Environmental legislation to watch for this year in Arizona

Beneath uncommonly gray, drizzly skies, a trio of high school students from Brophy College Preparatory school’s Native American Club asked the crowd sheltered under white pop-up tents at the Arizona Capitol to stand, close their eyes and “really think about our land around us in Arizona, our mountains, our water, our sacred lands, the people before us that came here.”

As they spoke, a line of participants formed in front of a small table to the east of the concrete stage at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza. The rest of the crowd pivoted left on command to recognize each cardinal direction in turn.

Reverentially, the people in line uncapped reusable water bottles and poured the contents into three glass serving bowls on the table, blending the Phoenix tap water sourced from the Colorado, Salt and Verde rivers with liquid from across the state.

Brimming in stark contrast to Arizona’s rivers and aquifers, the collected water was meant to remind those gathered last Thursday for Environment Day at the Capitol of priorities before attendees scattered to reinforce goals in meetings with Arizona legislators early in the 2024 session.

Sandy Bahr, who directs the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club and organized the event with other nonprofit leaders, hopes this will be the year state leaders take meaningful, legal steps to protect water resources, act on climate and clean energy and address environmental injustice and racism.

A performance review of 2023 bills affecting the environment

Environmentalists in Arizona have reason to be wary about how elected representatives in the state Senate and House will react to bills seeking protections for water resources, guidelines to limit climate warming and funding to help vulnerable communities adapt to increasing heat extremes.

With most pro-environment bills introduced by Democratic lawmakers and Republicans maintaining a majority in the Arizona Legislature, progress can feel slower than the water wasted through a leaky faucet drip or the steady rise of average temperatures.

A review by The Republic found that, out of 21 bills supported by environmental groups in the 2023 legislative session, none advanced far enough to receive a committee hearing. (Seven of the 21 were similar versions to seven other bills introduced separately into the House and Senate, but that met the same fate through both routes.)

In contrast, out of eight bills opposed by environmental groups in the legislative session as detrimental to the sustainability of water resources, a livable climate or human health and equity in the state, only one failed to receive a committee hearing. Four others were passed by a majority in the House and Senate, but then vetoed by the governor, and three others were held in the House, the Senate or the Rules Committee.

This means none of the legislation identified as either helpful or harmful to the environment at last year’s Environment Day passed into law. But the bills opposed by environmental groups came a lot closer.

Arizona’s environmental bills to watch in 2024

Following these losses, environmental leaders in Arizona have returned with another list of bills to support and oppose on behalf of water, climate and environmental justice.

Updates on the wording or progress of these measures can be found by entering the bill number at https:// apps.azleg.gov/BillStatus/BillOverview.

Water bills:

HB2356: Would allow the Arizona Department of Water Resources to consider future effects in declaring an irrigation non-expansion area, which limits new irrigated acres.

HB2357 / SB1329: Would recognize watershed-health uses as a “beneficial use,” direct the Department of Water Resources to assess surface waters and defines ecological water needs as “water sufficient to sustain freshwater ecosystems that includes the wildlife habitat and human livelihoods and well-being that depend on these ecosystems.”

HB2359 / SB1326 (similar): Would require adequate water supply for development, including outside of active management areas.

Climate and energy bills:

SB1332: Would repeal a prohibition on using public funds for light rail extensions in parts of Phoenix.

HB2397 / SB1331: Would repeal provisions that prohibit agency actions on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions without express legislative authority and would allow for more action and more flexibility for agencies such as the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. In 2010, the state passed a law preventing state agencies from adopting or enforcing programs to “regulate the emission of greenhouse gas for the purposes of addressing changes in atmospheric temperature without express legislative authorization.”

SB1550: Would create an Arizona Climate Resiliency Planning Group to develop an inventory of statewide greenhouse-gas emissions, revise earlier recommendations and develop a resiliency plan for Arizona’s human populations and natural and economic systems against the risks of climate change.

ditional $400,000 from the general fund to plant trees for shade at low-income schools.

● HB2295: Would require that major polluters seeking air quality, waste, and water quality permits in “overburdened communities,” defined as those with significant non-white, non–English-speaking or low-income populations, develop a plan to limit disproportionate impacts, and allows ADEQ to deny or condition permits based on that.

● HCR2015 / SCR1031: Would make possible a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to a healthy environment, with the following wording: “all people of this state, regardless of race, wealth, ethnicity or other identify, shall have an inherent, inalienable right to a clean and healthy environment, including clean air and water and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic, and aesthetic values of the environment.” Similar wording in Montana’s Constitution resulted in a climate case ruling in 2023 obligating that state to consider effects on residents before more fossil fuel projects.

Joan Meiners is the climate news and storytelling reporter at The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Before becoming a journalist, she completed a doctorate in ecology. Follow Joan on Twitter at @beecycles or email her at joan.meiners@arizonarepublic.com. Read more at environment.azcentral.com.