The Lewis and Roca Renewable Energy Blog

The Arizona Legislature adjourned last week without a Senate floor vote on Rep. Lesko's (R-Glendale) controversial House Bill 2789.  This bill, as amended in the Senate, would have prohibited the State from increasing its existing renewable energy standard, which was adopted by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) in 2006.  HB 2789 was actively opposed by Arizona's renewable energy industry and was unconstitutional in the opinions of both the ACC's legal division and Legislative Council. read more

            Arizona businesses have a new tool to assist their environmental compliance efforts.  On April 12, with the signing of House Bill 2199, Arizona joined over twenty other states by enacting an evidentiary privilege for environmental audits. 

 

            The new law provides an incentive for regulated businesses to investigate and correct any environmental noncompliance issues they may have. 

           

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The Pew Charitable Trusts released a report last week analyzing the worldwide clean energy economy in 2011 with a particular focus on investment levels in G-20 countries.  The report is titled Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race? 2011 Edition and is based on data gathered by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a market research firm focused on renewable energy.  The report found that worldwide clean energy investment rose 6.5% in 2011 to a record $263 billion, resulting in the deployment of 83.5 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity.  With a 42% increase in its investment in renewable energy, the U.S. regained the top spot with $48.1 billion of investment in 2011.  The U.S. ranked third in 2010 behind both China and Germany. read more

Rep. Lesko's (R-Glendale) energy bill -- HB 2789 -- was passed yesterday by the Government Reform Committee of the Arizona Senate.  The bill was subject to a "strike everything" amendment that replaced the version of the bill that passed the House with the following single sentence: "A Public Service Corporation shall not be required to meet a renewable energy standard that is greater than the standards required in any rules in effect on January 1, 2012."  The change was presumably made to address concerns about the bill's constitutionality after both the ACC's top attorney and the legislature's own legal counsel concluded that the House version was unconstitutional.  However, this sentence seems to have the same constitutional problems as the full version. read more

The Arizona House of Representatives voted today to pass Rep. Lesko's HB 2789.  This is the bill that would require the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) to get legislative approval of "all rules or amendments to existing rules ... concerning public service corporations that are policy decisions, including rules mandating the use of specific sources of energy or imposing or increasing energy efficiency standards or renewable energy standards."  Both the ACC's legal counsel and the Legislative Council have concluded that the bill is unconstitutional (see our prior blogs here and here). read more

Earlier today, the Rules Committee of the Arizona House of Representatives passed Rep. Lesko's (R-Glendale) HB 2789 despite an opinion issued by the Arizona Legislative Council on Monday concluding that the bill is unconstitutional.   The Council's reasoning mirrored a similar analysis issued last week by the Corporation Commission's counsel, as we blogged about here.  In short, the Council concluded that the bill would violate the separation of powers clause of the state constitution and infringe on the Corporation Commission's constitutionally granted powers. read more