By Staff Reporter |
State Rep. Ralph Heap (R-LD10) would like to take the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) off the path of green energy and onto a different path in line with President Trump’s energy agenda.
The state’s largest regulated utilities, APS and TEP, are pursuing 14 percent rate hikes with the ACC after receiving other double-digit rate hikes the past few years. Heap, an “Arizona First” candidate, argues that the ACC should be prioritizing ratepayers, and that his approach to the ACC would end the constant upward trend of rates.
Heap’s platform prioritizes individual ratepayers over trendy policy and cash-flush companies: implementing greater protections for rural Arizonans’ energy and water access, rejecting “radical” agendas like the Green New Deal and “corporate welfare” programs, encouraging a free-market energy system, and creating more resistance to rate hikes.
The lawmaker laid claim to the passage or enactment of six energy-related bills from 2024 to present. Those bills were:
- HB2679: establishing a defined legal path for financing utility transition costs;
- HCR2022: committing support for nuclear generation through the Palo Verde Generating Station;
- HB2042: creating enforcement on geoengineering activity by prohibiting intentional in-state release of materials for solar radiation management, prohibiting public funding for those technologies, and authorizing attorney general investigations;
- HB2328: limiting rate disparity in intermunicipal water service by requiring municipal providers selling water to another municipality’s public to charge rates constrained by specified comparators;
- HB2331: ensuring reliability within long-range resource planning by requiring covered public power entities and electric utilities to ensure at least 85 percent of relied-on generating capacity comes from reliable resources by 2030;
- HB2915: granting county-administered property tax reductions to homeowners suffering depleted property values due to nearby renewable energy facilities; and,
- HB2918: ending property tax breaks for new utility-scale renewable energy projects.
Since taking office last January, Heap has maintained several leadership positions, including vice chairmanship of the Natural Resources, Energy, and Water Committee.
Prior to his legislative service and ACC run, Heap practiced orthopedic medicine in the East Valley for nearly 40 years. During that time, he participated in medical missions to developing countries where the presence or absence of reliable energy meant life or death. Heap attributes his “ratepayer first” attitude and interest in reliable, affordable energy to those experiences.
Heap married his high school sweetheart, Denise. Together they have three children—including Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap—and eight grandchildren.
As part of his “ratepayer first” approach, Heap qualified as a Clean Elections candidate. He has sworn against taking money from regulated utilities or their PACs.
Heap has received many endorsements from grassroots leaders along with state and municipal elected officials, including former ACC Commissioner and current state representative Justin Olson (R-LD10), Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ-02), and a leading Republican lawmaker who resigned earlier this year to run for Congress, Joseph Chaplik.
Many of the heavyweights in the Arizona legislature put in their support for Heap: Arizona Freedom Caucus leader and State Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-LD15) as well as State Reps. Michele Pena (R-LD23), Laurin Hendrix (R-LD14), Khyl Powell (R-LD14), Lisa Fink (R-LD27), Rachel Keshel (R-LD17), Alexander Kolodin (R-LD03), Beverly Pingerelli (R-LD), Michael Way (R-LD15), John Gillette (R-LD30), Teresa Martinez (R-LD16), Leo Biasiucci (R-LD30), Pamela Carter (R-LD04), and Chris Lopez (R-LD16).
Among those municipal endorsements were supervisors from Gila and Navajo counties; the mayors of Payson, Snowflake, and Springerville; and council members for Payson.
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0
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