“Because clean air, pure water and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation.”

This statement was released last October — not by an environmental organization, but by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella group of 51 religious denominations.

This message has been lost, however, on right-wing Republicans in the Arizona Legislature who are attempting to wipe out important programs that protect Arizona’s air, land, and water.

They launched their latest attack in their partisan budget sent to Governor Napolitano. This budget showed a disturbing absence and a willful disregard for environmental protections in public policy that are critical to protecting the health and welfare of the citizens of our state.

For example, the Legislature’s budget would eliminate an Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) program to protect our air from harmful pollutants. The ADEQ’s “in-lieu vehicle emissions” program funds several voluntary efforts to reduce harmful emissions in air quality non-attainment areas, such as the voluntary lawn and garden emissions reduction program, voluntary vehicle repair and retrofit program, diesel vehicle low emissions grants, travel reduction ordinance program, voluntary no-drive day program, and other measures to clean up air pollution from vehicle emissions.

Worse, before they abolish this program altogether in 2006, the Legislature wants to redirect $10 million of its funding to the General Fund now.

They aren’t stopping there. Their budget would bring improvements within our state park system to a screeching halt. Specifically, the budget would allow them to appropriate the entire State Parks Enhancement Fund – for projects that make our state parks better – to administrative operating purposes.

Finally, this budget would starve the Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund — to clean up groundwater contamination caused by industrial polluters – by reducing the fund’s budget by 27 per cent.

And that’s just what the Republican-led Legislature’s budget would do.

What the budget wouldn’t do is, in the words of Governor Napolitano, “move Arizona forward” on the frontiers of resource protection.

Meanwhile, the governor is actually trying to improve the environment in Arizona.

Her budget takes a forward-thinking approach to water planning by allocating $1.5 million and 17 new positions at the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) for drought preparation, water conservation, and rural studies.

Furthermore, the governor’s budget would restore the ADWR’s ability to manage important water planning programs by allocating $1.7 million back to the agency. Her budget includes an extra $700,000 for rural water studies to protect these water resources and make sure they are clean and plentiful for rural Arizona. And the governor’s budget includes $1.3 million and 15 positions for ADEQ’s Water Quality Program to protect our drinking water and guard the quality of surface waters and ground waters.

By not providing state agencies with the necessary financial resources to safeguard our land, our water, our health and safety, the Legislature’s budget is diminishing the quality of all of our lives and squandering our natural assets.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the NAE, said, “I don’t think God is going to ask us how he created the earth, but he will ask us what we did with what he created.” It’s time for the Arizona Legislature to get religion. —

Stephanie Sklar is executive director of the Arizona League of Conservation Voters. The League works to elect pro-conservation candidates, educates elected officials on issues of importance to its members and lobbies on behalf of conservation measures. Its Web site is www.azlcv.org