Entering year three of divided government, our expectations for the 2025 legislative session were admittedly not high. With Katie Hobbs occupying the governor’s office and demonstrating that her only skill set is setting new veto records of good public policy, it can be difficult to muster a lot of optimism.
Yet even in politics there is room to be pleasantly surprised and in fact there are several, though likely underappreciated, wins to be celebrated from the first session of the 57th legislature.
Freedom to Move is on the Ballot
After three sessions of introducing a ballot referral to protect every Arizonan’s freedom to move, finally, 2026 voters will have the chance to vote on SCR1004. The timing couldn’t be better as several states are moving forward with the imposition of their own tax per vehicle mile. Most ironically, in Massachusetts lawmakers have introduced legislation which in a masterclass in Double Speak they are calling “The Freedom to Move Act” as well. Every objection The Club has put on the record to VMT targets and taxes is being heralded by the radical liberals in Massachusetts as the benefits to passing the legislation. They proudly claim VMT taxes as a method to achieving their Net Zero goals, forcing people to “choose” other modes of travel like biking and public transit, and though they say there are no “prohibitions” in the bill, they give themselves away when they admit that the state may “facilitate reductions in vehicle miles travelled” in other words driving rations. With the passage of SCR1004, Arizona could be the first state in the country to cut this freedom-crushing policy off at the pass.
Closing the Revolving Door at the Corporation Commission
In an event that was probably rarer than a blue moon or maybe a solar eclipse (whichever is rarer), Governor Hobbs actually signed a bill that The Club supported and advocated for all session long. You knew HB2518 was unique legislation when The Club, the Republican Liberty Caucus and the Sierra Club (yikes) supported the bill, but sometimes the right and left can agree on issues, especially when it comes to reining in regulatory capture by monopoly-controlled utilities. And that’s exactly what HB 2518 accomplished, putting forth a prohibition on any person elected to the Arizona Corporation Commission from getting a job with the very utilities they are supposed to regulate. We won’t nominate ourselves for the Nobel Peace Prize yet, though it was a stunning moment of political harmony, save the disgruntled feelings of a couple dissatisfied Commissioners…
Stopping Katie Hobbs and the Swamp
Sure, it is always great to score points by getting common sense legislation through, but equally important is stopping the rolling trash pile of bad legislation that inevitably accumulates every session. And with a Democrat Governor, many of the bad bills that had to be stopped were swampy ideas adopted as part of the Hobbs agenda.
HB2660 Swampy Subsidies
Top of that pile was the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program that was set to sunset at the end of the year barring legislative renewal. This was especially astounding because once bad ideas take root, they are much harder to repeal, which is why a special interest lobbyist will always be happier to get a small appropriation and short sunset window to just get something on the books. Being an existing program paired with it being a top priority of the Govenor’s office and Senate Democratic leadership and still procuring a Republican sponsor for it, the fact that it went away is a rather significant victory. A program that is already ethically challenged given its susceptibility to fraud, waste, and abuse, its demise was helped along by the fact that Katie Hobbs’ Director of the Department of Housing wired $2M to fraudsters due to lack of systems that would prevent such an embarrassing blunder from taking place. Though no doubt there will be an aggressive push to revive this dead (good riddance) program, for now we will enjoy the taxpayers’ victory!
HB2873 New Unconstitutional Taxes
Next on the list is an unconstitutional tax (or assessment as the proponents prefer to call it), sponsored by Representative Wilmeth as HB2873. HB2873 is the reengineered bad bill of 2021 (because bad ideas never die) which would have allowed a host of private hoteliers form a quasi-private, quasi-governmental association, compel membership of minority hotels and then tax them in order to direct and pad their marketing budgets. Unfortunately, none of the changes to the original concept made HB2623 any more constitutional this go around, so its early defeat in session saved us on legal bills in the future.
SB1129 Funding Mayor Gallegos Political Aspirations
HB2623 which became SB1129 would have allowed candidates in local nonpartisan races, such as for school board and city council, to amass campaign funds to be used later in their climb for higher, partisan office. Letting non-descript candidates accumulate funding from developers and zoning attorneys to take their almost assuredly liberal ideas to the legislature is bad policy. And just because a voter thinks you might be good at filling the city’s potholes, doesn’t mean they agree with you on your positions on a whole host of issues that would never show up on the docket at town hall. This bill just wouldn’t die and kept moving in its resurrected state until the middle of June before the Senate shoved it in a drawer.
HB2939 Liberal AND Swampy
And because we take special pride in our role in thwarting Katie Hobbs’ agenda, it was very gratifying to see Hobbs’ top priority bill that would have provided handouts to corporations to subsidize more welfare never get a hearing.
Don’t Take the Victory Lap Yet
These were all great wins to be celebrated (thanks to conservative grassroots!) in what was a long and fairly contentious 2025 legislative session. And although we shouldn’t spare the hand clapping and back pats, there is no reason to lower our defenses. Despite Hobbs continued dysfunction this session (and the two before that), we should never underestimate her, or the Republicans ability to self-implode. For now, we will slow-walk the victory lap with a prudent eye on the 2026 legislative session.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
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When they first announced their original Clean Energy Commitment in 2020, APS boasted about their plans to decarbonize. According to their own release, they weren’t doing what they described as the “easy thing” other utilities were doing–developing resource plans that still allow you to produce some carbon emissions, so long as you offset them elsewhere. No, they were committing to go “carbon free,” which means shutting down every single source of baseload power beside nuclear and replacing it entirely with solar, wind, and battery storage.
But late last week, APS announced a modification to their climate commitment. Instead of going carbon free, APS is switching to carbon neutral by 2050.
How is the new commitment different than the old one? For ratepayers worried about skyrocketing utility bills, it doesn’t change much. Under a carbon neutral commitment, future energy demand can’t result in any increase in carbon emissions, which means there is no way to expand power generation on the grid without building a massive amount of costly wind, solar and battery storage in order to not create a “carbon imbalance”. In other words, carbon neutral represents a change in speed on the road to Net Zero, not course.
As for existing fossil fuel sources such as coal, APS has decided that rather than shutting down all coal by 2031, the phase out date has been pushed back to 2038. Yet even with this seven-year delay, APS has still “not yet decided”if they will maintain operations beyond 2031. In other words, a noncommittal commitment to slow roll the shuttering of reliable and baseload power.
In fact, APS’s new climate goal brings them in line with fellow Arizona utility Tucson Electric Power, which adopted an identical carbon neutral “Net Zero” commitment several years ago. TEP is so proud of their commitment that if you help them meet their climate plans by using less energy and reducing your burden on the grid, you can even be a Net Zero Hero!
Unsurprisingly, the policy shift by APS angered the special interests and environmental activists that have spent years at the Corporation Commission pushing their green scam agenda. For them, anything that looks like the utilities are letting off the accelerator while driving off the green new deal cliff is enough to draw their ire.
But that is not the only reason they are upset. It was less than a year ago that the Republican controlled Corporation Commission unanimously approved the APS resource plan, which codified as policy all of the climate commitments supported by the left. The approved plan received no pushback, no substantive changes, and no independent cost analysis (a requirement the ACC waived). So even though APS announced a modification in their climate commitment last week, the existing resource plan, which will cost ratepayers $42.7 Billion over the next 15 years, is still the official policy for current and future energy development in Arizona.
Ironically, this flip flop does implicitly admit what we have been saying all along: adopting the Green New Scam will cost billions and result in blackouts. For years they told the Commission that renewables were the cheapest option. And paired with batteries, they can be just as reliable as our fossil fuel sources.
This on its face is obviously not true, but now they are owning up to it. In their announcement it is said that they are abandoning their old commitment to instead focus on affordability and reliability. Meaning they cannot prioritize affordability and reliability while also making such bold clean energy commitments.
If one positive can be gleaned from the announcement by APS, it shows that pressure from Arizona ratepayers, grassroots organizations and the Trump administration is having an impact. The frustration over double digit rate hikes to pay for expensive green new deal climate plans have boiled over, and they hope this announcement will calm the political waters.
But until every Arizona utility abandons these dangerous climate commitments, built on false assumptions and junk science, the pressure on them and the Corporation Commission will continue. That’s why it’s necessary for utilities to drop clean energy commitments entirely and return to solely focusing on affordability and reliability. It’s simply not enough to tweak the green scam—complete elimination is needed.
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Since taking office in January, President Trump has worked hard to restore sanity in America. While the wins have been stacking up in many areas, perhaps his administration’s most notable efforts have been in its pushback against the junk science driving the climate agenda.
Along with executive orders in January and April to unleash American energy, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would be reversing a Biden administration regulation that held Arizona accountable for the eighty percent of emissions in the Maricopa County nonattainment area that emanated from outside of the state—primarily from China and Mexico.
While all that is good news, the Trump administration delivered quite possibly the best news yet for American energy last month when the EPA released its plan on rescinding the Endangerment Finding. And it has the climate cult drowning in their tears.
What is the Endangerment Finding?
Back in 2009, the Obama administration declared carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant that threatens public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act. Of course, this ignored the fact that CO2 is one of the most important ingredients for building and sustaining life on Earth. But the Obama administration was never known for exercising commonsense, so it gave birth to this controversial policy by relying on cherry-picked scientific data to justify a vast expansion of regulatory power at the EPA.
Since its inception, the Endangerment Finding has been used as the basis for many of the green scam regulations impacting Arizona’s economy. During both the Obama administration and the Biden administration, the EPA passed new regulations on vehicles, factories, power plants, and other mobile sources all based on the alleged dangers of CO2. These mandates have cost the U.S. economy over a trillion dollars, and here in Arizona, they have been responsible for higher energy prices and higher utility bills.
But if the climate cult gets its way, it wouldn’t stop there.
They want the Endangerment Finding to be left in place to continue their overreach and inevitably force us into banning gas-powered cars, gas stoves, and going Net Zero with our energy grid (all efforts we saw under President Biden). Thankfully, the Trump administration is working to roll back this illegal and unscientific regulatory overreach of the Clean Air Act.
One of the Largest Regulatory Rollbacks in U.S. History
The Trump administration’s announcement of its newly proposed rule to repeal the 2009 Endangerment Finding isn’t just some small step. If it comes to fruition, the elimination of the Endangerment Finding would be one of the largest regulatory rollbacks in the history of our nation. And we’re not just talking about cost.
Think about it.
The very idea of challenging the political consensus surrounding climate change and its endless regulations, subsidies, and mandates that benefit the green energy industrial complex was considered unfathomable just last year. Right here in Arizona, the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) was even prepared to bow down to the climate cult and sacrifice your freedoms to bring Maricopa County into compliance with ozone standards that were impossible to achieve.
But now, President Trump has shattered that political consensus, exposing how vacuous, absurd, and even dangerous the green scam has been to America.
The Next Step
Repealing the Endangerment Finding is a necessary step to restore energy independence, protect ratepayers, and stop the unelected bureaucrats at the EPA from hijacking our economy in the name of climate alarmism. And this effort needs your voice.
The proposed recission of the Endangerment Finding is now open to public comment, and there is no doubt that the Green-New-Deal Left will try to flood the EPA with statements opposing its repeal. The Trump administration needs your support, and that’s why it’s critical that everyone who wants to see an end to the climate cult regulatory labyrinth submit a comment before the deadline on September 15th.
Arizona has been experiencing the negative impacts of the Endangerment Finding and other climate cult policies for over a decade. We’ve seen skyrocketing utility bills and threats to grid reliability. Now, it’s time to raise our voices and put an end to this regulatory abuse and overreach once and for all.
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Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
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Seven months into Trump’s return to office, the wreckage of the Biden administration continues to surface—especially in America’s transportation infrastructure. Previously, we highlighted the troubling impact of Pete Buttigieg’s tenure as Secretary of Transportation. His legacy of failure is becoming increasingly clear and public as new coverage reveals how his ideological grant programs, neglect of core responsibilities, and blatant mismanagement have damaged our economy, harmed communities, and sabotaged our personal freedoms.
As covered by the New York Post, Buttigieg, who was charged for four years to oversee the world’s most significant infrastructure network, instead made it his mission to “reimagine” the entire system, framing it as irredeemably racist and in need of dismantling as he famously told Al Sharpton in his “roads are racist” interview. Buttigieg funded his radical agenda through a series of state and local grants. Programs like “Reconnecting Communities” funded the removal of functional highways based on the claim they were originally designed to displace minority neighborhoods, even though those highways are used today by people of all races.
These weren’t transportation programs—they were anti-transportation programs. They prioritized “road diets,” bike lanes, and leveling roads in the name of equity while Americans sat in traffic and airports collapsed under system failures.
The AZ Free Enterprise Club was one of the only organizations sounding the alarm about the ideological hijacking of the USDOT which even despite mainstream knowledge of the corrosive teachings of critical race theory in k-12 education brought to light after COVID, seemed far-fetched to many. We documented how seemingly harmless programs like Vision Zero and the Safe Systems Approach—heavily funded through federal transportation grants—were actually vehicles for social engineering.
Now it is clear how thoroughly he indoctrinated the administration. While Buttigieg ignored the need to replace out of date air traffic control systems, he had plenty of time to spend appointing an equity advisory board. Buttigieg couldn’t be bothered with addressing the personnel staffing shortage at the Federal Aviation Administration, but had no problem finding the time to approve 400 DEI grants totaling over $80 Billion dollars.
Our organization flagged the anti-vehicle woke agenda that had seeped into every aspect of USDOT’s operations. It was clear that Buttigieg wasn’t about making travel easier for Americans – but a radical social and environmental paradigm that would have people limiting where and how much they travel.
The New York Post uncovered communications in which Buttigieg explicitly rejected modernizing air traffic control systems. His reasoning? Updating the systems would “just allow them to fly more planes,” and, as he told industry executives, “why would that be in [his] interest?”
In fact, Buttigieg’s radical agenda at USDOT influenced several transportation reforms spearheaded by our organization, including:
Legislation to Protect the freedom to move in Arizona, which would prohibit the taxing, tracking, and rationing of our vehicle miles traveled if passed by voters in 2026.
Bills to stop the integration of woke transportation jargon and other radical social justice ideas into local transportation planning.
Proposals to halt the deluge of road diets that served no other purpose than to make driving your car a miserable experience.
Thankfully, Pete Buttigieg is now far – though still not far enough – away from the important work being done at the US Department of Transportation. Under Secretary Sean Duffy, the agency has refreshingly abandoned nearly every endeavor championed by the previous administration. America’s infrastructure, and the freedom of mobility it protects, is finally back on track.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
This year, the tax cuts from the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 were set to expire. Failing to extend the cuts would have resulted in a 22% tax hike for the average taxpayer. For Arizonans, it would have meant an average tax increase of $2,824. And there would have been an even larger tax increase for Arizona small businesses. Thankfully, earlier this summer Congress finally passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), not only extending the personal income tax cuts from 2017 but making them permanent.
The OBBB also included several new tax provisions as well, such as no tax on tips and overtime, an increase in the standard deduction, full expensing and special depreciation for business, just to name a few. This assortment of changes to federal tax law now leaves states like Arizona with a big decision to make: provide partial conformity tax relief, full tax relief, or do nothing and provide no conformity tax relief at all.
This should be an easy choice, as choosing the non-conformity option would leave Arizona taxpayers with one big ugly tax bill to pay.
How big of a tax bill? According to nonpartisan budget analysts for the legislature, $425 million. That’s why the legislature and Governor Hobbs need to commit to full conformity tax relief as the starting point for the budget next session.
What does full conformity tax relief look like? At least $425 million in tax relief for Arizona taxpayers. Anything less is a tax increase on Arizona families and taxpayers.
Conforming to the tax relief provided by the OBBB doesn’t mean lawmakers need to align exactly to every provision of the OBBB. For example, the OBBB included a special new tax deduction designed to help seniors lower their social security tax bill, but Arizonans already are exempt from paying state taxes on social security.
As an alternative, Arizona lawmakers could instead adopt a reform introduced by Senator Mesnard last session that would allow for seniors to subtract their other retirement income (401ks and IRAs) from their taxable income up to the current standard deduction. It would even protect younger workers looking to save by extending this deduction to Roth accounts as well. Arizona should take full advantage of the opportunity provided by the OBBB and look to get out of the business of taxing our retirement savings.
Other provisions in the OBBB are critical for Arizona to adopt as well. The increased standard deduction, ending taxes on tips and rolling back taxes on overtime are just a few of the provisions that must be included in the conformity package. It makes little sense to provide this tax relief to hardworking taxpayers on the federal tax form, only to see it yanked away and taxed by the state.
The truth is that Arizonans have been overtaxed for decades, and the numbers prove it. Though 2021 brought a landmark, across the board tax cut for Arizonans with the adoption of the lowest flat tax rate in the country, no major tax cuts have been adopted since, and revenues are still nearly double what they were less than 10 years ago (as is spending).
President Trump and Congress delivered, preventing the potentially largest tax hike in generations by permanently cementing the 2017 tax cuts into law, and going even further. Now, Arizona lawmakers must deliver too, ensuring Arizonans get to enjoy the full benefits of the OBBB by fully conforming in an amount of at least $425 million, lest Arizona taxpayers foot the bill to fill the state coffers.
Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network
Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!
Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.
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