PHOENIX β Calling it a potential barrier to renewable energy, Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed legislation Monday which would have imposed new requirements on solar and wind generating plants.
HB 2618 contained a list of what cities, towns and counties could adopt in zoning standards, site-specific conditions and permitting requirements on such facilities.
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It would have required owners to not only have a decommissioning plan in place but also to post a bond β essentially insurance β to cover the costs if the company goes bankrupt or otherwise tries to walk away. And it even would mandate restoring and re-establishing soils and vegetation using native seed mixes.
It also included requirements for liability insurance to protect the community from any financial obligations due to injuries or other damages caused by the plant.
Rep. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, said counties already have some oversight of such projects. What this would do, she said, is provide some basic standards.
The governor, however, said all that is too much.
βHB 2618 encourages an inconsistent statewide patchwork of regulations for renewable energy projects and would have a deep chilling effect on renewable energy development in Arizona,β Hobbs wrote in her veto message. βIt creates additional regulatory confusion for businesses, negatively impacting Arizonaβs ability to attract, retain, and grow a renewable energy ecosystem in our state create good-paying jobs for everyday Arizonans.β
The veto of HB 2168 came at the behest of the Interwest Energy Alliance, composed of major developers and manufacturers of large-scale renewable energy projects.
Lobbyist Stan Barnes said his industry is not opposed to some oversight, including assurances that there are plans for what happens at the end of the life expectancy of a plant. But Barnes said Monday he asked Hobbs to veto the measure because the legislation piled on new requirements above and beyond what local communities already can do.
Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr, testifying against the bill, had a similar outlook.
βWe think it includes overly prescriptive decommissioning requirements for these entities,β she said. And Bahr said counties already have broad zoning authority.
βWhy the Legislature continues to single out solar and wind is beyond me, especially when this is an industry that provides over 8,000 jobs in Arizona and is about a $16.1 billion investment,β she told lawmakers.
Bahr also said there is an inconsistency in lawmakers saying they want to protect communities against having abandoned solar and wind farms when they specifically preclude counties from imposing similar requirements on sand and gravel operations. And she called the state cleanup requirement the weakest in the West.
Sen. Priya Sundareshan, D-Tucson, saw similar contradictions and said she could not support the βextra hurdlesβ being imposed only on renewable energy projects.
βThis bill is unfairly singling out and targeting solar and wind power producers for requirements of decommissioning standards without similarly providing those standards for other types of power production, namely oil and gas and coal,β she argued during Senate floor debate on the issue. In fact, she actually tried to amend HB 2618 to include those facilities, only to have the proposal rejected after Republican supporters were told that Griffin did not support the change.
βDecommissioning is a very important topic,β Sundareshan said. But she said it is equally important to include other any other form of power production βthat does leave a mark on our landscape.β
Griffin did not immediately respond to requests Monday for comment.
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