By Robert Robb | Substack
Gov. Katie Hobbs announced her proposal to address groundwater overdrafts in rural areas, Senate Bill 1425, with much fanfare and a bit of bravado.
Hobbs proclaimed that she cared about protecting groundwater supplies in rural Arizona, implying that the dirty dog Republicans in the Legislature do not. And that, if legislation providing a bespoke management mechanism for rural areas weren’t passed, she’d continue using the more restrictive approach of declaring new Active Management Areas, as she recently did in Willcox.
The prevailing narrative in political circles is favorable to Hobbs’s description of the state of play. According to the narrative, Hobbs and Democratic legislators want to do something about rural groundwater overdrafts but are thwarted by legislative Republicans, particularly Gail Griffin, chairwoman of House Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee.
The prevailing narrative is neither accurate nor fair. The GOP Legislature has a reasonable proposal to address rural groundwater overdrafts, embodied in a bill last session, Senate Bill 1221. The bill was on the cusp of being passed but was sidelined by the absence of two House Republicans at crunch time and an anticipated gubernatorial veto. All legislative Democrats voted against the measure.
There is a great deal of similarity and overlap between Hobbs’s proposal and that of the GOP. Moreover, Hobbs is highly unlikely to prevail over the most important differences. The GOP proposal is good enough that Democrats should allow it to become law and largely accede in the areas of disagreement. That would be substantially better for both the future of rural Arizona and Hobbs’s political prospects. It’s certainly better than continued stalemate, the controversial and sharply contested designations of additional AMAs, or Attorney General Kris Mayes’s ill-advised attempts to muscle in on the policy field through threats and litigation.
