sponsors aren't afraid to bite the hand that feeds--all six lawmakers behind the bill got campaign donations from medical groups.
Only one of the sponsors, Senate President John Greene (R-Phoenix), got money from the tobacco folks--a measly $100 from Philip Morris, that carcinogenic giant that dropped cartons of money in a failed attempt to defeat the tobacco tax.
Finally, some rumors floating around the Capitol: Insiders say Sen. Mark Spitzer withdrew his flat income tax proposal not because of bad numbers from the Department of Revenue, as he told the media last week, but because concerned Mormon lawmakers realized tithing to the LDS Church would no longer be tax-deductible.
And one reason that veggie hate-crime bill has found such support may be that the lobbyist representing the farmers also represents the fire department, and firemen do the grungy job of erecting campaign signs during election season. And we hear the real target of the veggie bill are farm workers who get testy after being exposed to toxic pesticides.
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