Arizona House Republicans are working to protect the sovereignty of state lands.
On Tuesday, the Arizona State House of Representatives Republican Caucus announced that a handful of its members had “introduced measures to push back against Democrat President Joe Biden’s abuse of power and control over lands in Arizona.”
House Concurrent Memorial 2007, sponsored by House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci. The legislation “urges the President to repeal the recent designation of the Grand Canyon Footprints National Monument in Northern Arizona and oppose any such designation in the state of Arizona in the future.”
Biasiucci said, “If allowed to stand (Biden’s Grand Canyon Footprints National Monument), it will forever close this area to new uranium production and will continue America’s reliance on uranium supplied from foreign nations.”
House Concurrent Memorial 2005, sponsored by Representative Austin Smith. The legislation would “push back against President Biden’s ‘30×30’ agenda, which seeks to take 30 percent of all federal lands out of economic production (such as mining, energy, and agriculture) and, thereby, reduce our ability to provide for national food security and energy and mineral independence.”
Smith said, “The federal government is the largest landowner in the United States, controlling almost one-third of the entire land in the country. Over 90 percent of this land is in Western States. Under the equal footing doctrine of the U.S. Constitution, this land should have been given to their respective Western States upon statehood.”
House Concurrent Memorial 2008, sponsored by Representative John Gillette. The legislation “calls for the Antiquities Act of 1906 to be repealed or amended to reaffirm that entire landscapes, animate life, such as birds and mammals, and common plants and vegetation are not considered ‘landmarks, structures, or objects’ under federal law.”
Gillette said, “The Act, which was intended to preserve only historic landmarks, structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest, has been repeatedly misused to set aside vast parcels of real property.”
House Concurrent Memorial 2006, sponsored by Representative Gail Griffin. The legislation would “call for Congress to enact legislation that requires the express authorization of Congress, the state, and each county affected before any additional federal land grabs may be declared in Arizona.”
Griffin said, “The intrusion and overreach of the federal government, including President Biden’s economically harmful 30×30 initiative, pose the greatest threat to Arizona’s lands, further preventing the state from deciding what is best for its citizens.”
House Concurrent Memorial 2004, sponsored by Representative Austin Smith. The legislation would “urge Congress to promptly enact legislation requiring the federal government to give to an affected state or county one acre of federal land for every acre the federal government removes or withdraws from the respective state or county.”
Smith said, “Imposing federal preservation management on Arizona lands obstructs our state’s land management objectives and reduces rural communities’ ability to provide local public services. Arizona has been damaged by the inordinate cost and substantial uncertainty regarding the national government’s infringement on Arizona’s sovereign control of federally controlled lands within its borders.”
The measures from the Arizona lawmakers follow a similar legal fight from Senate President and House Speaker Warren Petersen last fall, when they filed an amicus curiae in the case of Garfield County v. Biden. The case, led by Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, involves President Joe Biden’s “unilateral move in 2021 of declaring more than 3 million acres of land in the southern part of the state now representing two ‘national monuments.’” Arizona’s leaders are supporting the State of Utah’s position that the president’s action here violates the Antiquities Act. After a District Court Judge sided with the White House, Utah appealed the decision, leading to additional briefing.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: President @votewarren Encourages U.S. Court of Appeals to Weigh in on Biden's Abuse of Power with Land Seizures ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/guTO2XYJ4R
At the time of his filing, Petersen said, “It is time for the courts to weigh in and stop this federal corruption. Joe Biden’s unlawful maneuvers in both Utah and Arizona promise to wreak havoc on our local economies, the livelihoods of our citizens, and our national security. His end goal is to pander to radical environmentalists by ending mining, ranching and other local uses of federal lands. This has nothing to do with protecting actual artifacts.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero told President Joe Biden earlier this week that her plan to plant one million trees in the city by 2030 is on track, yet Tucson is falling far short: only about 100,000 have been planted as of last year.
The initiative, Tucson Million Trees (TMT), would require the city to plant over 128,000 trees annually to reach their goal. Averaging out the number of trees planted since TMT began in 2020, that means the city has only planted about 33,000 trees a year. Should that trend continue, the city will have around 330,000 trees planted by 2030.
“[M]y vision of planting a million trees by 2030 is becoming a reality,” claimed Romero.
I like to say: If you want to get a job done, give it to a mayor.
With some help from our Investing in America agenda, that’s the case for Mayor Romero, whose climate resilient efforts will transform neighborhoods in Tucson. pic.twitter.com/3C0KejvALR
The halted progress in tree-planting has persisted despite the extensive and varied funding sources committed to the initiative, including the $5 million grant issued last September from the USDA for which Romero thanked Biden. That USDA funding came from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The city’s inability to achieve its million-tree goal in a timely manner may have to do with who the city selected to lead the program.
When Romero launched the TMT initiative in April 2020, the city created the new position of “Urban Forestry Program Manager” to oversee it. That position originally paid up to $95,000 annually.
Tucson hired Nicole Gillett for that inaugural role, though it appears that her prior experience didn’t match the listed requirements and preferred qualifications of the program manager’s job description.
Prior to her hiring by the city, Gillett was a conservation advocate for the Tucson Audubon Society from 2017 to 2020. On LinkedIn, Gillett described her conservation advocacy as, mainly, activism for the protections of birds and their habitats.
Prior to that role, Gillett was a graduate student studying community flood resilience in New England — which consisted of small-town flood preparedness and response as well as community outreach — and before that, she earned a BA studying community integration in marine conservation efforts.
According to Tucson’s original job description, the city needed an Urban Forestry Program Manager that could demonstrate experience designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating urban forestry projects, as well as experience leading and managing a major urban forestry or related program. At a minimum, the city required the candidate to have at least three years of “managing complex projects and coordinating experts from different fields.”
As for preferred qualifications, the city asked for candidates with a minimum of five years of experience in “practical tree and plant appraisals,” a minimum of five years of “progressively responsible experience in forestry or a related area,” field experience related to the planting and maintenance of native trees, as well as a minimum of five years of community organizing and/or mobilizing.
The city further considered additional relevant experience to include certification from the International Society of Arboriculture; possession of a Tree Risk Assessment Qualification; experience developing, implementing, and evaluating comprehensive ecological restoration and monitoring plans; experience implementing adaptive management and developing socioecological success indicators for urban forestry projects; experience in the selection and management of trees as part of green stormwater infrastructure features; experience in Green Stormwater Infrastructure and data management related to urban forestry; experience in remote sensing and Green Vegetation Indices; knowledge and experience related to tree diseases and pests; experience with forestry-related public relations, communications, and marketing; and administrative experience related to budget management, procurement, and payments.
Additionally, current city partnerships have fallen short of the manpower needed to make progress on the initiative.
One of the city’s key partners to see TMT through is the nonprofit Tucson Clean & Beautiful. However, that nonprofit hardly makes a dent in the city’s goal.
Tucson Clean & Beautiful told the Arizona Daily Star that they aim to plant about 100 trees weekly, or over 5,000 trees a year. Their efforts, if consistently hitting 100 trees weekly every week for a decade, amount to just five percent of the million-tree goal.
‘The nonprofit also receives funding from other entities and corporations, including Target, Bank of America, the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, Republic Services, Southwest Gas, Circle K, Coca-Cola, Qwest, and REI.
Gillett’s former employer, Tucson Audubon Society, also received a portion of the $5 million federal grant to assist TMT, along with the Iskashitaa Refugee Network, Sonora Environmental Research Institute, and Watershed Management Group.
TMT is part of the city’s Climate Action program, which includes the expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure and usage, expansion of solar energy usage, establishment of Green Stormwater Infrastructure on public property, refurbishing buildings to be more energy efficient and climate resilient, and coordination of public cleanups.
TMT targets mainly poorer areas using a “Tree Equity Score” based on one by American Forests.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona legislative Republicans are again standing with state attorneys general over an issue of national importance.
This week, both the Arizona State House and Senate Republican Caucuses announced that Speaker Ben Toma and President Warren Petersen had joined a letter to President Joe Biden, “urging (the administration) to either enforce our immigration laws and protect our southern border or get out of the way so Texas can.”
🚨 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Arizona Senate Republicans Stand in Solidarity with Texas' Efforts to Defend Itself Against Biden's Border Invasion@votewarren@ShawnnaLMBolick@AZSenatorShamp ⬇️⬇️⬇️
The letter to the White House follows an escalating disagreement between Texas state officials and the Biden Administration over enforcement of laws and allocation of resources pertaining to illegal immigration into that state. Both sides are looking to the Supreme Court of the United States to adjudicate this politically volatile dispute.
“Arizona is overwhelmed from the same dangers brought on by this invasion as Texas. Biden is literally dismantling our nation as we know it, allowing known terrorists and criminals to enter through our southern border with no consequences,” said President Petersen. “Since our Attorney General is not pushing back against the lawlessness Biden is promoting by working to destroy the border barriers Governor Abbott has built, the Legislature must speak out and stand in solidarity to support our neighbors.”
“Texas has every right to defend itself from the unprecedented flow of illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and countless threats at our southern border because of President Biden’s willful refusal to protect this nation,” said Speaker Ben Toma. “I stand with Governor Abbott and call on Governor Hobbs to follow his lead and invoke Arizona’s constitutional right to defend itself.”
“Texas has every right to defend itself from the unprecedented flow of illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and countless threats at our southern… pic.twitter.com/NP13xTfWzg
The letter that Petersen and Toma co-signed was led by the States of Iowa and Utah and joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
In their letter, the attorneys general and legislators write, “The federal government should be working to stop this crisis, but it is not. And the Constitution’s Guarantee Clause requires that the federal government do so. It must ‘protect each [State] against invasion.’ But it has abandoned its duty. Nothing in the Constitution stops Texas from stepping up and doing its part to protect itself, and in so doing also protecting States across the country. To those that contend this power belongs only in Congress, they should take that up with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who stands with Texas. By following the Constitution, Texas is doing what the federal government has failed to do.”
Over the past few months, the two Republican legislative leaders have signaled a more aggressive shift in taking the reins from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to defend the law and Constitution. Attorneys general are not usually joined by outside parties on their amicus briefs or letters, yet multiple coalitions of Republican state prosecutors have included Petersen and Toma on several major filings. In previews for the 2024 legislative session, both the House and Senate Majority Caucuses indicated more of these efforts are to be expected throughout this year.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
For the past thirty years or so the left has invented a narrative that there are two Americas. A group of very super-rich people (the one percenters) who have prospered over the past several decades, and everyone else who has gotten poorer. It’s a fairy tale narrative because almost all Americans have seen financial progress. The median household income adjusted for inflation rose by more than 40% since 1984.
Prosperity isn’t an “us versus them” zero-sum game. A rising tide really does lift all boats.
But there really are Two Americas today. First, there are the cultural and over-educated snobs – the kind of people who religiously read the New York Times, drive EVs, wear Harvard or Yale sweaters, and have never even heard of NASCAR or eaten at Popeyes or ridden a John Deere tractor.
And then there is normal main street America. The snobs thumb their collective noses at the unrefined working-class Americans. The elites believe they are intellectually, culturally, and morally superior to the working class and rural America. You won’t see too many elites at a Trump rally with 30,000 people.
A group I helped found, the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, just published a study entitled “Them Vs. U.S.” examining how America’s cultural elites (defined as at least one postgraduate degree, $150,000+ annual income, high-density urban residence, and attended an Ivy League school) are hopelessly out of touch with ordinary Americans. Pollster Scott Rasmussen did the research.
Here are some of the key jaw-dropping revelations from the survey:
Financial Well-being: Nearly three-quarters of the elites surveyed, believe they are better off now financially than they were when Joe Biden entered the White House. Less than 20% of ordinary Americans feel the same way.
Individual Freedom: Elites are three times more likely than all Americans to say there is too much individual freedom in the country. Astonishingly, almost half of the elites and almost six-of-ten ivy leaguers say there is too much freedom.
Climate Change: An astonishing 72% of the Elites – including 81% of the Elites who graduated from the top universities – favor banning gas cars. And majorities of elites would ban gas stoves, non-essential air travel, SUVs, and private air conditioning. That means no air travel with the kids to Disney World.
Education: Most elites think that teachers unions and school administrators should control the agenda of schools. Most mainstream Americans think that parents should make these decisions.
Oh, and about three-quarters of these cultural elites are Biden supporters. Surprised?
The Grand Canyon-sized divide between the elites in America and ordinary Americans is so profound that it is as if they live in two different countries. Silicon Valley, Manhattan, and Washington, D.C. have become bubbles that have lost contact with everyday Americans. This explains why the political class – which is a big part of the elite group – is confused by poll numbers showing that voters are feeling financially stressed out. The elites are doing fine, so they believe that everyone is prospering. I suspect that most don’t want radical change in the public schools because their kids attend blue-chip private schools. They are fine with abolishing SUVs because in big cities Americans generally don’t drive those cars – if they drive cars at all.
Crime, illegal immigration, inflation, fentanyl, and factory closings aren’t keeping the elite up at night because in their cocoons they don’t encounter these problems on a daily basis the way so many Americans do today. Not too many main street Americans are losing sleep about climate change or LGBTQ issues.
The elites in America tend to work in the “talking professions” – university professors, journalists, lawyers, actors, and lobbyists. They keep talking and normal Americans are more than ever not listening to them.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, and chief economist with FreedomWorks.
The Iranian mullahs must be thrilled at the progress they are making on obtaining nuclear capability. It represents the realization of their millennia-old ambition to turn the world into an Islamic caliphate. The world should be thoroughly alarmed.
The West seemingly insists on not paying much attention, but observant Muslims, which is most of them, make no bones about it. It is a tenet of the faith that eventually all non-Muslims will convert, die, or live in subjugation to Muslims. It is the duty of all faithful Muslims to devote their life to jihad, i.e. striving to bring about that day when sharia law rules the world.
Islam’s lack of success so far is mostly because they lack the infrastructure necessary to support such a sustained, massive effort. Like the Soviet communists, their ideology creates the economic conditions which make it difficult to advance their cause. The mullahs blame us, chanting “Death to America” and meaning it.
Until now, nations that have attained nuclear capability, starting with the United States, have at least to some degree recognized the awesome responsibility of having weapons so massively destructive that their deployment could set off a conflagration ending civilization as we know it. The greatest threat ever may be that fanatical Muslims, who have no respect for human life or even their own people, and who despise the values of Western civilization, will obtain nuclear capability.
So, faced with such obvious mortal danger, America’s leaders are doing everything they can to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, right? Almost unbelievably, President Biden is still working to relax enforcement of sanctions and to provide enabling funds to Iran.
This glaring error goes back to 2015 and Barack Obama’s belief that a policy of appeasement, rather than confrontation, was the best way to make an ally of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. For Obama and his advisors, negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the “nuclear deal”) was also the way to right our past injustices to Iran.
“I do think you have to have the capacity to put yourself occasionally in their shoes,” Obama said, always willing to stick up for Muslims while deeming America just another nation with nothing especially remarkable about it.
Obama’s plan to produce an equilibrium of forces and thus stability in the Middle East by increasing Iran’s access to resources and its standing in the Middle East was an unqualified failure. Lifting sanctions, terminating Justice Department operations against Iran, and requiring the Defense Department to work cooperatively with a sworn enemy craving nuclear capability predictably produced the opposite – more terrorism, more nuclear development, and more hostility to the U.S.
Still, the American Left offered yet more support for Iran despite the fact that under the nuclear deal we moved ever closer to facing a belligerent, nuclear armed, and irrational enemy. Reversing Trump was all that mattered.
In 2022, Iran faced severe internal disruption due to its brutal treatment of women under sharia law. But instead of supporting the uprising or even letting it play out, the White House offered sanctions relief to prop up Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and slipped a note to Iran’s government to assure them we still supported the nuclear deal.
In 2023, the Obama/Biden team stubbornly continued to do about everything possible to subsidize Iran’s nuclear ambitions including:
releasing $20 billion from the International Monetary Fund.
using a sanctions waiver to allow Iran to move $10 billion out of Iraq.
ending sanctions on oil sales which produce $30 million of annual revenue for Iran.
releasing $6 billion in oil revenue from South Korea.
Even the October 7 massacre and over 100 continued attacks on American military installations didn’t stop Biden from allowing the UN missile embargo on Iran to expire. Plus, just to show there were no hard feelings apparently about attacking our ships in the Red Sea, we granted a waiver to allow Iran to access $10 billion more from Iraq.
Why do our leaders insist on enabling Iran’s nuclear dreams and subsidizing terror? Do they honestly believe we can achieve peace through weakness?
This isn’t partisan bickering. Our bumbler-in-chief has put America in a very dangerous position.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
