Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz said the county should pursue high-paying jobs tied to Arizona’s growing semiconductor industry — but only with firm protections for water, transparency and residents facing rising utility costs.
Speaking at yesterday’s meeting of Democrats of Greater Tucson, Heinz also:
- Defended the county’s opposition to Tucson Electric Power’s proposed 14% rate increase.
- Called for stronger water-conservation policies
- Described renewed efforts to bring passenger rail between Tucson and Phoenix, and eventually to Mexico.
“We can’t just accept” development without scrutiny, Heinz said. “We have to be incredibly careful about anything that’s utilizing a massive amount of resources, especially water.”
Heinz, who represents District 2, said economic development remains a core county responsibility.
County fights 14% TEP rate increase
Heinz focused heavily on TEP’s requested 14% rate increase, which Pima County and Tucson have formally opposed before the Arizona Corporation Commission. As an intervener, the county can file briefs and join hearings; Heinz said it is urging regulators to approve a much smaller increase and protect lower-income customers.
“A 14% rate increase [is] unacceptable,” Heinz said. “It should be something more like 4%, 3%, something much, much lower.”
- January 2021: Arizona regulators approved a 6% TEP residential-rate increase. azag+1
- September 2023: Regulators approved a 10% increase, adding about $11 per month to a typical residential bill. azag+2
- Late 2026: TEP’s current rate proposal projects roughly a 12% increase for the median residential customer, or about $13 per month; it remains subject to Arizona Corporation Commission review and is not yet approved.
Pima County and the city of Tucson have opposed the rate request through formal intervention in the case before the Arizona Corporation Commission.
As an intervener, the county has legal standing to submit filings and participate in hearings. Heinz said the county is urging regulators to approve a far smaller increase and to protect lower-income customers.
The county also wants the case to fix electric metering for low-income mobile-home park residents, where a single master meter often serves an entire property and blocks individual renters from income-based discounts.
“If you have just the one meter for the whole mobile home park of, say, 250 people, none of those folks can apply to get a 20% discount or a 50% discount,” he said.
TEP has proposed discounts — including 20% off for some households below 200% of the federal poverty level — but the Corporation Commission must approve them first.
Semiconductor jobs, water limits
Heinz said southern Arizona is positioning itself to attract chipmakers like Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), which have created more than 14,000 jobs across metro Phoenix. While some chip plants use large amounts of water, Heinz said Pima County is targeting less water-intensive operations.
“Some of these have hundreds of jobs associated with them,” he said. “That is one of the efforts that I’ve been focusing on quite a lot recently.”
Heinz said county officials have worked with economic-development partners in Taiwan, where firms are looking to expand Arizona operations near Phoenix’s growing semiconductor cluster. He said the county wants employers whose workplace and environmental practices match southern Arizona’s priorities, citing Taiwanese firms that emphasized worker retention, on-site child care, health clinics and water-reuse programs.
“They value their people even more, it seems like, than the products,” Heinz said.
Development rules and Project Blue
Heinz said Pima County and the city of Tucson are developing standards for water- and power-intensive projects such as data centers, industrial facilities and large subdivisions, aiming to attract growth that doesn’t overuse limited water supplies.
“The industry knows what’s welcome here and what’s not, and what aligns with our environmental stewardship priorities,” he said.
A key piece of that effort, Heinz said, is pushing for more disclosure before projects move forward. He pointed to the controversy around Project Blue, a proposed data-center development criticized over its potential water and energy use.
“Who’s looking to do a project? What kind? Where, approximately? How much energy or water?” Heinz said. “Those things everyone is owed.”
Clean energy transition
Despite opposing the rate hike, Heinz said TEP has been a constructive partner on clean energy, phasing down coal in favor of natural gas, solar and battery storage. He called natural gas a transitional fuel rather than a permanent solution.
“I don’t love either one,” he said of coal and gas, “but I would prefer that we transition … away from coal, to natural gas.”
He pointed to TEP’s Roadrunner battery-storage site near I-10 on South Rita Road — about 220 megawatts, with another 220 megawatts planned on an adjacent parcel — as a way to stabilize the grid during peak demand.
“Those batteries are getting so, so much more efficient every single year,” Heinz said.
Water overuse by agriculture
Heinz warned that Central Arizona Project (CAP) water allocations are shrinking. That’s, I suspect, going to get worse probably every year or every couple of years until we finally don’t get any,” he said.
He said state policy must more aggressively address agricultural water use, which accounts for roughly 72% of Arizona’s water consumption, compared with 20–22% for residential use and 6–8% for industrial use. Pima County has called for an end to wasteful irrigation practiced merely to preserve water rights, and Heinz said farmers would need public assistance to shift to more efficient systems.
“We cannot allow that given what’s going on with CAP,” he said. “There are federal funds to help with this, to convert to a much more efficient way.”
Passenger rail ambitions
Heinz closed by saying he’s pressing for progress on passenger rail between Tucson and Phoenix, noting Arizona has completed the first of three stages in a federal corridor-identification process, though the next step has stalled amid federal reluctance to fund rail projects.
“We’ve been working since 2011 on Phoenix-to-Tucson passenger rail,” he said. “It’s not going to be like bullet-train high speed, but it’s going to be like medium-speed train between Phoenix and Tucson.”
He said a future Tucson-to-Nogales link could connect with rail development in Mexico, including plans linking Hermosillo and Nogales, boosting mobility, trade and regional growth. He said rail will create “the economic explosion, the growth, what it does to the region.”
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