The Arizona Technology Council announced its support for Senate passage of the engrossed version of Arizona House of Representatives bills, HB 2766, also known as the Energy Omnibus Act of 2008, as well as HB 2333, HB 2614 and HB 2615. This legislation is designed to create energy efficiency standards for residential and commercial construction, state buildings and schools in order to reduce statewide energy use.
The package also addresses renewable energy goals for public utilities, engine idling and requires a study of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle fuels.
"This legislation is about planning for Arizona's future economic growth with technology and innovation at the core," said Steven Zylstra, president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council. "Passage is critical to ensure that Arizona's technology and innovation assets can continue to grow at a healthy rate and provide a robust job base."
The bill package establishes, as a state goal, increasing energy efficiencies and the development of energy resources that are renewable and emit little to no carbon. Additional measures listed in the bills include energy efficiency goals for schools and state agencies, property tax incentives, appliance standards, engine idling and net metering.
The bill also requires that at least 15 percent of the electricity used by large public power utilities be generated from renewable sources of energy. This provides an innovative way to reduce overall costs and rate increases to Arizona customers, while reducing carbon emissions.
"Fundamentally, this package of bills is about supply and demand for electricity and fuels for Arizona," said Arizona State Representative Lucy Mason, R-District 1, the primary sponsor for the bills. "It is imperative that we show leadership in order to provide the sources of energy that will be needed to meet customer demand and support the state's economy."
New proposed statutes reflect Arizona's aggressive new plan to generate electricity in Arizona from renewable sources, which will encourage new businesses for manufacturing the components, technologies and assemblages for electrical generation plants as well as ancillary businesses to provide services and products.
"Since the primary source of energy Arizona is known for is solar, with over 300 days of sunshine per year on average, we must use what we have," added Mason.
"Arizona has everything to gain from this new package of legislation and nothing to lose. Providing new construction, new high paying manufacturing and engineering jobs rejuvenates our lagging economy, while ensuring utility companies' ability to meet the electrical demands from growth. Instead of sending hundreds of millions of dollars out of state to purchase wind or solar power from Wyoming, New Mexico, or California we will be able to build renewable power plants in Arizona to utilize our sunshine, and we will build these generation plants from Arizona manufactured components."
