Judge OKs clean-energy initiative

Measure will go before voters in November

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Monday allowed a clean-energy initiative to go on the November ballot despite a challenge from opponents who argued the initiative did not gather enough legal signatures.

An opposition group backed by the parent company of Arizona Public Service Co. vowed to appeal the ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court.

The Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona measure, now called Proposition 127, would require electric companies such as APS and Tucson Electric Power Co. to get half their power from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2030.

“Proposition 127 will give voters a chance to finally utilize Arizona’s greatest asset — its sunshine,” said DJ Quinlan, spokesman for the campaign.

The existing state standard, set by the Arizona Corporation Commission, requires those companies to get 15 percent of their power from renewables by 2025, and the utilities are on track to meet that. The goal increases annually and is 8 percent this year.

The parent company of APS, Pinnacle West Capital Corp., has contributed $11 million to a political action committee combating the initiative.

“Proposition 127 would fundamentally alter the Arizona Constitution and implement costly new regulations to raise electric rates for Arizona families and businesses,” said a response from the opposition group Monday.

“Before we proceed any further down this path, it is only prudent to be certain the initiative has met the bare standards necessary to be on the ballot.”

APS officials say that the easiest way to comply with the standard, should voters approve it, will be to build many new solar power plants, and the cost of those plants will double the average household utility bill.

The company also says that a lot of solar power on the grid will create a glut of power in mild-weather months when the solar plants generate power but customers don’t use air conditioning.

That glut would force the company to curtail output at its coal and nuclear plant, forcing it to close ahead of schedule, APS said.

Proponents of Prop. 127 doubt those APS claims.

“APS has been lying about the validity of our signatures for months,” Quinlan said. “If we can’t trust them on this, why should voters trust any of their other profit-motivated attacks against clean energy?”

An opposition group funded by APS called Arizonans for Affordable Electricity has repeatedly challenged the signature-gathering efforts of the ballot measure, and found some of the people registered to collect signatures had felony crime convictions.

Those signature gatherers were inconsequential to the hundreds of thousands of signatures collected, but the opposition group advertised the felony records and even conducted robocalls to warn voters that the people collecting signatures might pose a threat.

The clean-energy committee on July 5 submitted more than 480,000 signatures. It needed only about 226,000 to qualify for the ballot.

A sample review of the signatures by the county recorders found more than 72 percent of the signatures to be valid, or about 328,908 signatures, which is more than enough to qualify for the ballot.

The plaintiffs in the case, led by state Rep. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, subpoenaed 1,180 of the signature collectors to trial the week of Aug. 20, and more than 900 showed up.

However, Judge Daniel Kiley threw out the signatures gathered by 235 of the signature gatherers who did not show up to court, and threw out more from some who showed up but left early, or did not return to court as directed later in the week.

Those actions did not eliminate enough signatures to prevent the measure from making the ballot.

“Proposition 127 will give voters a chance to finally utilize Arizona’s greatest asset — its sunshine.”

DJ Quinlan

Spokesman, Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona campaign