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A year ago, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Flagstaff, was a dentist whose only government experience was as vice-chair of the American Dental Association’s lobbying arm.

But that was before he unseated Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff, in November. Before 20-hour days juggling committee hearings, constituent meetings and floor votes, while trying to keep up to date on issues.

The U.S. Forest Service told a Senate panel Wednesday that work has already begun on recovery of forestland burned by the Wallow Fire, ahead of a bill that would require that action.

A proposal to reverse a federal ban on new mining claims near the Grand Canyon survived a committee vote Tuesday and could go to the full House as early as next week.

Rep. Paul Gosar’s office confirmed Saturday the resignation of a staffer, one day after a Washington newspaper reported an aide in the Flagstaff office had posted violent and off-color Twitter messages.

A federal court Tuesday ordered a new trial for a Parker, Ariz., man accused of assaulting and seriously injuring his girlfriend at their home on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation in 2008.

Recreation on federal lands last year supported more than 8,000 jobs in Arizona’s rural communities, the fourth-highest in the nation, according to an Interior Department report released Wednesday.

Construction should begin within a month on a “waterless” 700-megawatt solar power project in Maricopa County that won a $359.1 million conditional loan guarantee this week from the Department of Energy.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission report said more employees at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station need regular training on the plant’s Severe Accident Mitigation Guidelines, and that training exercises are rare.

Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policies discourage the development of solar projects, an executive for Tempe-based First Solar told congressional lawmakers this week.

This is one of a series of biographical sketches Cronkite News Service is producing about new members of the Arizona State Legislature. Each follows this format and includes a mugshot and video.