Alright. Good afternoon, everybody. So it looks like we've got, commissioner Lopez online, commissioner Marquez Peterson is showing. I do not see commissioner Thompson, but I'm sure he'll be here soon if he's coming. So thank you all for for joining us today. This is hopefully going to be a fairly short meeting. Let's see. So today's staff meeting is, primarily primarily to discuss, consider, and possibly vote on bills, that were introduced at the legislature. As we move through this legislative session, I'd like to have regular staff meetings to discuss the bills,
but I wanna have the meetings primarily focused on, bills that we're ready to to take some kind of action on, whether it be, for signing in for the bill, against the bill, or even directing the deBintas to go, have an outreach to the the sponsor or something. I'm not necessarily looking to have massively long conversations, in in this particular meeting. And what that means is that I'm kind of expecting each of the offices to do their own outreach and do their own due diligence and and talk to the Dementas and talk to staffs, talk talk to legal,
and then we'll make, you know, have the the meeting to have any votes if we choose. And because it's early in the process, we're all probably still doing most of our research, I know I am, on these bills, and I doubt there's gonna be any bills that we need to take any action on today. You know, I I know that I already I already know that I need to follow-up with the Dominguez, the office of general counsel, ACC staff. So, yeah, everybody, basically. That being said, I would like to hand it over to Ryan Domena, to kinda give us his opening comments and and thoughts about the session, whatever whatever he needs to to let us know today.
Still not not hearing you. Seeing your lips move, but no audio. Nope. Sorry. You're you're not muted as far as I can tell. Hey, chairman Myers. This is Leah. Hey. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. So just a quick process question. I noticed we're still doing our research also, certainly, so I totally support your process. But wanted to ask, are our division directors aware of the bills that might impact them, or can we add a way in which they're looped in? Because oftentimes, we're gonna have to rely on their interpretation, I think, of some of these legislative bills. Yeah. I mean, the everybody's going to be looped in,
obviously. But I think the the point that I was trying to make was, you know, if if you have concerns you wanna bring up to them, you know, go talk to them and and we'll all kinda do the same thing and they will, you know, they will disseminate the same information to all of us, separately. If there is a reason to have them on the agenda to to say something publicly, then we can discuss that. But, you know, the fundamental groundwork would all be on our own. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. Mhmm. Mister Dimena. Miss mister chairman, can you hear me now? We can. Thank you. Okay. I think I had some competing Bluetooth devices.
So, mister chairman, madam vice chair, and commissioners, Ryan Dimena, Dimena Public Affairs, we work for you. As you all know, session began last Monday, January 12. Today is the tenth day of the twenty twenty six legislative session. Opening week of the legislative session always kicks off with the, governor's State of the State address. That's the Monday of opening week. Sort of bookended by Friday of opening week, the governor releases her executive budget proposal for the coming fiscal year,
and the, joint legislative budget committee releases its baseline. And I wanna note that the baseline is not actually a budget proposal. It's an estimate of available resources after accounting for statutory spending requirements. So, it's worth noting, that we are on track for an historic number of bills to be introduced. To put that into context very quickly, last session, in total, lawmakers introduced 1,724 bills
and a 130 memorials and resolutions. As of about ninety seconds ago, lawmakers have introduced 1,213 bills along with 79 memorials and resolutions. So, mister chairman, to your point earlier, I know everybody is still sifting through bills, still doing their research, trying to figure out what may require commission engagement, but I think there are two deadlines that I'd like to put on the commission's radar, that being that the deadline to introduce bills in the Arizona State Senate is February
2. The deadline for the house to introduce bills is February 9. And as some of you may have heard me say in the past, it's at that point that we, we know our universe. We know all the bills that are out there. And given, bill introductions to date, I think we can expect a lot more. So with that, that's kind of where we are in the legislative session, mister chair, madam vice chair, and commissioners. Happy to answer any questions, but do wanna reiterate what chairman Myers said at the onset, which is that our door is always open. We're a phone call away,
if any of the individual commissioners that are staff have questions about particular bills or where they may be in the process. Okay. Thank you. And I and, I know prior to this and and last year, we some of us had, like, weekly, or regularly scheduled meetings with your office. Is that something we can continue still? Absolutely, mister chairman. Okay. And you didn't say anything about it, but are you gonna send out, like, weekly email updates for on these bills and like we've done in the past? And, will you be including, I guess, can you or will you include, where those bills are in the process and and some,
you know, initial thoughts, I guess, with that. Absolutely, mister chairman. So and thank you for touching on that. Yes, sir. Every Friday that the legislature is in session, we will be providing to you, your staff, and others at the commission, sort of a weekly update, what were some of the highlights, that occurred at the legislature that week, along with, an updated bill tracking list of all bills that we believe, either directly or indirectly, have an impact on the commission. And that will be updated to reflect, the those pieces of legislation where they are in the process.
So, yeah, that's that's effectively a living document throughout the course of the session. Great. Thank you. So like I said, at the the onset, I'm still very much in the process of going through the bills myself, so I don't have anything that, that we need to discuss today. Do any of my fellow commissioners have any questions? I know we've already had one about the process, but, for for me, for the Dementos, we'll just kinda maybe go down the the list here. Commissioner Marcus Peterson, anything further? Thank you, chairman Myers. No. I think we're we're also just doing our research. I think our question would be, if we all have some other questions,
to the staff, do we need to have a majority vote before we ask the staff to do any research? Or should should if each individual office is doing it? I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what's the most efficient way to tackle some of this. Yeah. I I think, at least in my understanding is if you're just asking questions of staff and they need to go figure it out, that's fine. If we need to give direction to go interact with a legislator or or have the Dementos go interact, that might require a vote for us, to do it as a commission. Okay.
And will we have a standing legislative meeting like this every week or just as needed? I would like to answer yes that we'll have a standing one. But if we don't have any bills that we have, you know, received enough of a consensus on that we need to take action on, there may not be a reason to have this this standing meeting. But also I'm going to to to lean on the Dimenas a little bit to let us know if we need to have that. So, you know, we're gonna try to combine these meetings with either the contingent open meeting or the open meeting.
Maybe do it, like, right after the meeting or something if we do have to have them. So it it won't take up another day in our schedule. It'll it'll use the days that we've already got on the calendar. Okay. Sounds good. Yep. So no further questions from me at this time. Alright. Thank you. Commissioner Thompson? Such a weird thing to say. We heard you. Are you do you have any comments? Guess not. Alright. Vice chair. So I when we have these meetings, I look forward to hearing from our subject matter experts, those in our different divisions too. So I I I know in some of the bills that we looked at last session, our securities division,
our utilities division were really helpful in helping us address where some whether or not some language is problematic or some of the bills would have significant impact to the ACC. So I hope that continues this year. And I think, you know, when we go through this process, that's something we can discuss too is if we want to have someone provide testimony in some of these committee meetings. I think that's definitely worth considering, but it looks like it's gonna be another really, really busy year for everybody. And I, thank Ryan Domena for being on the call and,
look forward to our meetings. Alright. Thank you. Commissioner Lopez? Yep. I'm here. Okay. There we go. Excuse me. Yeah. No. I like the idea of doing a regular meeting. I think I thought I heard maybe, dropped it that it was maybe every two weeks. We could definitely meet regularly, more if we need to, less if, again, there's no movement. I like that idea initially. And then also, yeah, I've set up, some one on ones with, a few legislators to find out what they're planning on running and talk to them about some of the details. And then I think we've got a meeting already set up,
with the Dometic Group to to make sure that we're kinda understanding the intentions. So I like this idea of us, you know, going out, doing our research, and then coming back as a group to to review and, you know, again, socialize it and rationalize it with staff to make sure we they they understand what's being asked and we understand what's being asked so we can provide proper input. So are you so question to, Ryan. Do you do you see a little bit better interaction? Is it because, we have a new chair and you scared them a little more that they're being
a little more compliant and helping and reaching out to us a little more often? Not that Kevin's not scary, but he's just a skinny boy. Mister chairman, madam vice chair, and and, commissioner Lopez, I I think that, I think that we have, over the last couple years that we've been working with the commission, made it a point to, to just to share with lawmakers that we wanna serve as a resource that, when it comes to energy policy and and the policy making that occurs down at 1700 West Washington, that we want that to be a cooperative working relationship. Yes. That continues to be a a message that we share and and and I think
that we're that we are seeing that, start to materialize. Absolutely. Great. Great to hear. Thank you. Alright. Well, short and sweet. Staff, legal, any any input on this at all, or are you good? Chair, vice chair, commissioners, yeah, we're, like everybody else, we're trying to absorb it, the bills and we've already started the process of identifying the ones that we think are relevant to the commission and the other divisions. So we plan to continue that. Great. Thank you. And if there's no more,
I guess that means we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Short and sweet. Short and sweet.