Arizona Tea Party-Backed Bill Gutting Sustainability Efforts Advances

WASHINGTON -- An Arizona Tea Party-backed bill that would gut government-run green programs in the state may have the support it needs to go before Gov. Jan Brewer (R).

In a preliminary voice vote on Wednesday, the Arizona House approved a bill introduced by Tea Party member Rep. Judy Burges (R-Sun City West) with the stated goal of preventing "social engineering ... including where we live, what we eat."

Burges' bill, Senate Bill 1507, targets a United Nations declaration promoting international environmental sustainability, which was adopted by the governments of 172 nations -- including the United States under the George H. W. Bush Administration -- in 1992. Conspiracy theories about the non-binding plan to foster environmental stewardship have long been entertained by conservative organizations such as the John Birch Society, which refers to the declaration as "Agenda 21."

"Agenda 21 seeks for the government to curtail your freedom to travel as you please, own a gas-powered car, live in suburbs or rural areas, and raise a family," a statement on the group's website proclaims. "Furthermore, it would eliminate your private property rights through eminent domain."

Under the Burges bill, the state and its political subdivisions would be prohibited from adopting or implementing any of the declaration's tenets aimed at sustainability. Critics fear that if the bill becomes law it will quash government-funded green programs throughout the state, including a $25 million stimulus program that provides energy-efficient improvements to homes and businesses along a 10-mile stretch of Phoenix's light rail corridor.

All "political subdivisions," including the state, counties and cities, are also prohibited from giving any money to the U.N. declaration's initiatives or aiding any of its programs in any way under the bill. They are also barred from aiding "any of its related organizations," including the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Local Action for Biodiversity, among others.

Tea Party-backed conservative Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R-Gilbert) called for the voice vote, and said he believed the United Nations does not have the United States' best interests at heart. "I have concerns about us giving up our sovereignty to the United Nations and the World Court," he said, according to AZ Central.com.

The House must hold a final roll-call vote before the bill can head to Brewer's desk.

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Comments

[NRay]

08:15 AM on 06/12/2012

This story is ironic coming from a state where development never would have occurred but for extensive collective action. Much of the water comes from reservoirs on rivers dammed with federal money. Irrigation and water delivery canals were started just after settlement was begun. Life in Arizona without air-conditioning would not be suitable to most folks today, and that power comes from big, collectively-owned utilities.

No one does anything on his own, even in Arizona. We are stronger and freer through community.

[NRay]

08:09 AM on 06/12/2012

What is it about green that makes the Right see red? It's now hard to think of any environment-saving initiative that they wouldn't condemn as some sort of sinister action.

Hey, Arizona, I have a secret to tell you. I don't believe the United Nations has a plan to take over your state. Heck, the UN can't even succeed in stopping a tinhorn dictator in Syria from killing his own people. How are these same bureaucrats at the UN supposed to get so organized that they can reach down to even the small states like Arizona to tell them how to organize their lives?

[Matthew Tanner]

06:40 PM on 05/07/2012

Cutting of their nose to spite their face.

[sstorms]

10:35 AM on 04/30/2012

Arizona Teapartiers deem efforts to provide alternatives to their fossil fuel based lifestyle as an affront to their liberty, but they're living in a false reality. What will these people do once the energy that allows their very existence goes away? The majority of Arizona is a desert climate - and will be very hostile to human life without the benefits of reliable, low cost water projects, gasoline, electricity, agricultural programs, etc.
The era of cheap and abundant NON-RENEWABLE resources is coming to an end - people can choose to disbelieve or ignore issues like peak oil and climate change, but their descendants won't have the luxury of those options.

[ZeraLee]

08:48 AM on 04/30/2012

Paranoid xenophobes.
They went Chicken Little when INTERPOL was finally allowed to keep secure documents in their office at the UN instead of having to keep them in a foreign country.
They went Chicken Little over the imaginary threat of Sharia law in the US.
They went Chicken Little over international standards for children's rights...
They go ballistic over any imaginary threat to our sovereignty, yet endorse and protect the one true, serious, and active threat.
What could they be thinking?

[RealityMyFriend]

03:22 AM on 04/30/2012

Is that the lady that fingered the president when he landed in her state... on national TV?

[Subsoil73]

11:31 AM on 05/01/2012

Actually - the President confronted her on the tarmac that day.

[Matthew Tanner]

06:42 PM on 05/07/2012

Yeah right. Thanks Brewer's shill.

[pisedoff]

06:40 PM on 04/29/2012

The UN conspiracy nuts are at it again. Yes, the UN wants to rule the world and Americans don't want any part of it. Arizona, that great bastion of wild west libertarianism and individual freedoms, will pass state laws to keep from being taken over by UN mandates.

I wonder...does Rep. Judy Burges (R-Sun City West) have a tinfoil hat like the one Ms Bachman of Minnesota wears?

[GetAbike]

02:30 PM on 04/29/2012

dayer takin' hour jobz!

[Vera Gottlieb]

10:40 AM on 04/29/2012

How proud these people must feel!

[Prairiewinds]

10:26 AM on 04/29/2012

The obvious conclusion one can draw from Jan-the-man Brewer's efforts to curtail sustainability in Arizona is that the Green programs were working. Anytime the Teasters come out against a program it can only mean they and their backers are on the wrong side of an issue and must legislate against its success.

We lived in AZ awhile and frankly, it is a State in sharp decline from too much greed, overpopulation in untenable areas and mis- or overuse of its resources. The blind disregard for the ongoing problems by the Crone will not solve anything but rather speed up the effect of problems which could have been eased by intelligence in the State government. A quality sadly and totally absent.

[ItsGettingWeird]

08:04 PM on 04/30/2012

I lived in Cave Creek, just north of Phoenix a few years ago. Try to imagine a landscape that looks like Afghanistan with strip malls and congested traffic. People seemed angry and kinda shallow. Poorly educated.

Pretty sunsets, though.

[Makos62]

10:14 AM on 04/29/2012

Can we add "Agenda 22"? No Arizona Citizens may travel to any other state in the Union.

[MadJeffersonian]

01:08 AM on 04/29/2012

I see stupid people.

[KarmaPatrol]

12:14 AM on 04/29/2012

Luckily Arizona is sitting on all those oil wells ...

[robodawa]

10:39 PM on 04/28/2012

Brewer is the Robert Mugabe of the Deseret.

[mnyegele]

06:36 PM on 04/28/2012

Water..

That's the one commodity that Arizona cannot live without. Yet the GOP wants to eliminate programs that will provide Arizona with a water supply.

The GOP is suicidal. If people in Arizona care about their future, they must get rid of the Wicked Witch of the West. They must re-elect President Obama and fire the entire GOP.

P..S. Go ahead and add snide comments to this post. But remember, ultimately I will have the last say.

[Ronald Malaney]

10:48 PM on 04/28/2012

let me have a try at this. gop is for power generation dems not so much, water pumps need power. illegals use water, when their not here they don't. the more dams the more water we save, libs hate new dams. with our own copper,gold,uranium,lead,silver,sun light,roads from mexico you must use, we can make enough to buy any water we need. Because Obama will finish his destruction of america and arizona, you may be right about we having all the water we need if he has his way, starving people only need water for 2 weeks.

[Ian OFull]

11:00 AM on 04/29/2012

You are so wrong that I will only call out your foolishness without wasting much effort. You can actually live longer than two weeks without food. Water? No. Here is a clue. Geothermal power generation is actually power. Just like solar, wind, wave, etc. matter. Oil, coal, and gas are not the only sources. Take a science class. Lastly, all the gold in the world can't buy water for your state if there's no water source to purchase. I think Colorado and California need their own.