You can be forgiven if, in the political chaos of the last week, you missed the all year. Maybe in a few years.
Yet Senate Bill 1611 — the so-called ag-to-urban bill — on that day with wide bipartisan support.
And somehow, all of this happened while Hobbs and legislative leaders were and careening toward a state government shutdown.
The conflict is rooted in a decision made years ago, when revised models revealed that all the available groundwater in and had already been spoken for.
The state paused issuing certificates of assured water supply, effectively cutting off one of the main avenues that developers had used to build subdivisions in fast-growing areas that are groundwater-dependent, including Queen Creek and Buckeye.
Those certificates essentially and join the Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District, which as its name suggests, finds other water sources to replenish most of the groundwater that its members pump.
The pause touched off an between Republican lawmakers and the governor, who both tried to unilaterally muscle through policy changes that could restart needed housing growth.
The ag-to-urban concept looked like it was on that same track, even a few months ago, with lawmakers touting their legislation and the governor supporting a separate rulemaking process.
Both sides aimed to incentivize housing growth on farmland that many builders had skipped over to build on raw desert.
But disagreements remained on a few key points, including how much...
Global health and hygiene giant Kimberly-Clark Corp. has agreed to pay $4.15 million to settle a long-running False Claims Act lawsuit that accused the company of misrepresenting the protective ca...