Sine Die - Arizona 2021 Legislative Session Wrap-Up

The Arizona State Legislature adjourned at 4:54 pm on 06/30/2021. For a total of 171 days of session, tied for the third longest session with 1993. This year, 1,774 bills were introduced, the legislature passed 473 of those bills (27%), as of 7/1/2021 the governor has signed 412 of the bills and vetoed 27 bills. This means that 34 bills remain on his desk where he has 10 days (excluding Sundays) to sign, veto or allow the bill to become law without his signature. All legislation has an effective date of September 29, 2021 unless otherwise specified within the legislation. 

This year, AriSEIA actively engaged in a handful of legislative efforts that would have directly impacted the Solar Energy Industry. 

HB 2248 Corporation Commission; Electric Generation Resources – Opposed with Lobbying
Sponsored by Representative Gail Griffin – R 
The bill would remove the ability of the Arizona Corporation Commission to establish energy policy and restrict the Commission to rate-making authority. The legislation was aimed solely at limiting the Commission's ability to act on the Clean Energy Rules package as a retroactive date of June 30, 2020 was included in the legislation. 

Though this bill made its way through the House of Representatives and did receive a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee, AriSEIA lobbied in opposition to the legislation and it was ultimately held, receiving no further legislative action in the Senate Rules Committee, thus died. 

SB 1175 Corporation Commission; Electric Generation Resources – Opposed with Lobbying
Sponsored by Senator Sine Kerr – R 
This bill is the mirrored version of HB 2248. The bill would remove the ability of the Arizona Corporation Commission to establish energy policy and restrict the Commission to rate-making authority. The legislation was aimed solely at limiting the Commission's ability to act on the Clean Energy Rules package as a retroactive date of June 30, 2020 was included in the legislation. 

In the Senate, AriSEIA lobbied against this legislation and though this bill did pass through the Senate Natural Resources, Water and Energy Committee, it ultimately failed to progress through the legislative process and died. 

HB 2737 Corporation Commission Actions: Investigation – Opposed with Lobbying
Sponsored by Representative Jacqueline Parker – R 
This bill would have allowed any legislator to challenge any non-ratemaking decision of the Arizona Corporation Commission by filing a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General’s office. If found to exceed the Commission’s authority, the commission would lose 10% of its budget for the year. This bill passed through the House Committee of the Whole process on, however, did receive opposition from both Democratic and Republican members, and ultimately failed in the process. 

As a member of AriSEIA, we fight for the continued protection of the Solar Energy Industry and your livelihood. We understand that day in and day out your focus is on your business. That is where AriSEIA steps in. As a member organization, we focus on your behalf and champion the passage of pro-solar energy policies and regulations and defeat measures that present harm and detriment to the industry. But we couldn’t do it without you. Your responsiveness to Calls for Action when asked to ask and your continued commitment to AriSEIA allows for us all to thrive. 

If you know of an industry partner or solar company that you believe could benefit from membership in AriSEIA, please pass along their information to me at Nicole@AriSEIA.org so that I can follow up with them and continue to build on our associations efforts to bring Arizona to the forefront of the Solar Energy Industry