Update on Arizona’s Legislative Session

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**This blog was updated June 21, 2024**

It was busy at the Arizona Legislature this year, with more than 100 land and water-related bills introduced this session. All that interest kept us actively advocating for our priorities and tracking the good and the bad bills as they moved through the process at the Arizona Capitol.  

The 2024 legislative session is now concluded, with a new state budget adopted for next fiscal year.  

On rural groundwater management: Negotiations on rural groundwater management were ongoing, but time ran out in the regular legislative session to pass legislation.  

At the June 18, 2024 meeting of the Governor’s Water Policy Council, Patrick Adams, Water Policy Advisor for Governor Hobbs, said that the Governor was open to convening a ‘special session’ (a targeted legislative session designed to quickly pass important and timely legislation. The last one held was in 2021 to address a funding need related to wildfires. Prior to that, the last one was in 2018 to address the opioid crisis). The special session would be to pass a negotiated legislative solution so that rural Arizona has a third, more flexible and customizable option to manage its groundwater.  

Audubon remains hopeful that discussion on rural groundwater management will continue—and vetted with the Water Policy Council, on which I serve. A continued dialogue with a broader group of stakeholders can inspire creativity and out-of-the-box thinking for a new groundwater management tool for rural Arizonans. And while lawmakers could not get to an agreement before the 2024 legislative session ran out, the fact that Republican and Democratic legislators and the Governor’s office met consistently for months on this important issue is significant progress.   

Let’s see what happened to the other bills that Audubon Southwest formally opposed or supported (for bills that were placed on committee agendas and voted on).  

The bills are organized by Passed and Failed  with Audubon Southwest's opposition and support noted.

Passed 

• OPPOSE House Concurrent Memorial (HCM) 2007 Grand Canyon Footprints monument; repeal 
  • This bill would: urge the President of the United States to repeal the recently established Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. This is essentially a letter that the legislature sends to the White House. 
• SUPPORT SB 1176 appropriation; Arizona trail fund 
  • This bill would: allocate $250,000 from the state general fund to the Arizona trail fund, which helps provide maintenance, planning, and preservation of the 800-mile long Arizona Trail. 
  • The proposal was incorporated into the budget discussions. Although we were not able to secure the full $250,000 deposit into the trail fund - we were able to get $100,000 which is a win with such a tight budget.  

Failed 

• OPPOSE Senate Bill (SB) 1041 groundwater savings certificate; assured water
  • This bill would: undermine investments that municipalities with a 100-year water supply have made in their water portfolios. 
• OPPOSE SB 1221 basin management areas; appropriation 
  • This bill would: establish a new framework for managing groundwater in rural Arizona. In its latest amendment, which does not reflect a negotiated compromise by stakeholders who have been meeting for months, it would only apply to three groundwater basins, the water use reductions are capped at 15% total, and the criteria to form a basin management area appear difficult to meet.
• SUPPORT House Bill (HB) 2011 lottery; water infrastructure finance authority  
  • This bill would: Allocate $25 million to the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority’s (WIFA) Water Conservation Grant Fund and $25 million to the WIFA Water Supply Development Revolving Fund from the State Lottery Fund 
• OPPOSE HB 2015 subsequent water management areas; basins 
  • This bill would: limit the residents in a groundwater basin who can petition and vote for forming new Active Management Areas (AMAs) and new Irrigation Non-expansion Areas (INAs). 
• OPPOSE HB 2021 conservation easements; in lieu payments 
  • This bill would: reduce incentives for conservation easements, a powerful tool for land stewardship. 
• OPPOSE HB 2060: irrigation non-expansion area; substitution; acres 
  • This bill would: as amended, undercut local efforts to use existing groundwater management tools, such as Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas. 
• OPPOSE HB 2062 assured water supply; certificate; model 
  • This bill would: make the Arizona Department of Water Resources revert to using an outdated groundwater flow model when determining if new development has a 100-year water supply. 
• OPPOSE HB 2063 exempt wells; certificate; groundwater use  
  • This bill would: hand out water rights to small groundwater pumpers with no corresponding management framework. 
• OPPOSE HB 2366 physical availability; review; designated providers 
  • This bill would: undermine investments that municipalities with a 100-year water supply have made in their water portfolios. 
• SUPPORT HB 2487 residential lease community; Prescott AMA 
  • This bill would: require build-to-rent/ residential lease housing development to prove it has a 100 year water supply before building in the Prescott Active Management Area. 
• SUPPORT Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 1038 Ariona state parks heritage fund 
  • This bill would: allow voters to decide if the State Parks Heritage Fund should be funded at $10 million annually from the State Lottery Fund. Subject to voter approval, it would reinstate funding, which was swept back in the Great Recession. 

Audubon’s Priorities in the Arizona state budget 

Each session, we outline our list of priorities for what should be included in a bird and people budget for Arizona. This year, the financial situation required cuts to state agencies, state programs, infrastructure projects, and more. 

However, we were pleased to see that the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) maintained most of its funding—a reflection of the importance of this agency to the state of Arizona and the need to ensure it fulfills its mission to protect our water supplies.    

Audubon Southwest and our network also urged lawmakers to include the following in the state budget, and here is how our priorities fared in the end: 

• NOT INCLUDED $27 million for proactive forest restoration to protect communities from wildfires and to improve the health of forests and watersheds 
• NOT INCLUDED $25 million for the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority’s (WIFA) Water Conservation Grant Fund (WIFA received more than 250 grant applications requesting a total of $300 million before applications closed; $200 million total was available).  
• NOT INCLUDED $10 million for the State Parks Heritage Fund 
• PARTIAL DEPOSIT $9.5 million deposit into the Water Quality Fee Fund to ensure the cleanliness and safety of surface water, groundwater, and drinking water. The adopted budget included a one time deposit into the Water Quality Fee Fund in the amount of $7.2M. The monies did not come from the general fund however, they were a transfer from the Air Quality Fund.  
• PARTIAL DEPOSIT $250,000 to the Arizona trail fund, which helps provide maintenance, planning, and preservation of the 800-mile long Arizona Trail. The adopted budget included $100,000 in one-time monies for the Arizona Trail Fund. Although it is lower than the request, this is still a win given the budget challenges this year!  

Other land and water items of note in the fiscal year 2025 state budget:  

• No deposit of $333 million for fiscal year 2025 into the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority’s (WIFA) Long Term Water Augmentation Fund.  
• There was a transfer of $51.6 million from the WIFA Water Supply Development Revolving Fund and $8.1 million of the Fund’s interest to the General Fund to backfill the deficit.  
• There was a transfer of $78 million from the WIFA Long Term Water Augmentation Fund and $19.3 million of the Fund’s interest to the General Fund. 
• There was a transfer of $1 million to the General Fund from the ADWR Water Protection Fund and backs out of the $500,000 committed over the next 3 years. 
• There was a transfer of $600,000 from the Temporary Groundwater and Irrigation Efficiency Projects Fund to the General Fund.  
• There was a transfer of $200,000 from the Assured and Adequate Water Supply Fund to the General Fund.  
• There was a transfer of $20 million from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s Underground Storage Tank Fund to the General Fund. 
• There was a transfer of $34 million from Trust Land Management Fund to the General Fund. 
• There was a transfer of $38.2 from the State Parks Revenue Fund to the General Fund.  

This was a very challenging year financially for the State of Arizona. Although there were significant budgetary challenges, we were happy to see that the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) received minimal lump sum cuts and there were still investments in important things like the Arizona Trail Fund.  

Be sure to join our Western Rivers Action Network so you can easily contact your lawmakers the next time it is needed.