Katie Hobbs Is Turning Arizona’s Scenic Landscape into a Playground for Foreign Solar Developers 

by admin | Jun 6, 2026 | Arizona, News and Updates

For generations, Arizona’s wide-open land has supported ranchers, farmers and the communities that helped build our great state. 

Then, the climate activists came along. 

Armed with nothing more than junk science from climate “experts” like Al Gore and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they got busy imposing costly green energy mandates on states across the country—and Arizona’s political and corporate elites eagerly fell in line. Our state’s utilities committed themselves to achieving “Net Zero” emissions by 2050, a goal that will cost ratepayers billions of dollars while doing little to meaningfully impact the environment. 

But higher utility bills are only part of the cost. 

Not wanting to disappoint some of her largest campaign contributors, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has been quick to bend the knee to the Green New Scam time and time again. Now, these decisions are not only hitting families in the wallet, but they are transforming our state’s beautiful countryside into an industrial playground for massive, foreign-backed solar and wind developments. 

Under Hobbs, the Arizona State Land Department has increasingly operated like a business partner for the solar industry instead of a steward of Arizona’s public lands. The agency now maintains detailed maps identifying the “best” locations for solar development across the state, effectively helping direct industrial solar companies toward Arizona’s most desirable land. 

But surely, they must be doing the same for other industries? 

Nope. 

The state does not provide similar priority maps for housing, mining, grazing, or other industries. For the Hobbs administration, it appears sprawling solar projects are a much bigger priority over new housing, ranching, and rural economic activity. 

And now Arizona ranchers are beginning to pay the price. 

Just look at Navajo County for example. Thanks to Katie Hobbs’ desire to flood Arizona’s deserts with solar panels, rancher Casey Murph and his family are now fighting to preserve a multi-generational cattle operation that predates Arizona statehood itself! For over a century, their ranch has been part of Arizona’s agricultural backbone—raising cattle, maintaining grazing land, and sustaining a way of life rooted in stewardship of the land rather than industrialization of it. 

Today, that legacy is under direct threat. 

Murph and his family are facing the possibility that their state grazing lease could be altered or eliminated to make way for a large-scale solar development, effectively displacing ranching operations in favor of industrial energy production. 

What was once productive rangeland supporting Arizona’s beef supply is now being evaluated as potential real estate for sprawling solar installations, driven by state-level policies that increasingly prioritize renewable energy expansion over traditional land use. 

For Murph and families like his, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is the very real prospect of losing their livelihood, their land access, and a generational legacy of ranching in Arizona. 

But they’re not the only ones affected. 

While ranching is a part of Arizona’s heritage, it is also a critical part of our food supply chain. As more productive grazing land is converted into utility-scale solar and wind projects, Arizona families will ultimately feel the impact in the grocery aisle through higher beef prices and reduced domestic supply.  

In other words, the Hobbs administration is willing to kill our ranching industry and make beef cost even more, all so we can put up more ugly solar panels and wind projects.  

It’s insane. And it all needs to be shut down.  

Instead of prioritizing sprawling land-intensive energy projects, the state should be focused on expanding proven, reliable generation like natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. These resources save ratepayers money and require a fraction of the land footprint, without the threat of blackout.  

If Katie Hobbs truly cared about affordability, reliability, and policies that serve Arizona families, she’d make this happen. But for the last few years, Hobbs has shown she only cares about the political agendas that serve her interests. We can’t expect that to change now. 

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The Damage From Katie Hobbs’ Illegal Housing Moratorium Is Only Beginning

by admin | May 26, 2026 | Arizona, News and Updates

For decades, Arizona has been a national model for how to responsibly manage and develop water resources. As a result, our state has enjoyed years of economic growth while welcoming millions of new residents to live and work here. 

Then, Governor Katie Hobbs came along. 

In 2023, the Hobbs administration imposed sweeping new water rules that effectively halted new home construction across much of the Valley, under the guise that it was needed to “save water.” 

Now, a court has struck down the policy, ruling that state regulators ignored the law when creating the rules behind it. But the fallout from this disastrous decision is only beginning. And Arizona taxpayers could soon be forced to pay more than $1 billion for the damage. 

Arizona Is Not Running Out of Water 

Despite the alarmist rhetoric coming from Hobbs and the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR), our state is not running out of water.  

In fact, our state uses less water today than it did in 1990—even though our population has doubled to more than 7 million residents. That’s not a typo. Over the past three decades, Arizona has welcomed millions of new residents while reducing total water consumption. 

How is that possible? Through better water management, technological advancements in conservation and reuse, and the gradual conversion of agricultural land to residential development. The result is a system that has allowed Arizona to grow responsibly while protecting its long-term water supply.  

But instead of building on this successful model, Hobbs declared a sweeping housing moratorium—halting new single-family housing construction across much of the Phoenix metropolitan area.  

A Manufactured Crisis With Real Consequences 

In addition to destroying billions in economic activity and further exacerbating the housing shortage crisis, Hobbs’ moratorium created a number of additional problems.  

Her rule did not halt development across the board. Instead, it targeted the construction of much-needed single-family homes while allowing all other forms of development—including apartments, condos, and data centers—to continue moving forward. 

This makes zero sense from a water policy standpoint. Prior to the Hobbs’ moratorium, single-family housing in Arizona was already required to demonstrate a 100-year assured water supply before construction can begin. Commercial and industrial has no such requirement, despite consuming substantially more water per acre than residential subdivisions.   

Even more absurdly, Hobbs’ moratorium blocked one of the very activities that actually reduces water consumption in Arizona: converting agricultural land into residential communities. 

In most cases, farmland uses significantly more water than single-family housing developments. When agricultural land is converted into neighborhoods, overall water usage can decline dramatically. Yet Hobbs’ moratorium stopped precisely the kind of development that lowers water use while creating a perverse incentive for landowners to pursue water-intensive commercial and industrial projects that bypass both the 100-year certification requirement and the moratorium.  

In effect, Hobbs figured out a way to implement a policy that will likely increase water usage in Arizona, not decrease it.  

Hobbs Loses in Court — Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for More Than $1 Billion 

Last month, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge struck down the Hobbs administration’s housing moratorium, ruling that state officials failed to follow Arizona law when creating the new water rules. 

It’s another in a long line of embarrassments for Katie Hobbs. The court made clear that her administration attempted to impose sweeping new regulations without going through the legal process required under state law. 

But the consequences of her failed policy may not end there. 

Because Hobbs’ moratorium stopped or delayed major housing projects across the Valley, Arizona taxpayers could now be forced to compensate property owners harmed by the policy. Developers have already filed claims seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. And if additional lawsuits are filed, total taxpayer costs could exceed $1 billion. 

That’s right. At a time when Arizona families are already struggling with higher housing costs, inflation, and budget pressures, taxpayers may be forced to clean up another mess created by Katie Hobbs.  

This should serve as a warning to every person in our state.  

For decades, Arizona successfully balanced economic growth with responsible water management. But instead of trusting that proven system, the Hobbs administration chose fearmongering, unlawful regulations, and an anti-growth agenda that harmed homebuilders, squeezed working families, and may now leave taxpayers with a billion-dollar bill. 

Arizona voters cannot afford to forget it this November. 

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!

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Arizona’s Real Budget Problem? Too Much Spending, Not Too Little Taxing 

by admin | May 21, 2026 | Arizona, News and Updates

A recent op-ed in the Arizona Republic by the Arizona Center for Economic Progress argued that the legislature’s budget “doesn’t add up” and that Arizona needs a “reality check.” We agree a reality check is in order, but definitely not the kind being offered. 

The argument, which has become the standard refrain from the Left on tax policy, is that Arizonans have enjoyed too many tax cuts over the years (the fault of Republican lawmakers), and that this has left the state anemic in revenues and starved of the ability to provide essential government services. 

But the average middle-class, tax-paying resident would probably scratch their head at this. They still have roads to drive on. The police still come when they call (except maybe if they live in Tucson). There are still bureaucrats employed to receive their tax filings and permit fees.  

No matter how much the Left likes the story that government is running on fumes, people don’t believe it – and their intuition is right, because none of the actual data supports it. The reality is the very opposite. Arizona’s state budget has been ballooning for years. Our welfare programs have never been more riddled with fraud. And governments of every size in the state just keep sizing up. But most concerning about the myth that state government is poor and taxpayers are too rich is that it belies a philosophy that every Arizonan should find alarming. 

Revenue Is Growing, Not Shrinking 

The op-ed claims Arizona is “shrinking the very revenue needed to sustain” essential systems and has “lost nearly $11 billion to tax cuts.”  

This is simply false.  

Since the 2.5 percent flat tax took effect in 2022, state general fund revenues and state shared revenues have both grown. In fact the State’s General Fund has doubled in a decade – from roughly $9.1 billion in FY2016 to over $18 billion in FY2026. Total state spending now exceeds $60 billion. The state is sitting on a $1.63 billion rainy day fund. Revenue did not shrink, it grew immensely. Lower tax rates made Arizona a more attractive place for job creators and productive people in general – in other words, it grew the economy. 

And if anyone is genuinely concerned about pressure on state revenues, instead of looking at the taxpayers who generate that revenue (the goose that lays the golden egg), they may want to look to the other layers of government draining it. When the flat tax was adopted, the legislature increased the share of state income tax collections passed onto local governments from 15 to 18 percent to “hold cities harmless.” This turned out to be the biggest lie since “you can keep your doctor.”  

The result has been a massive windfall in revenue for municipalities. According to the Common Sense Institute, cities have pocketed $7 billion in excess revenue from the state since 2021, a figure projected to reach $11 billion by 2028. The state has overpaid municipalities by roughly $3 billion through FY2029. And city budgets have grown by 67 percent in just five years, according to the Arizona Tax Research Association.  

The state is effectively subsidizing a slush fund for municipal government, which they use to go out and buy things like a $2 Million dollar sign along Mill Avenue, which is a far bigger drain on the treasury than letting families keep more of what they earn. 

Waste Is Everywhere You Look 

With massive increases in government spending, and the scandal that broke on USAID, no one is surprised to hear that the government doesn’t spend every dollar responsibly. Arizona’s AHCCCS system lost an estimated $2.8 billion to a single sober living fraud scheme – what the U.S. Department of Justice called the largest fraud targeting a single demographic group in American history. Total questionable behavioral health billing exceeded $3.1 billion between 2021 and 2023 alone. Only $139 million has been recovered. These programs are crying out for a line-by-line audit, something Republican lawmakers may ask voters to approve in the form of a ballot measure in November since Governor Hobbs and Attorney General Mayes have shown little interest in addressing the problem. 

Then there’s the governor’s own ledger. Her Office of Tourism blew $700,000 on a hideous and unnecessary logo rebrand, a project so tainted by cronyism that the tourism director had to resign. Her Arizona Commerce Authority violated the state’s gift clause, spending $2.4 million in taxpayer money on Super Bowl tickets and CEO cocktail parties. Her housing department wired $2 million straight to overseas fraudsters because no one bothered to write a wire transfer policy. And her illegal housing moratorium, struck down in court for violating private property rights, may have put taxpayers on the hook for over $1 billion in legal liability.  

Yet after three years of fiscal malfeasance and her own problems with pay-to-play bribery allegations, Hobbs’ big “solution” is to launch a Trump-inspired “efficiency initiative” promising $100 million in savings. The governor doesn’t need an efficiency initiative, she actually just needs to stop being the source of waste, fraud and abuse.  

Your Paycheck Is Not the Governments to Lose 

But the most disturbing element of the Left’s argument is the premise hiding beneath it: that The State of Arizona has “lost” $11 billion. Lost it to whom? To the families and businesses that earned it. This framing is a stunning admission. In this worldview, all wealth generated by productive and free people belongs to the government first. Whatever the state doesn’t confiscate in taxes is a “loss.” Whatever it allows private citizens and businesses to keep is a generous gift. 

If you start from that premise, then the government is entitled to 100 percent of everything, and no one should balk at high taxes. But as Thomas Sowell observed, “I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.” The flat tax didn’t rob Arizona of a dime. It let workers, families, and small businesses keep more of what they earned, and revenues grew anyway, because that is what happens when you let free people build things. 

Critics of the legislature’s budget say budgets are built on math. They’re right. And the math shows revenues growing, billions vanishing to cities and fraud, a governor whose own budget was built on a hope and a prayer, and waste everywhere you look. The legislature’s budget spends only the revenue the state actually has and delivers the full tax conformity relief Arizonans are owed under the One Big Beautiful Bill. 

Arizona doesn’t need a reality check on tax relief. It needs a reality check on spending, on fraud, and on the belief that your paycheck belongs to the government before it belongs to you. 

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.