A dark money, globalist climate group poised to obtain power over U.S. defense contracts has Arizona roots.
Last November, the Biden administration proposed granting decision-making power on defense contracts to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi): a London, England-based environmentalist group. In mid-February, a key initiative to SBTi called the Advanced and Indirect Mitigation (AIM) Platform launched at GreenBiz 23 in Scottsdale.
According to a press release, the AIM Platform will provide net-zero carbon value chain mitigation for SBTi and the GHG Protocol. Value chain mitigation determines the greenhouse gas emissions of each aspect of a company in an effort to reduce it; SBTi is also advancing a successor of the concept, called “beyond value chain mitigation,” or BVCM.
AIM Governing Committee members are Alexia Kelly, High Tide Foundation; Devon Lake, META; Kelley Kizzier, Bezos Earth Fund (Amazon founder, executive chairman, and former CEO Jeff Bezos); Mandy Rambharos, EDF; Tim Juliani, World Wildlife Fund (WWF); Derik Broekhoff, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI); Graham Winkelman, BHP; Dan Smith, Smart Freight Center; Elena Schmidt, Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB); Lisa Spetz, H&M Group; Meinrad Bürer, Louis Dreyfus Company; Peter Skovly, MAERSK; and Pierre Bloch, Sustaincert.
SBTi funders include the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, IKEA Foundation, and Laudes Foundation. The initiative is a collaboration by the Carbon Disclosure Project, World Resources Institute, and WWF, an outgrowth of the leftist dark money initiative called “We Mean Business Coalition” fronting the New Venture Fund: an arm of one of the leading leftist dark money networks, Arabella Advisors.
Washington Free Beaconreported that SBTi didn’t officially incorporate until June, though it launched in 2015. SBTi could receive around $1.2 million in annual estimated fees for their services.
The AIM Platform creators were the Gold Standard, a Switzerland-based, climate-focused finance group; Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a Virginia-based climate policy think tank; and Neoteric Energy & Climate, a D.C.-based climate advisory firm.
The few Americans on Gold Standard’s leadership include Scott Harder, a California native and founder of the Environmental Financial Group; Kerry Constabile, a New Yorker who formerly served as a sustainability executive for Google as well as a senior officer and lead advisor for the United Nations, and also a technical advisor for SBTi; Sue Ellen Johnson, a North Carolina agriculturalist and advisor for a number of climate groups including Gold Standard; and Lawson Henderson, a Vermont-based manager of Wildlife Works Carbon and formerly a coordinator for Rainforest Alliance.
C2ES is the successor of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, led currently by Nathaniel Keohane: former President Barack Obama’s special assistant on energy and environment and formerly a senior vice president for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The former president for C2ES was the deputy administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration. C2ES and its predecessor were founded and presided over initially by Eileen Claussen, the special advisor to the president on global environmental affairs at the National Security Council and assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs to former President Bill Clinton.
Neoteric Energy & Climate was founded in January by Kim Carnahan, the current CEO, who helped lead the State Department under both Obama and Trump on finalizing the Paris Agreement and other major emissions reductions policies with the International Maritime Organization and International Civil Aviation Organization. Carnahan also worked as the senior director for ENGIE Impact, a Washington-based sustainability consultancy company.
GreenBiz 23 was the latest in a series of annual events that have taken place in Arizona since at least 2014. Next year’s event, GreenBiz 24, will take place in Phoenix.
Featured speakers for this year’s event included Arizona State University (ASU) Morrison Institute Kyl Center for Water Policy directors Kathryn Sorensen and Sarah Porter.
Most of the other speakers over the years have represented the biggest companies worldwide. This year included representatives from 3M, Anheuser-Busch, Associated Press (AP News), BASF Chemicals, CEMEX, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, Clif Bar, Deloitte Tax, Delta Airlines, Dollar Tree, eBay, Estée Lauder, Ford, General Mills, General Motors, Henkel, IBM, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Mars, McDonald’s, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Nasdaq, National Public Radio (NPR), NCX, NextEra Energy Resources, Nike, Paramount, Procter & Gamble, Salesforce, Seventh Generation, S&P Global, Starbucks, Under Armour, United Airlines, UPS, U.S. Steel, and Wells Fargo.
The Biden administration also sent speakers: Betty Cremmins and Katy Newhouse, directors for sustainable supply chains with the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Independent voters are now the largest voting group in Arizona, toppling the Republican Party for the first time in years.
Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ office advised ABC 15 of this change earlier this month, pending the upcoming publication of their quarterly voter registration report. Independent voters last outranked both the Republican and Democratic parties in 2016.
The most current data available on the secretary of state’s website, from April, registered over 1.43 million independent voters.
In two months, that number grew to surpass the leading number of Republican voters at the time, which was just over 1.44 million. Democratic voters totaled over 1.26 million. The “No Labels” party at the time had 17 voters total; the secretary of state’s office also disclosed that the party had grown to around 6,000.
Libertarian voters registered at over 33,300 in April.
Last year, the number of registered independent voters decreased from over 1.44 million in April to just over 1.4 million in the general election. Republican voters decreased from over 1.47 million to over 1.43 million; Democratic voters decreased from 1.33 million to 1.27 million.
At the time of the 2020 election, which had more registered voters than in April, there were over 1.35 million independent voters. Republicans had over 1.5 million registered voters, while Democrats had over 1.37 million.
The 2016 general election — which had over 815,600 less voters registered than the most recent registration counts — had over 1.21 million independent voters compared to over 1.23 million Republican voters and just over 1 million Democratic voters. Although the number of registered independent voters increased from May to November 2016, there were more to register as Republican during the same time frame.
The 2016 general election broke a two-year streak in which more voters registered as independents than anything else. Midway through former President Barack Obama’s second term, more registered as independents than Republicans. There were around 900,000 less registered voters at the time.
Ahead of last year’s midterm election, some candidates sought to appeal to the growing base of independents.
In this century, independents first outranked Democrats after the 2010 midterm election. In July 2011, registered independent voters (over 1 million) surpassed registered Democratic voters (over 999,000).
Independent voters have maintained that lead on Democratic voters since then — 12 years.
The shift in 2011 also marked the first session in which Republicans enjoyed their largest majority in the state legislature since 1981: 21 Republicans to 9 Democrats in the Senate, and 40 Republicans to 20 Democrats in the House. Since then, the majority has dwindled. This session, there’s a slim majority: 15 Republicans to 14 Democrats in the Senate, and 31 Republicans to 29 Democrats in the House.
Independent voters may vote in all primaries except presidential.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Fresh off of 14 years of influence from Republican governors and legislators, Arizona remains one of the top economic states in the nation.
This month, CNBC published its Top States for Business for 2023, showing that Arizona was ranked 14th among the 50 laboratories of democracy. Arizona was ranked 3rd in the Workforce category (16% of weight), 7th in Infrastructure (15.6%), 15th in Economy (14.4%), 35th in Life, Health & Inclusion (14%), 33rd in Cost of Doing Business (11.6%), 18th in Technological Innovation (10.8%), 13th in Business Friendliness (8.6%), 42nd in Education (5%), 17th in Access to Capital (2%), and 40th in Cost of Living (2%).
In summarizing why Arizona grabbed the 3rd ranking for workforce, CNBC wrote, “Educated workers are flocking to the Grand Canyon State, and a growing number of them are highly skilled as the state boosts its tech sector. With unemployment roughly in line with the national average, worker shortages are not as severe as they are in some other states. Arizona is a right-to-work state with a solid career education system, though worker training programs could use some improvement.”
The 2023 rank for Arizona’s workforce had improved from 7th (in 2022) to 3rd; economy from 22nd to 15th; life, health & inclusion from 50th to 35th; technology & innovation from 29th to 18th; access to capital from 41st to 17th. The overall ranking rose from 34th to 14th.
According to CNBC’s Economic Profile for Arizona, the GDP growth in quarter one of 2023 was 2.70%, the unemployment rate as of May 2023 was 3.40%, the top corporate tax rate was 4.90%, the top individual income tax rate was 2.5%, and the gasoline tax is 37.40 cents per gallon.
The state’s top-rated economic status was the result of years of policies and calculations made by its leaders – both in the executive and legislative branches. In his online portfolio of his eight years in office (theduceyyears.com), former Governor Doug Ducey touted the expansion and moves of several industry leaders in Arizona. Those leaders included Intel, which “announced a $20 billion expansion to create two new semiconductor fabrication facilities;” and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which “will create over 1,600 new high-tech jobs and generate thousands of additional jobs in the state for suppliers and other companies within the semiconductor industry.”
The former governor also noted that “Arizona passed the largest income tax cut in the state’s history, making our flat tax the lowest in the nation at 2.5%.”
Soon after taking office, Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs retained the services of the President and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA), Sandra Watson, perhaps hoping to maintain the state’s successful business reputation at a critical juncture in its history. The Governor’s Office highlighted that “under Ms. Watson’s leadership, the ACA has worked with over 1,100 companies that have committed to creating more than 240,000 jobs and investing over $103 billion in capital in Arizona.” Watson was installed in her position under the Jan Brewer administration in 2012, and she continued in that role throughout Ducey’s tenure.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
As the Arizona Legislative session may be nearing its final stretch, the state’s premier business organization is highlighting bills that would have had grave consequences for jobs.
On Wednesday, the Arizona Chamber Foundation and the Common Sense Institute released a report, showing that “67 failed bills from the 2023 legislative session in Arizona” would have cost the state’s economy $9.5 billion and deprived individuals of 113,500 jobs. According to the report, those bills would also have “imposed over $25 billion in annual new costs on Arizona’s businesses, including $15 billion in new taxes and fees.”
The two organizations compared Arizona’s path to our neighboring state of Colorado – if the Grand Canyon State would have passed any or all of the 67 bills of note. They reveal that 13 bills that failed this year in Arizona, “have actually passed in Colorado.”
TALE OF TWO STATES: according to our newest report, @CSInstituteAZ finds if Arizona had followed a similar policy path as our neighbor #Colorado, Arizona would have 113,500 fewer workers and an economy that was $9.5B smaller.
— Common Sense Institute Arizona (@CSInstituteAZ) July 12, 2023
Danny Seiden, the President and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry issued a statement in conjunction with the report, writing, “At the Arizona Chamber, we are committed to protecting the job gains we have seen in Arizona in recent years. This analysis provides important data points for legislators to consider as these failed bills will likely resurface in future sessions.”
Katie Ratlief, the Executive Director of Common Sense Institute Arizona, also weighed in on the announcement, saying, “This study shows that policy matters when it comes to jobs and economic impacts. Policymakers and the public should be informed about the short and long term impacts these pieces of legislation have so they can weigh pros and cons and make informed decisions.”
AZ Free News reached out to Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen, one of the key forces behind killing these bills throughout the still-ongoing session, to respond to the report. Petersen said, “This is a great example of why policy matters. Arizona has built on years of sound policy under Republican leadership that has helped grow our state’s economy. We’ll continue to do everything we can to protect Arizona citizens and our economy from the type of policies that have negatively impacted Colorado.”
House Speaker Ben Toma, another stalwart defender of conservative principles in the Legislature, added, “The far left has tightened its grip on the Democrats in Arizona and it shows in the bills they introduced this session in the State Legislature. They propose business and environmental regulations that would stymie growth, kill jobs, and make energy costs higher. In my term as Speaker of the House, I will continue to work to stop these policy proposals so we can continue to be a state on a positive trajectory with low taxation, high growth, and maximum freedom.”
Freshman Republican Representative Matt Gress shared his thoughts on the report in a tweet, stating, “POLICY MATTERS. Arizona succeeds when leaders trust people over government. @CSInstituteAZ’s report reveals that some politicians think they know better than you with terrible ideas like, tax hikes, higher energy costs to fund more ‘green’ regulations, greater compliance with the ‘Mother, may I?’ administrative state. That’s everything Arizona is not.”
POLICY MATTERS. Arizona succeeds when leaders trust people over government.@CSInstituteAZ’s report reveals that some politicians think they know better than you with terrible ideas like:
❌ tax hikes ❌ higher energy costs to fund more “green” regulations ❌ greater compliance… https://t.co/PzSmQohdDD
Americans’ support for school choice is on the rise.
A recent poll from Real Clear Opinion Research showed that school choice has the support of 71% of the 1,000 registered voters who participated in that survey. This number was a seven-point increase from an April 2020 poll.
— Christine Accurso (@ArizonaCatholic) July 12, 2023
In this June 27-30 poll, support for school choice came from 80% of Republican voters, 66% of Democrat voters, and 69% of Independent voters. Though the Republican and Democrat support was up from April 2020, the 9% increase in favor from Independents was the most among the political parties.
NEW POLL: 71% of Americans support school choice.
April 2020: 64% —> June 2023: 71%
7 percentage point jump in support since April 2020.
IT'S HAPPENING.
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) July 11, 2023
The question presented to voters on the survey was as follows: “School choices gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of school choice?”
The CEO of American Federation for Children, Tommy Schultz, lauded the news about the growing support for school choice around the country, saying, “School choice support is here to stay, and politicians who ignore this reality do so at their own peril. Parents are the new interest group in town, and legislators would be wise to keep responding to their needs. The days of the old one-size-fits-all model are numbered, welcome news for the countless students who need something different to learn and thrive. AFC is thrilled to continue standing behind parents as they gain more options for their children’s education.”
Arizona has been at the front lines of the surge in school choice support. Last year, the Republican-led Legislature passed a historic expansion of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program, allowing any child in K-12 to apply. According to a June 30 update from the Executive Director of the ESA Program, Christine Accurso, 62,005 Arizona students have now been enrolled.
That same update also showed that the program, under the direction of Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, had largely caught up with the backlog and influx of reimbursements to ESA account holders. As of June 30, the ESA Program only had 1,195 Reimbursement Orders in the queue – down from 24,409 on February 8.
When asked about the increasing support for school choice in Arizona and around the nation, Superintendent Horne told AZ Free News, “We have a lot of excellent public schools in Arizona. But no matter how good a public school is, it may not be able to meet the needs of all students. Rich parents have always had the ability to choose the best school to meet the needs of each of their children and people at all economic levels should have the same ability. In addition, competition improves public schools. The United States has been prosperous, and the Soviet Union was poor, because we had competition which drives people to do their best, while they were a government monopoly. As they used to say in Poland, ‘We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.’ The same applies in education. Competition causes everyone to do better.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
