Ozone levels in Maricopa County are lower today than they were 20 years ago. And the reality is that most of the ozone currently in the region is either due to natural events or coming from China. But you won’t hear facts like that from the Left. Instead, they’d rather hatch a scheme to enforce their climate change agenda on the American people, and one of their biggest targets in the past year has been Arizona. Now, after failing to convince our state to ban gas cars and gas stoves, the Sierra Club is attempting to use the courts to force this agenda upon us.
An Impossible Standard
Much of this began in September 2022 when the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reclassified Maricopa County as a moderate nonattainment area of ozone limits under the Clean Air Act. This basically means that, according to the EPA, Maricopa County’s ozone levels are too high and therefore our state—including its citizens, motorists, and businesses—must be forced to adopt ozone control measures. Failure to comply with these measures could mean fines, penalties, or the withholding of federal transportation dollars for Arizona.
Of course, what they won’t tell you is that the main reason our ozone levels are too high isn’t because there are more cars on the road or Arizonans like trying new recipes on their gas stoves. The main reason our ozone levels are too high is because the federal government moved the goal posts back in 2015 when the EPA dropped its acceptable ozone levels from 75ppb to 70ppb.
To the average person, that may not seem like a big deal, but it is. In fact, in order to achieve the EPA’s standard by the August 3, 2024 deadline, Arizona would need to cut emissions by 50 percent. This is not only impossible, it’s absurd. It took our state over 23 years to reduce ozone pollution by 12.5 percent. There’s absolutely no way we could cut it by 50 percent in a year! But since the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) has become another puppet for the Left’s climate agenda, its plan fell right in line with its EPA masters.
Stopping MAG’s Green New Deal Plan
Along with a host of regulations on various business activities, MAG’s Green New Deal Implementation plan was filled with restrictions that would make AOC blush. It included:
Eliminating gas-powered cars.
Eliminating gas appliances.
Limits on things like lawn equipment, motorized boating, and water heaters.
Regulations on the commercial trucking industry that we rely on for supplies and goods.
Arizona could implement every one of these destructive measures, and we still wouldn’t come close to achieving the EPA’s ozone standard—especially by that deadline. In the meantime, our state would have been forced to suffer billions of dollars in economic damage all while watching our quality of life go down the tubes.
That’s why the Free Enterprise Club spent several months fighting back against MAG’s plan. And that proved to be a success. In June of this year, MAG abandoned its plan and instead sent a letter to the EPA that essentially adopted our position. It mentioned the challenges related to timing, the overwhelming contribution of ozone from outside sources, and the economic consequences we would face with such harsh ozone regulations. These are reasonable arguments that should be enough for the EPA to reconsider its standards, but the response from the Left was…a lawsuit.
The Sierra Club Sues to Force Arizona to Achieve the Impossible
In October, the liberal non-profit Sierra Club decided to sue the Biden administration to increase regulatory oversight of several states, including Arizona. And their goal is clear. They either want to get a liberal judge to force our state to implement California-style control measures, or they want to collude with the EPA to do a “sue and settle” and enter into a consent decree that does the same.
But what the Sierra Club intentionally ignores is that you could take all 4 million cars off the road in Maricopa County, and Arizona still couldn’t achieve the EPA’s impossible standards. Just look at what happened in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ozone levels increased from 79ppb to 87ppb even though we saw a dramatic decrease in cars on our roads.
You would think that would be enough to recognize that these measures won’t work. Or maybe, just maybe…the Sierra Club’s agenda isn’t really about ozone in the first place. That’s why the Club plans to fight back against this lawsuit and any other way that the Sierra Club is trying to force the Green New Deal on our state. The measures they are pushing are coercive, punitive, and likely illegal. And the people of Arizona shouldn’t have to sacrifice their freedoms so the Left can turn us into another California.
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For several years, Arizonans have faced a threat of radical renewable energy mandates being imposed on our grid. In 2018, the voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have required utilities to generate 50% of their energy with “renewables” by 2030. Then, in 2021, the Arizona Corporation Commission considered, and rejected, a 100% renewable mandate completely banning fossil fuel generation by 2050. But now, the utilities have voluntarily committed themselves to these goals, known as “Net Zero by 2050”, under the broader requirements of their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments.
But a new study commissioned by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and authored by esteemed economist Stephen Moore, makes clear the high cost of pursuing ESG. In the study, Moore compares the 10 states with the highest cost for electricity to the 10 with the lowest. He finds that nine of the 10 costliest states have renewable energy mandates. Conversely, his paper finds that 7 of the ten cheapest states have no mandates or mandates that amount to less than 20% renewable energy.
This means, according to the study, that residents in states with mandates have, over the last decade, paid 36.4% more for electricity than those who live in states with no mandates which, for many families, means thousands of dollars a year. In 2022 alone, residents living in states with high “renewable” mandates paid 44% more than those living in states with no mandates. Given this, Moore points to a recent study that estimates that these ESG commitments will increase costs for ratepayers 78% by 2050.
Just last week, the monopoly utilities submitted new Integrated Resource Plans (IRP) which determine the type of energy production they will build for the next decade and a half. Considering their public commitment to ESG, it’s no surprise that these plans all work toward Net Zero by 2050, retiring coal generation by 2031 completely, and relying almost entirely on solar, wind, and batteries with little to no new natural gas. Based on Moore’s new study, these plans will inevitably cost ratepayers billions, leading to a likely doubling of utility bills.
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K-12 schools in Arizona are currently flush with cash. Between billions in increased state spending from the legislature, COVID cash from the feds, and declining student populations, district school spending is at an all time high. But next week, voters across Arizona will decide the fate of 23 bond requests from schools that total a historic $3.5 billion.
This level of borrowing being sought by local school districts is both unwise and unnecessary, especially given the large amounts of money that have been pumped into the system. State funding has increased so quickly in the last 36 months that the legislature decided to override the constitutional spending limit the last two fiscal years. This is funding over and above the formulaic cap in the constitution that exists to protect taxpayers from runaway and unaccountable spending.
And contrary to what you probably hear from teachers’ unions and their sycophant friends in the media, lawmakers continue to increase school spending with every state budget. With all this new spending, district schools receive more money per student than ever before, and it’s not even close.
Not included in the state spending cap, however, are federal funds. And when schools were shut down during COVID, the federal government poured trillions of dollars into them. Many of the school districts asking their taxpayers to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds next week are still sitting on a pile of unspent COVID cash.
Compounding the unnecessary nature of these bond requests is that many of these districts are losing students. In other words, they want to borrow more money to spend on fewer students. That translates into absurdly high requests when broken down per student.
In fact, according to the Arizona Tax Research Association, the lowest request is in Yuma and represents $2,200 per student. On the other extreme, however, is the Osborn School District bond which represents nearly $40,000 per student!
No doubt these bonds will have major budget and tax implications in the near future. Yet the campaigns in support of these bonds are telling voters that taking on hundreds of millions in new debt (with sky-high interest rates) will keep their tax bills the same. That of course is not true. All voters need to do is read the first few pages in their publicity pamphlet to see that households will be paying hundreds of dollars (and in some cases thousands) more in property taxes each year.
The good news is that voters no longer simply rubber stamp these requests on the off year, all mail elections. Just a few years ago, voters barely approved Mesa’s $300 million bond and rejected the budget override. Last year, nearly half of the requests were rejected by voters. Taxpayers are right to be suspicious of these asks and should follow their instincts when filling out their ballots.
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Following in the footsteps of his predecessor (now-Governor Katie Hobbs), Secretary of State Adrian Fontes appears determined to implement an Election Procedures Manual (EPM) that is ripe with unlawful provisions. The EPM is used by election officials throughout the state as the rulebook to conduct and run elections, so it is critically important that every provision in the manual strictly adheres to state law.
Now, fresh off an important legal win over the illegal signature verification process in the EPM, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, along with the Thomas More Society, is suing Fontes once again—this time over unstaffed ballot drop boxes.
An Illegal Method of Voting
Arizona law establishes four different methods for secure early voting. According to A.R.S. § 16-548(A), an early ballot shall either be:
Delivered to the officer in charge of elections, typically the county recorder.
Mailed to the officer in charge of elections, typically the county recorder.
Deposited by the voter at any polling place in the county.
Deposited by the voter’s agent (family member, household member, caregiver) at any polling place in the county.
Did you catch that? Nowhere in the law does it allow for the use of unstaffed drop boxes. In fact, if you read through Fontes’ EPM, you’ll notice something. Although the EPM includes over 1,000 citations, the section on its unstaffed drop box scheme includes zero citations of Arizona law! You can see for yourself right here. And yet, Fontes still moved forward with this invented option in the final draft of the EPM he submitted to Governor Hobbs and Attorney General Mayes. But the omission of such citations is only one problem with drop boxes.
Drop Boxes Lack the Protections of the USPS
Unlike U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail collection boxes, unstaffed drop boxes don’t enjoy special protections under federal law that could lead to prison sentences for crimes like obstruction of mail passage, destruction of mail, and vandalism of a mailbox. On top of that, these unstaffed drop boxes aren’t required to have locks. Instead, they are “secured” with a “tamper-evident seal.” (Who could get past such a fortress of security?) And, while the USPS requires mail carriers to take an oath of fidelity to the Constitution, Fontes’ EPM creates the position of “ballot retriever.” Do you know what it takes to qualify as a “ballot retriever”? An individual simply needs to wear a badge when performing his or her duties! That’s it! It’s right there in the EPM.
Then, there’s the simple fact that USPS mailboxes offer an additional level of security because they can contain different varieties of mail at any given time. This makes it impossible for a bad actor to know whether a particular mailbox contains early voted ballots. By contrast, an unstaffed drop box contains only completed ballots, providing anyone who wants to interfere with an election the certainty to know that the contents of the drop box likely contain a significant number of completed ballots.
Other Issues with Drop Boxes
Along with lacking the protections of the USPS, unstaffed drop boxes also increase the possibility of voter intimidation. After all, when a person approaches a drop box, it’s clear that he or she has no reason to be there except to deliver a voted ballot. This makes that person an easy and vulnerable target, which is much less likely to occur at a mailbox or an election official’s office.
And finally, there’s the issue of unsecure locations. Fontes’ EPM doesn’t require unstaffed drop boxes to be located at or near a government building. Because of this drop boxes have been established at churches, elementary schools, restaurants, bookstores, humane societies, and more. In fact, some drop boxes in Yavapai County have been placed at U.S. Postal Offices—mere feet away from a mailbox where voters could legally return their ballots. (You can’t make this stuff up…)
For all these reasons and more, the Free Enterprise Club filed a lawsuit last week in the Yavapai County Superior Court. The use of drop boxes must be in accordance with state law, and we are hopeful that our lawsuit will result in election officials ending their use at illegal unstaffed locations for the 2024 election. This would give the people of Arizona exactly what they want: elections where it is easy to vote and hard to cheat.
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For the Democrats and their sycophant media allies, the problem is always too much parental choice in education and letting taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned money. Yet this narrative couldn’t be further from the truth. A closer look at Arizona’s budget and the projected budget deficit reveals that we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
Projected Budget Shortfall Is a Spending Problem
Just 5 years ago, the legislature enacted the FY 2019 budget that included $10.1 billion in on-going spending, plus $500M in “one-time” expenditures ($10.7 billion total). By last year, that number had exploded to nearly $15 Billion in ongoing spending, a 50% growth in ongoing spending in 5 years! The most recent budget negotiated with Democrat Katie Hobbs earlier this year kept ongoing spending at a lower trajectory but included “one-time” outlays that brought the total budget cost to $17.8B.
The truth is that Arizonans continue to be overtaxed. And even with the largest tax cut in state history, tax revenue has continued to climb, largely due to the decision by state lawmakers in 2019 to start taxing online sales. That one change in our sales tax collection has resulted in BILLIONS in new revenue for state and local governments. Yet the media and the left only want to talk about the income tax cut, not all the tax hikes Arizonans have endured.
Record Levels of K-12 Spending
Along with bashing our much-needed income tax cuts, the left has targeted school choice as the other culprit for the budget deficit. Since universal expansion was enacted last year, Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) are now providing over 60,000 families the freedom to make educational decisions for themselves, instead of being locked into government schools. According to the teachers’ union and math-challenged educrat organizations, ESAs are costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars and diverting funds from district schools.
In fact, the legislature had to vote this year (for the second year in a row) to override the constitutional expenditure limit for government schools. This spending limit was overwhelmingly supported by voters to protect against runaway spending. The waiver this year, which requires a 2/3 majority to authorize, was to the tune of $1.4 billion, more than three times the potential budget shortfall.
As for the claim that ESAs are costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, the reality is the opposite. According to an excellent analysis by Matt Beienburg at the Goldwater Institute, ESAs represent only a tiny fraction of all K-12 school spending, and taxpayers actually save money when a parent decides to leave a district school to attend a charter or private school.
Additionally, during COVID the federal government was spending trillions of dollars racking up the federal debt and inflation. That has thrown off budget projections nationwide, and most states are now seeing a slowing of tax revenue leading to potential deficits.
Budget Deficit Presents Opportunity for Long Overdue Spending Restraint
The current budget volatility Arizona is experiencing shouldn’t be that big of a surprise to anyone who has been following local and national trends. State governments around the nation are dealing with volatile budget projections, falling tax revenue, and widening budget deficits. And in every case, runaway spending has been the culprit.
So, the solution is simple: reduce spending to be more in line with what population and inflation growth has been over the last five years. Republicans did the best they could with Katie Hobbs on the 9th Floor, who vetoed their first fiscally responsible budget proposal. We don’t expect Hobbs and her spend happy allies to be any easier to work with next year, so fiscal hawks in the legislature will have their work cut out for them.
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“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Unless you are New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham, who thinks she can just declare a public health emergency and ignore what the Constitution says. Yes, in her view, she can declare an emergency and then all “rights” are on the table, and she is free to suspend them as she wishes.
Thankfully, this was too far for even anti-gun politicians like Rep. Ted Lieu from California and New Mexico’s own Attorney General who said he would not defend the declaration in court. In other words, it was so clearly unconstitutional that even the most radical gun control advocates distanced themselves from it.
Abuses of Emergency Powers During COVID
But it is an important reminder of the abuse of emergency powers we all experienced during COVID, and why it is critical to rein in these powers. While it’s clearly unconstitutional to suspend the 2nd amendment with an emergency declaration, most states over the last 100 years have granted extremely broad powers to the executive branch to declare so-called public health “emergencies.” These powers are usually enshrined in state law, and they have largely been upheld by courts as constitutional.
Arizona was not and is not immune from this. Here, the “emergency” declaration in response to COVID was not officially terminated until March 30, 2022, 749 days after it was first declared. During that time, businesses were closed, students were required to wear masks, and people were prevented from seeing loved ones in hospitals.
Many lawmakers wanted to halt the emergency declaration almost immediately, but quickly discovered that if they wanted to end the emergency outside of regular session, they needed 2/3 of the body to call a special session. And if the legislature was called into session, they were powerless at stopping local governments and Charter cities like Tucson or Phoenix from declaring their own state of emergency if the statewide emergency was terminated. It was quickly determined that without significant emergency powers reform, our freedoms and liberties will remain under threat from overreaching government.
States Need to Restrict Emergency Powers, and That Is What HCR2039 Will Do
Earlier this year, Justice Gorsuch wrote, “Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country” and “it is hard not to wonder, too, whether state legislatures might profitably reexamine the proper scope of emergency executive powers at the state level.” Thankfully, that is exactly what our legislature did in passing HCR2039, allowing the people to amend the constitution to ensure no future “emergency” declaration is without end and without a proper check from the legislature.
If passed by the voters in 2024, HCR2039 would constitutionally limit emergency powers of the Governor and provide the legislature with the authority to roll back any emergency declared in the state. HCR2039 would:
Require automatic termination of an emergency declaration by a Governor 30 days after it is declared.
Empower the legislature to call itself into a special session immediately after an emergency declaration by a Governor with just one third of the body.
Allow the legislature to alter, limit or roll back an emergency declaration at any time after it is declared.
HCR2039 Does Not Confer Any New Emergency Powers
Some believe that all emergency statutes are unconstitutional in the first place because they are not enumerated in the state constitution. That’s not true because states have inherent police powers, including for the protection of public health and safety. That is why existing emergency powers statutes in Arizona have largely been upheld by the courts. Whether the Arizona Constitution makes mention of “emergency powers” or not, the legislature has the authority to prescribe the powers and duties of the Governor, including the ability to respond to emergencies. In other words, all powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states under the 10thAmendment, are reserved to the states.
HCR2039 Is Supported by Conservatives and Opposed by the Radical Left
This pro liberty ballot measure was supported unanimously by conservative lawmakers and has the support of freedom-minded groups including the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, Goldwater Institute, Republican Liberty Caucus of Arizona, and EZAZ. Conversely, it was unanimously opposed by all Democrat lawmakers and by liberal pro-lockdown organizations including the Arizona Public Health Association, Civic Engagement Beyond Voting, National Organization for Women, the Sierra Club, and Arizona Center for Economic Progress.
Before the next “emergency,” it’s imperative that Arizonans enshrine a strong constitutional limit on the powers the legislature can delegate to the Governor to respond.
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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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