Sundareshan and De Los Santos Call for Legislative Action to Combat Climate Change

Appearing at the State Capitol Rose Garden earlier today (January 8, 2025,) with the leader of the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan and Oscar De Los Santos called on the Republican Majority in the Arizona State Legislature to acknowledge the seriousness of climate change and to finally consider legislation, based in part on recommendations from climate activists, to address it at a statewide level.

With local areas like Phoenix consistently recently breaking annual high temperature records with 113 straight days of over 100 degrees (almost a third of the year,) heat related deaths in the hundreds, and global corporate entities hoarding local water supplies, both legislators conveyed the urgency of acting now to combat climate change.

Among the recommendations from the Sierra Club and other activists were securing legislation that would:

• Ask the Legislature to support Governor Hobbs’s Office of Resiliency and development of a statewide climate action plan.
• Enact groundwater regulations to ensure that pumping is not abused.
• Protect the states ecosystem.
• Address environmental injustice and assist communities most hurt by environmental pollution and destruction.
• Protect lands and wildlife.

Speaking first, Democratic House Leader De Los Santos said:

“…You’re going to hear about some great policies today, but I want to kick us off and talk about the root of why we’re here today. And that is because decade after decade after decade greedy corporations have polluted our air, poisoned our water and left working people to pay the price. It’s not just the planet that is at risk. It is our health. It is our jobs and it is our way of life.”

In a desert, we have no resources more valuable and more precious than water. But the greedy corporations are not just using our water. They’re hoarding it. They’re speculating on it. They buy up land and pump our aquifers dry all while working families farmers and rural communities are left to fight for scraps. These corporate giants have no loyalty to Arizona. No allegiance to our people. They are interested in one thing and one thing only. Making their executives and investors richer. 

Let’s get one thing clear. Clean air and access to water are not luxuries. They are basic human rights. Every single child in the state. Every single family in this state deserves the knowledge that they are breathing clean air that will not make them sick and know that their tabs will not once run dry. 

I am calling on the Republican majorities to pass the bills you are hearing today because it is time for a change. It is time to invest in renewable energy. Create good paying green jobs and protect our water for generations to come. We simply cannot allow corporate greed and political corruption to stand in our way.”

Democratic Senate Leader and environmental advocate Sundareshan spoke next and offered:

“…The inability to put into words how I have been feeling these last couple of weeks as we see eighty degree temperatures in December and January that we know is a trend that will only continue as we continue to fail to act to reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate the impact of climate change that we are already experiencing and will only get worse in the face of continuing inaction.”

“I promise that Senate Democrats will stand alongside my House Democratic counterparts to protect clean air, clean water, and our environment against attacks by continued actions by corporations and others who seek to plunder our resources in the face of inaction from Republicans.”

“We will continue to introduce…bills that are needed to protect our environment. To protect the water resources that we have and that we are hearing every day being depleted across Rural Arizona, harming rural residents and small family farms…We must protect these resources if we have any hope of being able to live in Arizona into the future.”

“I call on my Republican counterparts, as a majority in this legislature, to hear the bills in committee that we have introduced. To not just hear them but to pass them. Will this session in 2025 be a departure from prior activities in which Republican Chairs of these committees did not hear a single bill that Democrats have put forward to protect the environment…I challenge the Republicans to prove us wrong. To hear our bills this session and to make progress on our environmental issues.”