Local Opinion: Prop 412 does nothing for climate change

Combating climate change and its potentially devastating impacts is the seminal issue of our time, especially here in the Old Pueblo. While ensuring Tucson remains a habitable place will take all of us, elected officials and partnering organizations in our community must provide leadership in solving this existential threat.

On April 19, Tucson voters will receive a mail-in ballot to decide the fate of the City of Tucson’s Franchise agreement with Tucson Electric Power (TEP), also known as Proposition (Prop) 412. To ensure climate change is treated as the danger it truly is, Tucsonans should vote NO on Prop 412.

Franchise agreements are important 25-year contracts that dictate how a utility will serve a community. Around the country, progressive municipalities like Boulder, Colorado; Salt Lake City (which is like Tucson); and Minneapolis have used franchise agreement negotiations to push electric utilities like TEP for strong communitywide climate reforms. In negotiating Prop 412, Mayor Regina Romero and the City Council have failed to meet the urgency of the moment by settling for an agreement that benefits the elites at the expense of working Tucsonans, seniors, and other persons with limited incomes.

We are being “nickel and dimed” in the name of climate change, and the Mayor and City Council keep reaching into our pocketbooks as a matter of course.

On March 21, the Mayor and City Council voted unanimously to make the Green Shade Infrastructure Fee permanent to support the Storm to Shade Program. That is in addition to the recently passed Tucson Water fee increase. Each year, city residents will see an increase in their water bills for the next four years at a rate of 5.5%.

TEP is a monopoly utility with annual revenues of more than $1 billion. Instead of gaining important concessions from this mega corporation to help our community solve the climate crisis, Prop 412 will allow TEP to continue to serve Tucson for 25 years without meaningful climate action commitments or financial commitments.

Prop 412 offers only meager contributions to combating climate change through the establishment of a new “Community Resiliency Fee.” This fee is not paid by TEP shareholders, but by everyday Tucsonans in the form of a 0.75% monthly bill increase. This increase comes at a time when TEP is seeking a $14 a month permanent rate hike from the Arizona Corporation Commission and a temporary rate increase for one year to compensate the company for high methane gas costs.

The Community Resiliency Fee will raise approximately $5 million a year and will fund priorities from the recently approved Tucson Climate Action and Adaption Plan. However, during the first 8-10 years of the agreement, only $500,000 each year will go towards needed climate projects, with the remaining $4.5 million going to underground a large electric line for high-income residents in the Sam Hughes neighborhood. Climate action simply cannot take a back seat to aesthetic projects for people who do not bear the brunt of climate change, like our lower-income neighborhoods.

Perhaps most disappointing, Prop 412 does not memorialize commitments from TEP to make our electric grid cleaner, faster. Making matters worse, by agreeing to this franchise, Tucson has given up its ability to pursue a Community Choice Aggregation model or the municipalization of TEP’s facilities which could help deliver real climate action faster.

Climate change is the urgent issue of our time. Because our city leaders have failed to adequately address it in the TEP franchise agreement, I implore all Tucsonans to join me in voting NO on Prop 412.