FEDERAL ACTION ALERT – July 23, 2021

 FEDERAL ACTION ALERT – July 23, 2021

Produced by The Coconino County Democratic Party

& Democrats of the Red Rocks

This week: Lobby Sinema on not caving in on bipartisan infrastructure bill;

ADP Environmental Council – Zoom meeting July 18, 2021

 ADP Environmental Council – Zoom meeting July 18, 2021

Hosted by Rebecca Hinton with guests Sandy Bahr and Sandra Kennedy

Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club AZ chapter spoke about the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing.

The principles were established at a cross-cultural working group meeting in December, 1996 in Jemez,

NM and adopted by the Sierra Club in 2014. The principles are:

1. Be Inclusive.

2. Emphasis on Bottom-Up Organizing

3. Let People Speak for Themselves

4. Work Together in Solidarity and Mutuality

5. Build Just Relationships Among Ourselves

6. Commitment to Self-Transformation

To learn more, go to sierraclub.org/arizona/rincon/jemez-principles-for-democratic-organizing.

AZ Legislative Session Update as it impacts the environment:

- A harmful budget, including establishing unfettered ground water pumping.

- Weak water quality programs written by developers and mining interests (more harmful than

good) and excluding many of the state’s waters.

- Weak requirements for environment standards.

- Weak regulation for a Plastics to Fuel program, including more fossil fuel use.

- Protects concentrated animal feeding operations.

- An attack on clean energy was thwarted; the AZ Corporation Commission is considering it.

- Heritage Fund received $5M (not $10M); considered a plus/minus outcome.

- Voter purge of Permanent Election Voting List.

- Limits the early curing of ballot problems.

- Some other voter suppression measures failed.

Ballot Measures for 2022

- Narrows the content of measures and requires every internal subject to be in the title.

- An entire measure would be eliminated if one item is unconstitutional.

- Ballots will have a warning.

- Several ballot measures failed, including one limiting the right to protest (aimed at people of

color).

Sierra Club Report Card

The overall grade for this legislative session was an F. Individual legislators were also graded with

Democrats receiving an A or B and Republicans uniformly receiving an F. They included only those bills

that the Sierra Club spoke to the Legislature about. They sponsored some bills including a clean energy

rule [and I didn’t note the result on that bill].

Sandra Kennedy of the AZ Corporation Commission spoke about ACC activity:

- Citizens can communicate their concerns to the ACC.

- APS is to introduce a residential battery storage option with incentives.

- The Kennedy-O’Connor amendment provides for $2M/year rebates for rooftop solar the public,

schools and non-profits.

- A vehicle charging initiative in Tucson was approved.

- Penalties for defrauding the public were approved with funds to provide restitution.

- A participant question was about the long-slope transition to clean energy which lets utilities

keep coal and nuclear sources.

- Another was about community choice energy, to which she replied that a pilot program will

come first.

- Another was on the possibility that utilities make money based on performance incentives.

- Another was about EV recharging stations billing by time vs by kilowatt-hour.

- She asked that attendees sign her online re-election petition and after August 1 to contribute $5

to her Clean Elections Fund.

The August Zoom meeting will be on Sunday, Aug 15 with the Northeast AZ Democrats as guests.

Lauren Kuby announced that she will be running for the ACC in 2022.

Submitted by Karolyn Switzer

ADP Environmental Council – Zoom meeting July 18, 2021

 ADP Environmental Council – Zoom meeting July 18, 2021

Hosted by Rebecca Hinton with guests Sandy Bahr and Sandra Kennedy

Sandy Bahr of the Sierra Club AZ chapter spoke about the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing.

The principles were established at a cross-cultural working group meeting in December, 1996 in Jemez,

NM and adopted by the Sierra Club in 2014. The principles are:

AZ Independent Redistricting Commission News Release July 9, 2021

 AZ Independent Redistricting Commissions