One chamber in the Arizona Legislature is taking action over environmental issues with abandoned mines.
Last week week, the Arizona House of Representatives approved three pieces of legislation with the purpose of “ensuring accountability and environmental responsibility when dealing with hazardous and abandoned mine sites.” The bills were HB 2127, HB 2128, and HCM 2007. According to the press release announcing the bills’ progress in the state legislature, the three proposals were introduced as “a direct response to a troubling situation in Yavapai County involving the Senator Mine, where a Chinese-owned company abandoned its operations after causing widespread public safety risks.”
The bills were all sponsored by State Representative Selina Bliss. In a statement accompanying the press release, Bliss said, “We cannot allow foreign entities and bad actors to exploit our natural resources, and violate our laws, only to skip town while Arizonans are left holding the bag. These bills ensure that Arizona communities aren’t left vulnerable to environmental hazards, while also giving good actors an opportunity to earn support in our local communities. I’m proud to see them pass the House, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support them.”
Bliss added, “Right now, there are groups willing to step up and help clean Arizona’s environmental messes, but they’re afraid of being saddled with liability for problems they didn’t cause. These measures fix that. They open the door for more voluntary remediation, allowing experts to restore these sites without fear of legal repercussions. This is a win for Arizona’s environment and our economy.”
HB 2127 would “establish clear notification requirements when regulated entities seek to sell their contaminated properties to third parties in order to avoid pending litigation, ensuring that buyers, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), and the State Mine Inspector are aware of the potential sale.”
HB 2128 would “expand Arizona’s existing Prospective Purchaser Agreement program to allow responsible third parties – such as environmental organizations and reputable mining companies – to clean up contaminated sites without being held liable for the damage caused by previous bad actors.
HCM 2007 “is a legislative memorial that urges state officials to take advantage of the newly established Good Samaritan Act, created under federal law. The program works in tandem with HB 2128 to enable nonprofit groups and private entities to clean up abandoned mines without facing regulatory roadblocks.”
The three bills will now be considered by the State Senate.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
An Arizona legislator is seeking to defend the people of his state from being intimidated by foreign governments.
Last week, the Arizona House of Representatives approved HB 2374. The bill “strengthens penalties for crimes committed by foreign agents, prohibits unauthorized foreign law enforcement activities within the state, [and] directs the Arizona Department of Public Safety to develop a training program to help law enforcement identify and respond to transnational repression.” The bill was sponsored by State Representative Quang Nguyen.
In a statement accompanying the announcement of the bill’s progress, Representative Nguyen said, “I fled communist Vietnam as a child, so I know firsthand the devastating impact of government repression. No one in Arizona – no one in America – should have to live in fear of harassment, intimidation, or assault by foreign agents. This bill sends a clear message: we will not tolerate foreign governments trampling on our freedoms. House Republicans are committed to safeguarding individual rights, and HB 2374 ensures that our laws stand firm against those who seek to silence and threaten people on American soil.”
According to the press release by the Arizona House Republicans, the bill will “address a disturbing reality – foreign governments, particularly the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), have used intimidation and coercion to silence dissidents, students, and activists living in the U.S. In one of the most well-documented cases, Chinese secret police established illegal operations in New York City to monitor and harass expatriates. Arizona is not immune to this threat. HB 2374 ensures that law enforcement is equipped to recognize these crimes and take action to protect victims.”
The proposal, if enacted into law, would “strengthen public safety by increasing felony classifications for crimes such as stalking, harassment, assault, and threats when committed by foreign agents to coerce or retaliate against individuals for exercising their First Amendment rights. It also makes it a Class 2 felony for unauthorized foreign law enforcement to operate in Arizona without state or federal approval.”
HB 2374 was passed by the Arizona House with a 35-25 vote. It will now head to the Arizona Senate for consideration.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
During a 12-minute video appearance at the 2025 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Conference held in London, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told the audience that “Net zero by 2050 “is a sinister goal.”
That is a bold statement, especially given that it was delivered to an audience sitting in the United Kingdom, where both major political parties that have traditionally governed the country – the Conservative “Tories” and the far-left Labour Party – have spent the past decade pushing their country to meet its net zero goals as if it were a matter of religious faith. Regardless of the obvious negative economic and social consequences that have been heaped upon UK citizens, and equally obvious futility of the entire effort, leaders of both parties have kept the country on this ruinous path.
As Wright went on to point out, net zero by 2050 is “both unachievable by any practical means, but the aggressive pursuit of it…has not delivered any benefits, but it’s delivered tremendous costs.” This is objectively true, the most painful example being the rapid deindustrialization of the formerly strong British economy and the accompanying rapacious condemnation of thousands of acres of arable lands to become home to huge wind and solar installations.
As Wright points out, “no one’s going to make an energy-intensive product in the United Kingdom anymore.” A clear object lesson in that reality came in September when venerable steelmaker Tata Steel shut down the last existing steelmaking plant in the UK.
Climate zealots in both major parties celebrated that event, but we must ask what there really is to celebrate? Sure, the Labour politicos get to virtue signal about the elimination of X tons of carbon dioxide emissions, but in a global sense, that’s meaningless. The UK still needs steel – the only difference now is that the steel that used to be made by highly-paid workers in domestic mills will now be imported steel made by poverty waged workers in Pakistan, China and other mainly Asian countries.
Meanwhile, the emissions created by making the steel in those other countries with lower environmental regulations will be far larger than from steel that used to be made in the UK. As Wright pointed out at the ARC conference, “This is not energy transition. This is lunacy.”
He isn’t wrong.
On Feb. 13, the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published a report showing that construction of new coal-fired power plants in China reached a ten-year high in 2024. CREA finds that “China approved 66.7 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity in 2024, with approvals picking up in the second half after a slower start to the year.” It all belies the favored narrative on the political left that China is leading the world in converting its power systems to renewables. In reality, the expansion of its coal sector may actually be accelerating again.
That renewed Chinese focus on expanding its coal power fleet is driven in large part by the zealous focus by globalist leaders in the UK and other western countries – Germany is another great example – on deindustrializing their own economies to satisfy their obsession over atmospheric plant food.
The making of steel and other heavy industrial processes requires reliable, affordable power generation that runs 24 hours every day, 7 days every week. Whether politicians like it or not, coal is the fuel that most reliably and consistently meets all those tests.
Thus, if China and other Asian nations are destined to inherit all the heavy industries being killed off by virtue signaling Western nations, they will need many more coal power plants to power them. This really isn’t complicated.
Meanwhile, the UK can no longer manufacture its own steel or myriad other industrial products that are essential to modern human existence. If the Labour government continues its policy of condemning vast swaths of British farmland to house more and more wind and solar sites, the kingdom will soon no longer be able to even feed its people.
All to satisfy this odd religious dogma based on an obsession over plant food. Lunacy, indeed.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
On Friday, Arizona Congressman Abe Hamadeh took up the charge begun by Senator Jim Banks during his time as a Representative when he asked why China Daily, a newspaper owned and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party, is delivered routinely to House and Senate offices throughout the Capitol. Hamadeh, along with 14 Republican cosponsors, has introduced House Resolution 110, which if passed in the House, would prohibit the publication from being distributed in House offices. In a press release, Hamadeh’s office explained that the measure “ensures that foreign adversaries cannot use taxpayer-funded government buildings to push propaganda under the guise of news.”
Hamadeh said in a statement, “The halls of Congress should never serve as a platform for foreign propaganda, especially from a hostile regime like the Chinese Communist Party. For years, China Daily and other CCP-backed publications have been distributed freely in House offices, giving the CCP an unchecked pipeline into our institutions. That ends now. No more free passes for the CCP in the People’s House.”
In a corresponding post to X, Hamadeh’s staff expressed his exasperation writing, “China Daily News just showed up again at our office. It takes only a few minutes of research to learn this is CCP-funded propaganda.”
China Daily News just showed up again at our office.
It takes only a few minutes of research to learn this is CCP-funded propaganda.
This has no business being disseminated in the halls of Congress, especially on the tax-payer dime.
— Office of Congressman Abe Hamadeh (@RepAbeHamadeh) February 7, 2025
“Standing up to the CCP’s influence operations is a bipartisan national security priority,” Hamadeh added in the statement. “I’m grateful to my colleagues who are joining this effort to close an open door the CCP should have never had in the first place.”
Speaking with Jan Jekielek, Senior Editor of the Epoch Times, Hamadeh emphasized the absurdity of Chinese propaganda being permitted in the halls of Congress. He suggested that the China Daily matter would be the equivalent of the Chinese Communist Party allowing Voice of America to be distributed in the Chinese National People’s Congress.
He stressed, “What does that say about us as a government? Can you imagine us putting our propaganda like Voice of America into the Communist Chinese? They would never tolerate that. And they don’t tolerate it. And yet here we are tolerating that the Communist Chinese are able influence and infiltrate in that aspect.”
As a former Intelligence Officer, Congressman Hamadeh was trained never to underestimate your enemy. If you do that, it's game over.
You have to be constantly on guard about what our adversaries are up to, and that's why the Representative is dedicated to securing the border… pic.twitter.com/PG05dGr6mZ
— Office of Congressman Abe Hamadeh (@RepAbeHamadeh) February 7, 2025
In February 2020, thirty-five Republican U.S. Senators and Congressmen penned a letter to then-Attorney General William Barr calling on him to “clamp down on Chinese propaganda,” asking that China Daily be investigated and labeled as a foreign agent, according to the South China Morning Post, a Hong-Kong based publication critical of the CCP,
“China Daily’s important role in China’s foreign disinformation campaign warrants a full-fledged investigation,” they wrote in the 2020 letter, launched by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Banks which was co-signed by seven GOP senators and 26 representatives.
“We cannot allow a foreign dictatorship to use America’s legislative buildings to push their propaganda,” Hamadeh concluded in his statement. “Congress must take a firm stand against the CCP’s disinformation campaigns. This is about protecting our institutions, our national security, and the integrity of the People’s House.”
The resolution is cosponsored by fellow freshman Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) as well as, Reps. Eric Burlison (R-MO), Lance Gooden (R-TX), Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), Darrell Issa (R-FL), Darrin LaHood (R-IL), Troy Nehls (R-TX), Burgess Owens (R-UT), Derek Schmidt (R-KS), Greg Steube (R-FL), Dave Taylor (R-OH), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Rob Wittman (R-VA), Randy Weber (R-TX) .
China Daily was emailed for comment, however no response was received by time of publication.
The federal government owns multiple trillions of dollars of federal assets — from land, to buildings, to patent rights, to mineral rights, to immigrant visas, to oil fields to trucks and trains and unused office furniture equipment.
The government could earn well more than $1 trillion and perhaps as much as $10 trillion by selling off these assets that are simply hoarded (figuratively) in the dark and dusty basement of government buildings. These assets could then generate added annual tax receipts once they are utilized for productive purposes.
I’m not talking about selling the Washington Monument or Yellowstone National Park. The sales could and in most cases should be limited to American citizens and American businesses.
I’m referring to NON-environmentally sensitive properties that could be put to use growing our economy and using the money to retire some of our $35 trillion national debt. The sales could and should in most cases be limited to American citizens or businesses.
It’s a win-win for taxpayers, our children (who will be handed a lower debt obligation) and the U.S. economy.
One of the most valuable assets that should be put on the auction block immediately is tracts along the electro-magnetic spectrum. The spectrum contains the invisible airwaves that power mobile phones, Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies such as 5g communications.
In the past, auctioning spectrum rights to telecommunication firms and tech companies has raised more than $100 billion for the U.S. Treasury.
Congress could raise at least another $100 billion in another round of spectrum auctions. This would sell or lease space that the military doesn’t need and that other agencies of government (such as local police and fire departments) are fine without.
This strategy would help stimulate the economy in two ways. First, as in the past, the revenues raised can offset any real or imagined revenue loss from the imperative of making the Trump tax cuts permanent.
A new report by the economic consulting firm NERA, finds that auctioning 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum that’s licensed for 5G will boost U.S. GDP by more than $260 billion, and create 1.5 million new jobs
On at least four previous occasions, Congress has used dollars raised from spectrum auctions to offset tax cuts in reconciliation packages. That’s exactly what they should do again.
“Effectively allocating spectrum to meet the ever-growing need is critical to promoting American innovation and protecting our national security,” Chairman Richard Hudson said yesterday at the first House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing of the new Congress.
He points out correctly that the U.S. government has been conducting spectrum auctions for the past 30 years, and they have a track record of success. They are much fairer than giving bureaucrats the power to decide who gets spectrum, which can lead to allocations that are politically or ideologically motivated, with the result that spectrum would be used inefficiently (or not at all) by beneficiaries.
Auctions are open and transparent, minimizing the risk of shady backroom deals. They ensure that the spectrum goes to those who value it most and can use it most effectively.
Anyone who is concerned about ensuring the uninterrupted connectivity of our electric grid system and our daily Internet connection should be all for these auctions — especially as the world goes wireless and communicates less through cables and more through satellite beams.
This is also critical to maintaining our technology lead against the Chinese communist government. One Chinese news agency reported last July that, “China’s 5G network now covers every city and town in the country, as well as more than 90 percent of its villages.”
We are dangerously lagging behind and without timely spectrum auctions the gap will grow wider.
Auctions of the spectrum and other federal assets will drive progress and prosperity — and raise revenue to pay for tax cuts or retire our debt that is soon to eclipse $40 trillion. What’s not to like about that?
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity. His latest book is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
