by Daniel Stefanski | Feb 23, 2024 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
A familiar face may be returning to the Arizona Legislature.
Last week, former state legislator and Corporation Commissioner Justin Olson announced his candidacy for the Arizona House of Representatives in Legislative District 10.
In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Olson explained that he would be running for the seat being vacated by Representative Barbara Parker, who would be serving on a church mission with her husband in 2025.
Olson stated that Parker reached out to him to initiate a conversation about his candidacy and to offer “her full support and endorsement” should he accept. He also shared that Representatives Justin Heap and Senator David Farnsworth also gave him “overwhelmingly statements of support.”
The former East Valley Legislator took a trip down memory lane to recount the start of his tenure in the legislative branch as well as what he was able to help accomplish as a member. Olson said, “When I first ran for the Legislature, Arizona faced a $3.6B budget deficit and the record unemployment levels of the Great Recession. I ran promising to fight for fiscal responsibility and economic growth while championing the conservative policies across the board. In my six years at the Capitol, my successful legislation cut taxes, balanced the budget, eliminated job killing bureaucratic red tape, defunded Planned Parenthood and Obamacare in Arizona, expanded school choice, funded public safety, and much more.”
During his time in legislative office, he earned the following ratings and awards: A+ rating from the NRA “Champion of the Taxpayer” by the Arizona Republican Party, a “Friend of the Family” by the Arizona Family Project, “Legislator of the Year” by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and “The Free Market Champion of the Year” by The Arizona Free Enterprise Club.
The veteran Arizona Republican underscored the importance of keeping the East Mesa seat in reliable conservative hands, saying, “Once again, Arizona faces a budget shortfall. Arizona’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee forecasts a $835.2M deficit for the current fiscal year and $878.9M for next year. With a one vote majority in both the House and the Senate and a Democrat Governor in the Executive Tower, it is critical that our Legislative District replaces Barbara with someone that will continue her conservative efforts.”
Olson asked for the vote of Legislative District 10 voters, writing that he would “continue these important efforts of advancing freedom, faith, and family, and standing up for common sense conservative principles like secure borders, the rule-of-law, the second amendment, and the right-to-life.”
The Arizona Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, July 30, 2024.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Jan 6, 2024 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The No Labels Party argued for a federal injunction against Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in a court hearing on Friday.
Arizona District Court Judge John Tuchi heard Friday’s arguments from the party, which seeks to stop Fontes from putting non-presidential candidates under its label on this year’s primary and general election ballots.
The No Labels Party of Arizona, in a Thursday filing preceding the hearing, declared that their party was established for the purpose of placing only presidential and vice-presidential nominees on the 2024 general election ballot. The party cited its constitution and bylaws, which declared that the party would nominate only presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and no candidates for any state, county, municipal, school, or district office or position.
“No Labels Arizona asserts, and for the purposes of this litigation the Secretary does not contest, that No Labels Arizona’s only current objective is to ensure that Arizonans have a potential presidential candidate option other than the candidates who may be selected at the 2024 Democratic and Republican National Conventions,” stated the filing.
Fontes said in a letter to the party last September that any candidates of a valid political party had a right to participate in the primary election and determine that party’s nominee.
There are five individuals who filed interest to run under the No Labels Arizona banner, none of which relate to the presidency: Tyson Draper for Senate; Richard Grayson for the Arizona Corporation Commission; Omar Farooq Chaudry for Congress in the fifth district; Michael Bishop for state representative in the fifth district; and Sam Huang for state representative in the twelfth district.
As of October — the latest update offered by the secretary of state — there were just under 19,000 registered No Labels voters. There were over 1.45 million independent voters, over 1.44 million Republican voters, over 1.2 million Democratic voters, and over 33,700 Libertarian voters.
In their complaint, filed last October, the No Labels Party of Arizona argued that they reserved the right to deny nominations of candidates to the ballot based on state law and the Constitution.
No Labels Arizona state committee members include Gail Koshland Wachtel, a former University of Arizona professor who has donated over $242,000 exclusively to Democratic candidates, campaigns, and organizations over the last decade; Joel (Joe) Smyth, the former longtime board chair of Independent Newsmedia, with outlets across Arizona including Daily Independent, as well as outlets in Delaware, Florida, and Maryland; and Sentari Minor, vice president of strategy for evolvedMD.
Koshland Wachtel also served as the president and director of the Koshland Foundation, a California-based grantmaking nonprofit largely focused on reforming Oakland, California schools which boasted over $2.7 million in revenue and over $11 million in assets in 2022.
No Labels Arizona has yet to receive or submit any campaign contributions, and noted in its communications with Fontes that it doesn’t plan to do so in the future. Its national affiliate, based in D.C., was established in 2009.
The party has ballot access in 13 states as of Friday: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, and Utah, in addition to Arizona.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Dec 11, 2023 | News
By Daniel Stefanski |
Last week, Commissioner Kevin Thompson announced that he and Chairman Jim O’Connor had “successfully offered amendments in the APS Transportation Electrification Implementation Plan and Budget (TEIP) agenda item.” The actions from the two commissioners took place in the panel’s meeting on December 5.
According to Thompson’s press release, he “authored an amendment that rejected the utility’s request to use up to $5M in ratepayer funds to develop and install EV charging infrastructure as part of the utility’s proposed ‘Take Charge AZ’ program.” O’Connor’s amendment ensured “that any EV rebates offered by the utility must be provided at shareholder expense, and not at the expense of ratepayers or ratepayer subsidization.”
“We can’t continue to financially burden the majority of ratepayers who don’t own an EV or who utilize charging stations,” said Commissioner Thompson. “Infrastructure for EV charging is an opportunity for the market and private enterprise to innovate and thrive, not utilities at the expense of their ratepayers.”
O’Connor added, “Our decision on Trico’s EV program in September of this year set the model we would like to see for all future EV charging; namely, no cost shift to ratepayers.”
The communication from Thompson’s Office shared that Commissioner Nick Myers also “provided an amendment that discontinued the Take Charge AZ program moving forward, allowing APS to complete the installation of charging stations currently underway.”
In his first year on the job, Thompson has taken several actions to improve efficiencies at the commission and to stand up for ratepayers. This summer, Thompson fulfilled a priority of his when he helped to secure increased funding for Corporation Commission staff without adding any more dollars to the state’s general fund. He said, “One of the significant consequences of being understaffed and under-resourced is that Arizona has consistently ranked in the bottom tier nationally in processing utility rate cases—it takes fifty percent longer to process a rate case in Arizona – resulting in delays to build new generation and replace critical infrastructure, driving up ratepayer costs and further destabilizing our regulatory and investment climate.”
Thompson also announced that he had “amended several provisions in a recent proposal for UniSource Energy’s (“UNS”) Demand Side Management (“DSM”) Energy Efficiency (“EE”) program.” The release explained that these amendments “eliminated or revised several proposals” and “reigned in ratepayer-funded incentives to contractors and sales consultants and focused on prioritizing programs that provided greater value to residential customers and target low-income customers.”
The Republican Commissioner also led a letter to Governor Katie Hobbs in October, asking the state’s chief executive to address the overwhelming price increases for electricity customers of the San Carlos Irrigation Project. The letter was co-signed by three of his colleagues – Lea Marquez Peterson, Myers, and O’Connor.
Commissioner Anna Tovar, the lone Democrat on the panel, did not add her name to the letter. Thompson told AZ Free News that he and his fellow Republicans “are willing to do whatever we can in our individual capacities to encourage our delegation and state government to put aside partisanship and get the federal government out of the business that private enterprise should be providing.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Corinne Murdock | Nov 15, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Two of the largest private equity firms in the U.S. and the world, Vista Equity Partners and Blackstone, respectively, are now backing the adoption of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) measures in Arizona’s utility companies.
The two globalist ESG-focused companies acquired Energy Exemplar on Halloween. Energy Exemplar owns Aurora Software Consulting Services, used by Arizona’s utilities to provide all modeling and analysis for the resource plans submitted to Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC).
The resource plans submitted by Arizona Public Services (APS), Tucson Electric Power (TEP), and UniSource Energy Services (UNS) Electric largely align with the energy transition directives set forth by Net Zero by 2050.
“Consistent with these overall trends in the energy market. APS has committed to being 100% clean and carbon free by 2050,” stated the APS resource plan.
“[Our resource plan] outlines the sources we anticipate using to satisfy customers’ need for reliable, affordable energy over the next 15 years while working toward a new, long-term objective of net zero direct greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” stated TEP.
“[Our company has a] long-term transition to zero carbon emissions by 2050,” stated UNS Electric.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) — of which the U.S. is a member — came up with Net Zero by 2050, the roadmap to globalize the energy sector by total decarbonization, or achieving net zero carbon emissions, by 2050. Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners are among the biggest financial backers of the effort.
Specifically, Net Zero by 2050 aims to eliminate all emissions-producing energy sources (namely fossil fuels) by replacing them with less reliable renewable energy sources like solar and wind, bioenergies like biomethane, or hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels; instituting greater energy efficiency measures, such as reducing appliance energy consumption and reducing heating and cooling temperature consumption; and electrifying all fossil fuels-based products, such as cars, buses, trucks, heat pumps, and furnaces for steel production.
The campaign also aims to institute behavioral changes among the world’s populace, such as replacing driving with walking, cycling, or public transit, and in some cases foregoing flights entirely.
By 2030, the campaign proposes to introduce eco-driving and motorway speed limits of 60 miles an hour, phasing out gas cars in large cities (dubbed “ICE” cars, which stands for “internal combustion engine”), reducing “excessive” hot water temperatures, reducing the average weight of a passenger car by 10 percent, limiting the average space heating temperature to about 68 degrees and average space cooling temperature to 77 degrees.
By 2050, the campaign proposes to replace regional flights with high-speed rail, preventing business and long-haul leisure air travel from exceeding 2019 levels, improving fertilizer use efficiency by 10 percent, and reducing the use of “energy-intensive” materials per unit floor area by 30 percent.
The Biden administration is fully on board with Net Zero by 2050; the State Department issued its own roadmap on the matter in November 2021.
Blackstone, which manages about $1 trillion in assets, has committed to supporting the globalist goal of net zero by 2050. Per its 2022 climate-related financial disclosures report last year, the company estimated that it would take $115 trillion to reach net zero by 2050. The company invested about $100 billion toward that goal last year, and launched a dedicated credit platform for their ESG goals.
In 2021, Vista Equity Partners was among the first American private equity firms to join the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative. They pledged to reduce their $100 billion in portfolio companies’ emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and emit net zero greenhouse gas emission across their portfolio by 2050.
NZAM, launched in December 2020, is a formal partner of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Race to Zero Campaign. NZAM is regarded as the world’s largest climate finance alliance, with over 300 companies maintaining about $64 trillion in assets as of September. Blackstone is not part of NZAM.
As reported last month, ACC responded to controversy over utilities’ implementation of ESG policies with the claim that it lacked the authority to ban them from doing so.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Nov 10, 2023 | Opinion
By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
For several years, Arizonans have faced a threat of radical renewable energy mandates being imposed on our grid. In 2018, the voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have required utilities to generate 50% of their energy with “renewables” by 2030. Then, in 2021, the Arizona Corporation Commission considered, and rejected, a 100% renewable mandate completely banning fossil fuel generation by 2050. But now, the utilities have voluntarily committed themselves to these goals, known as “Net Zero by 2050”, under the broader requirements of their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments.
But a new study commissioned by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and authored by esteemed economist Stephen Moore, makes clear the high cost of pursuing ESG…
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