Committing to preserving the environment, including supporting the use of electric vehicles, is no longer an “optional nicety” for cities, Mayor Greg Stanton said Friday.

In this Aug. 2 interview, Mark Schiavoni, APS vice president for operations, argued that Arizona’s regulated model has worked for more than a century and there is no reason to plunge into the unfamiliar waters of competition. APS spokesman Jim McDonald also sat in for the chat with Arizona Capitol Times reporter Luige del Puerto.

EPA to take its time in review of new plan for Navajo Generating Station

The waiting game has started again for the operators of the Navajo Generating Station.

As summer dawns and temperatures rise, the struggle over Arizona’s solar energy policies promises to heat up in coming months.

The state’s largest utility company is preparing to ask government regulators to change the way a key solar energy incentive is structured.

The Arizona Republican Party recently issued a press release stating that I want to “eliminate 1,000 coal jobs” on Navajo land. That statement is so far removed from reality that it warrants a direct response.

Recently I spoke out in support of a critical effort underway in Arizona: keeping the state’s rooftop solar industry alive. Like school choice and health care choice, solar choice should be a core part of the Arizona agenda, and my party’s message. Unfortunately, utility monopolies in Arizona are trying to limit solar energy choice because more energy independence for Arizonans means smaller utility profits.

More than two years after voters narrowly approved the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, certified patients will be able to buy marijuana from a state-authorized dispensary.

Arizona is taking the first steps to explore a future where energy flows across the state’s southern border and creates a more integrated power grid that bolsters energy markets, strengthens the border region’s energy industry and responds to the abundant solar energy resources of the Southwest.

Arizona households and businesses can cut electricity use by 21 percent and save $7.3 billion by 2020 if utilities ramp up energy-efficiency incentives, a public policy group said Tuesday.

Election seasons are always filled with spin and rhetoric. But important issues for Arizonans are not well-served when that’s too much the case and the facts get lost.