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Sierra Club Releases 2020 Environmental Report Card

Actions by the 2020 Arizona Legislature and Governor Ducey

Doing more harm than good

 Phoenix, AZ – Today, Sierra Club released its 2020 Environmental Report Card for the Arizona Legislature and Governor. This year’s report card broke heavily along partisan lines and while fewer harmful bills reached the Governor’s desk, the ones that did were detrimental to efforts to address the climate crisis and protect endangered plants and animals.

 Two damaging bills reached Governor Ducey’s desk and he signed them. That is enough for him to earn a failing grade on the 2020 report card. He signed HB2686, a measure that pre-empts local action on climate change relative to utilities within cities and counties and that was promoted by Southwest Gas to keep communities from limiting the expanded use of fracked gas within their jurisdictions. The Governor also signed HB2749, which allows data about endangered species on private lands to be kept a secret from the public. This enables big developers, mining operations, and agribusiness to hide vital information about endangered species from the people and even from other agencies.

 “The majority in Arizona’s Legislature, as well as the Governor, refuse to acknowledge or address the climate crisis, said Sand Bahr, chapter director for Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. “Not only did they neglect to take action to develop plans, enact clean car standards, and promote greater efficiency, they passed a bill to further limit local government action to reduce climate harming emissions. The state won’t act to address climate change, but it is also stopping local government from doing so.”

 Most of the bills aimed at addressing ground and surface water issues were blocked by legislators from being heard and most of the water bills that were heard would have weakened some aspects of our water laws.

 “A big issue again this year was the attack on democracy—voter suppression and efforts to make it even more difficult to put a measure on the ballot through the initiative process,” said Bahr. “Most of these bills died due to the abbreviated session, however.”

 All House and Senate Republicans received an “F” on the Report Card. Several members received lower grades due to missed votes, but the failing grades were due primarily to partisan votes in favor of weakening water laws, anti-democracy measures, and a bill to keep information from the public regarding endangered species. House members were graded on 15 votes, Senators were graded on six votes, and the Governor was graded on actions on two bills. Only bills that made it to a Third Read vote in either the House or Senate were included.

 Sierra Club is one of the country’s oldest grassroots environmental organizations with more than 60,000 members and supporters in Arizona as part of the Grand Canyon Chapter. At the end of each legislative session, the Grand Canyon Chapter develops its report card in order to inform Arizonans about their legislators’ voting records on key environmental issues.

The Sierra Club report card is available on the website in English here and Spanish here.

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