APS using scare tactic on initiative

Attention fellow Arizonans: There is danger afoot.

DANGER, I tell you.

It seems if you sign a petition aimed at forcing Arizona Public Service and other utilities to get more of their energy from solar, wind and other types of renewable sources ...

... You may find yourself targeted by felons.

Who knew that solar energy could pose such a threat?

To APS, at least.

Cue the phone call that Maricopa County voters are getting, in which an APS-funded political action committee offers “an important public safety notice“:

“By law, people gathering signatures for ballot measures are required to have safe backgrounds. However, news reports and a formal complaint filed with the secretary of state’s office indicate that the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona campaign has used convicted felons to gather signatures for their ballot measure.

“There’s a chance you’ll see these signature gatherers at local shopping centers and knocking on doors in your neighborhood. We urge you to be aware of their presence. Please protect your personal information by verifying anything you sign from the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona campaign.

“Understand who is asking for your information and get the exact same personal information from them that they are asking of you. Keep the information in case you are a victim of identity theft. Please don’t take a chance that a convicted felon will have access to your personal data.” Goodness.

Matt Benson, spokesman for the APS group, Arizonans for Affordable Electricity, says the Clean Energy initiative campaign has hired felons to circulate petitions, in violation of state law.

It filed a complaint with the secretary of state’s Office in May, citing evidence that five registered circulators for the campaign have felony convictions, including one for vehicular homicide, forgery and domestic violence and another for kidnapping and theft.

Since filing the complaint, Benson says more felon circulators have been found though he said he’s not ready to announce how many more have been identified.

“They didn’t do bare minimum of due diligence (a 60-second online background check pulls up most offenses) and, as a result, the campaign has been using petition circulators with violent-felony backgrounds,” Benson told me. “That’s on them. I suspect that if roles were reversed and Pinnacle West had engaged in this behavior, the media would be crying bloody murder.”

Pinnacle West Capital Corp. is the parent company of APS.

Rodd McLeod, spokesman for Clean

Energy for a Healthy Arizona, acknowledges that five of more than 400 circulators hired had felony convictions that didn’t turn up despite background checks and signed affidavits swearing that they were eligible to gather signatures.

“We hired a bunch of people and a few slipped through the cracks and they are no longer working for us,” he said.

Clearly, the Clean Energy folks need to get some caulking for those cracks, as having felons collecting signatures is, you know, illegal.

Fortunately, we have those lovable APS executives who apparently stay up nights worrying about your safety and thus feel compelled to have people – not a recorded message – call every Maricopa County voter to issue this “important public safety notice.”

What is most interesting about this story – to me, at least – is not the likelihood that there’s a clipboard-wielding felon out there waiting to steal your name, address and signature.

What’s most interesting is the lengths to which APS is going to keep this initiative off the ballot, to ensure that Arizonans don’t get the chance to decide whether they want to mandate greater use of renewable energy.

Already, APS executives have gotten Gov. Doug Ducey and the Legislature to turn the proposed penalty for ignoring the mandate into a joke, should the initiative become law. They also tried unsuccessfully to get the Legislature to put a competing proposal on the ballot to confuse voters.

The clean energy proposal would require most utilities to generate half of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

The current requirement is 15 percent by 2025, lower than every state around us.

The initiative is being funded by NextGen America, a super PAC set up by California billionaire Tom Steyer.

APS contends the initiative would launch utility bills into orbit. Others say renewable energy standards across the nation have had negligible effects on electric bills.

That’s up for debate.

What’s likely not up for debate? The impact on the $488 million in profits that APS enjoyed last year.

Now there’s a scary prospect.