by admin | Apr 28, 2026 | Arizona, Dont CA my AZ, News and Updates
Last year, Katie Hobbs, by executive order, established a “task force” headed by her Office of “Sustainability” to develop a report on energy affordability and reliability. This month, her task force submitted their plan which would do the opposite of that: make energy more expensive and less reliable. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the “task force” called by Hobbs is made up of solar special interests, environmental activists, her own agencies, and utilities that have all committed to going Net Zero anyway.
Instead of reading 81 pages that brings nothing new to the table, the only questions that need to be asked (and answered) about the report are below.
Does it call for new natural gas generation? Not really.
Does it call on utilities to keep our coal plants open? No, they want to shut them down and “repower” them to “clean” energy.
Does it pave the way for new nuclear? Not until the mid-2040s, at the earliest.
What, then, does it advocate doing? Subsize special interests by blanketing state trust land and government buildings with even more solar, wind, and battery storage. The very thing causing utility rates to increase and leading to blackouts.
Ironically, they recognize that the vast majority of new generation being built in the state right now – 82% of it according to the report – is already coming from solar, wind, and battery storage, while conveniently ignoring that at the same time both of the largest investor owned, monopoly utilities – APS and TEP – are currently seeking double digit rate hikes. And these rate hikes aren’t the first. Since Hobbs has taken office, the cost of electricity for residential ratepayers has gone from 12.63 cents per KWh to 16.03 cents. For someone using 1,000KWhs a month, that’s a $34 per month increase, or 27%. Under her plan, that will go far higher.
Blame Trump
Instead of acknowledging this, the report blames President Trump, who has been working to unleash energy across the country, for slashing the trillions in subsidies for solar, wind, and battery storage from the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” from the Biden Administration. They also blame Secretary Burgum for protecting federal lands from being carpeted with unreliable solar and wind farms. But electricity rates were increasing before Trump took office and Burgum was named Secretary of the Interior, precisely because of what they halted. We have more paper capacity than ever before, but costs are skyrocketing and reliability is declining because most of the new generation is coming from intermittent solar and wind.
It should surprise no one, that even with taxpayer subsidies, the more solar, wind, and battery storage a utility puts on their grid, the higher costs are for ratepayers.
Replace Coal with Solar and Battery Storage
Instead of keeping our remaining coal plants online, as President Trump has called for, the report argues we should instead “repower” them with solar plus battery storage. Not only is it foolish on its face to replace a reliable source of energy with an intermittent source, it costs a lot more too. TEP even admitted so. In deciding to convert one of their existing coal plants to natural gas at a cost of $170 million, they argued that converting it to solar and battery storage would cost 27 times that, or $4.5 Billion.
Competition? Only if Monopoly Utilities Benefit
The only “solution” identified in the report that could actually help bring more capacity on the grid and shield ratepayers from increased costs from the massive energy demands of new large load customers, like data centers, is a “BYOC” or Bring Your Own Capacity approach where these customers self-generate their own power. But even here, the report doesn’t call for opening up the state for data centers to easily build their own power plants. No, for Hobbs it must be done in a way that benefits monopoly utilities. And, it must come with “sustainability” mandates on those data centers, which would cause prices to soar even higher. We ran a bill to streamline the process for data centers to bring their own power, likely to be natural gas, but the very utilities Hobbs is deferential to killed that bill at every step of the process.
The Hobbs Energy Promise? Higher Costs, Subsidized by Taxpayers
This is really just a political report, and if its recommendations were implemented, it would actually only increase the cost of electricity for Arizonans. We have seen the result of spamming the grid with renewables. 20 years after Kris Mayes spearheaded the effort to mandate 15% renewable energy, Arizonans have paid more than $3 billion for it. The Corporation Commission itself found that a renewable mandate would cost ratepayers $6 Billion. Our analysis of APS’ resource plan to go 100% renewable by 2050 found that it would cost ratepayers at least $42.7 billion through 2038, raising residential ratepayers’ bills by $100 a month.
So, what is Hobbs’ actual plan to lower the cost of electricity for Arizonans? Her budget proposal this year included a tax hike to pay for a fund that would subsidize the utility bills of a few ratepayers across the state. In other words, she has done nothing in her 4 years as Governor to actually lower the costs of electricity and seemingly has no problem with our utilities getting their double-digit rate hikes. Instead, she wants to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize those rate hikes. Under her plan, utilities get their rate hikes, and ratepayers pay doubly for it – in higher rates and taxes.
The Real Energy Promise that Delivers Affordability and Reliability to Customers
The path for lower utility bills is not complicated. Stop shutting down coal. Meet new demand with more natural gas. Allow data centers to build their own power, on their own dime. Pave the way for more nuclear power within the next decade. Stop wasting money on unreliable solar, wind, and battery storage. If Hobbs was interested in delivering affordability and reliability to Arizona ratepayers, this is what a real Energy Promise would actually look like.
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by admin | Apr 14, 2026 | Arizona, News and Updates
Proximity to the people does not prevent abuse of power. In fact, it often does the opposite. Municipal governments enact restrictive policies just as easily as state or federal governments and often with less scrutiny.
There is a myth in America that the closer government is to the people, the more checks exist and the better the governance. By that logic, local governments, city and town councils, being closest to the people, must be the least corrupt and most responsive. Because of this, municipalities and their proponents constantly argue that they should be free to govern their communities without interference, or as it’s often framed, maintain “local control.”
The local control argument might seem intuitive, however, does shifting power from one level of government to another actually protect individual freedom? The burden on the people is the same, if not more, whether bad policy comes in the form of higher taxes, increased fees, restrictive regulations, or costly utility rate hikes from federal, state, or local government.
In Gilbert, residents have been outraged by astronomical water bills and rate increases, decisions made not in Washington, D.C. or in Phoenix, but by their own local government. Proximity did not protect them; it made the impact more immediate. Gilbert is not the only town with unceasing increased costs, municipalities across Arizona are raising taxes, fees, and rates (good thing there is a resolution moving through the legislature to alleviate this).
Some argue that cities are to the state what states are to the federal government. That comparison fails. States created the federal government and, under our federal system, are recognized as sovereign entities. Cities, counties, and districts, by contrast, are creations of the state; the Arizona Constitution specifically delineates this. As a result, any authority municipalities exercise is not inherent but delegated by the state. Because of this, it is the state’s responsibility to place checks on local governments. And it is therefore completely within the legislature’s authority to reign in out-of-control city governments. Local control, as is often presented, is a fallacy.
The people give power to the states and the states delegate power to the municipalities. In this debate, the most important stakeholder is ignored: the individual. Any authority that shifts from the state to the cities does not reduce government but simply relocates it.
The meaning of “local control” must be reframed. The real question is not which level of government holds power, but how much power government should have over individuals in the first place. The answer should be as little as possible. True local control means empowering individuals, families, and businesses to make decisions without excessive regulation or extreme taxation.
The goal of any level of government should be to protect the individual’s ability to live and operate freely. American values and traditions prioritize self-governance at the personal level, not the shifting of power among government entities. So no, your city council taxing you is no better than the state legislature or Congress levying onerous taxes on you.
When did we, the people, become so complacent that we allow governments to tax and control us so extensively? A few centuries ago, Americans were throwing tea into the harbor to protest unjust taxation. Now, it is rampant. Do we not care that our freedom today is miniscule compared to what the Founders envisioned for us?
Local control is just that: control. The people are at the top of the power distribution pyramid, NOT your town councilmember. We must return America back to the land of the free and not the land of 100% water rate hikes.
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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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by admin | Apr 9, 2026 | Arizona, News and Updates
For more than a decade, the teachers’ unions and their allies at Save Our Schools (SOS) have made their mission clear: stop school choice in Arizona. They fought the expansion of our state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program at every turn. And after the program was made universal in 2022, they have endlessly pushed to repeal the expansion—including a failed ballot initiative where their signature count was off by more than 50,000. (Yes. These are the people pushing public education.)
With another election around the corner, SOS and the teachers’ unions have once again launched a ballot initiative designed to cripple ESAs. But a funny thing has happened in their efforts to get on the ballot. SOS and the teachers’ unions are suddenly claiming that the initiative isn’t about “eliminating the program.” And they’re pushing a talking point that their only concern is that the program isn’t “functioning properly.”
It’s a remarkable rewrite of history—and Arizona voters shouldn’t buy it.
Just consider the record. Leaders of Save Our Schools have spent years attacking ESAs as harmful “vouchers” that drain money from public schools. Not only have they tried to repeal the program, but they’ve pushed to cap it while continuing to demand that it be overturned, even after their previous ballot initiative failed.
On top of that, they’ve been quick to get activist reporters in the legacy media with ties to the Red for Ed teachers’ union to consistently push false claims about Arizona’s school choice program.
And if that’s not enough, SOS and its Executive Director Beth Lewis repeatedly blast the ESA program on social media. (See here, here, here, and here for just a few examples.) Beth even goes so far as to proudly feature the hashtag “#VouchersHurt” on her Twitter/X profile.
That’s not exactly the language of someone who simply wants to make sure the program “functions properly.” But for SOS and the teachers’ unions, opposition to ESAs has never been subtle or nuanced. It’s been loud and relentless.
So why the sudden attempt to rebrand themselves as concerned stewards of the ESA program?
The answer is obvious. They know that school choice has become wildly popular in Arizona. With more than 100,000 students now enrolled (and counting), families across our state rely on the ESA program to give their children better educational opportunities. SOS and the teachers’ unions know that if voters understood that this ballot initiative isn’t actually about “eliminating fraud” but rather an attempt to force kids back into failing district schools, support for their measure will crater.
So, now we get the SOS school choice makeover. For the next eight months, they will pretend to be the true caretakers of ESAs and that this initiative actually “helps” the parents and kids that are utilizing the program. But voters shouldn’t be fooled. This ballot initiative is nothing more than a Red for Ed power grab funded by a Washington, D.C. teachers’ union and designed to dismantle school choice in our state.
Now it’s up to us to make sure Arizona voters know the truth about this initiative. In the months ahead, as SOS and the teachers’ unions push their deceptive message, we need to meet them at every turn just like we did in 2022. School choice is the civil rights issue of our generation. We must do everything we can to protect it for decades to come.
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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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by admin | Apr 7, 2026 | Arizona, News and Updates
Arizona has been working to stop noncitizens from voting in our elections for over 20 years. After years of litigation, we are near the final step in proving our model works. That’s why last month we filed a brief asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit’s radical decision blocking our proof of citizenship laws from going into effect, and it should be an easy decision for them.
The Supreme Court told us in 2013 that we could require proof of citizenship on our own state voter registration form. They said it again in 2024, just weeks before the election. And yet, the 9th Circuit, in defiance of the Supreme Court, determined that essentially every aspect of the laws is unconstitutional, and that they were passed with “discriminatory intent.”
While we continue to wait on Congress to pass the SAVE Act, Arizona’s model is one every state can and must adopt immediately. When the Supreme Court takes the case, every obstacle will be removed for them.
The Problem
Our organization crafted this reform because over the course of a decade and a half our original proof of citizenship requirements had been whittled away. We were the first state in the country to require proof of citizenship with Prop 200 in 2004. The US Supreme Court in 2013 decided we could not require proof of citizenship when someone registers using the Federal Voter Registration Form. And in 2018, one elected official entered into a consent decree with activist liberal groups agreeing to do the same to the state form. After that, the number of people voting in our elections without having provided proof of citizenship skyrocketed from 1,700 to 11,600, in a year, 2020, in which the difference between Biden and Trump was only 10,457 votes.
The Arizona SAVE Act
HB2492 was and is the answer to that problem.
It reapplies the proof of citizenship requirement to state voter registration forms – the forms that the vast majority of voters use.
It requires an investigation of databases before registering someone with the Federal Form to determine whether they are citizens or not.
It prohibits Federal Only Voters – those who registered without proof of citizenship – from voting by mail, so they would have to appear in person and show valid voter ID before casting a ballot. And it limits them to voting only for the US House and US Senate and not for presidential electors.
Lawfare to Block the Arizona Model
Dozens of liberal groups sued within hours, and those requirements have been stuck in litigation since.
The Federal District Court decided that basically every provision was unconstitutional, but that they were not passed with discriminatory intent.
The 9th Circuit, after a chaotic process (one panel reversed parts of the district court’s ruling, only to be reversed by another panel days later) largely agreed with the District Court. But they went one step further: they resurrected the discriminatory intent claim that even the District Court had rejected.
Their evidence? A single article we published titled “How More Illegals Started Voting in AZ Elections and How House Bill 2492 Is Going to Fix It.” According to the 9th Circuit, the word “illegals” is coded racist language — and on that basis alone, they struck down the entire law as racially motivated. This is exactly the kind of judicial overreach the Supreme Court must correct.
The Arizona Model Impacts the Whole Country
We are not alone. Last month, the Attorneys General of 25 other states also filed an amicus brief supporting Arizona’s laws. That means a majority of states — 26 in total — stand united in arguing that states have the constitutional authority to protect their elections from noncitizens registering and voting.
This issue has been in and out of the courts now for two decades. It’s a matter of national importance, and the Supreme Court has the opportunity to provide the definitive answer, ensuring states can enact common sense election integrity laws.
Every State Should Pass Their Own SAVE Act
But it isn’t only the Supreme Court that can act. Much of the country is waiting on Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. This is long overdue, but states should not fold their hands and wait.
Every one of the 25 states who signed onto a brief in support of our laws has the ability to pass their own version of HB 2492, their own SAVE Act, right now. Arizona led the way. Wyoming became the second state to follow. Several others have bills moving through their legislatures.
Arizona’s model is proven. It is grounded in Supreme Court precedent. And once the Court takes this case and confirms that each provision is constitutional, the green light to act will shine even bigger and brighter. The question is not whether states have this power — the Supreme Court has already said they do, and they will again once they take this case. The question is whether every state will take action to protect their elections.
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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