Arizona Senate: 'Energy Efficiency' Is UN Plot For One-World-Order

Move over, Tennessee. Not only did Arizona get the same crazy John Birch email forward you did, but theirs has actually passed the Senate, a House committee, and (fingers crossed!) is ready to be heard by the whole Arizona House! To recap, for those who unaccountably missed this exact same goddamn story in Tennessee:  Twenty years ago, under George H.W. Bush, the US signed onto a nice UN sustainability plan called the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, orAgenda 21. Here is where Arizona differs from Tennessee: they have not said (to our knowledge) that Agenda 21 causes forced abortions. Here is where it is the same : they want to defund any programs for clean energy or energy efficiency, because "blackhelicoptersUNplotMicheleBachmanncrazeyesSatan."

Give us the nitty-gritty, AZCentral:  

Arizona "tea party" members are pushing through legislation to quash government-funded efforts to reduce pollution and improve energy efficiency in cities, counties and the state.

Opponents of Senate Bill 1507, sponsored by Sen. Judy Burges, R-Sun City West, say the bill would shut down any government-led environmental initiative, such as Energize Phoenix, a $25 million, stimulus-funded project to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses along the light-rail corridors in central Phoenix.

Critics also say the bill is based on a tea-party conspiracy theory about a 1992 United Nations declaration.

Sen. Judy Burges has been busy, since being appointed to the Arizona Senate just three months ago.

Burges introduced the bill in February through a back door in the legislative process.

Originally, SB 1507 was a bill about "unemployment," but through a strike-everything amendment with the purpose of a "technical correction," Burges proposed substituting it with her measure, which won majority approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor.

Wes Harris, a Phoenix resident and tea-party member, also testified with Burges, repeating theories about the declaration that have been floated among conservative organizations such as the John Birch Society, which refer to the declaration as "Agenda 21."

Harris claimed the declaration "is an attempt to implement a one-world order. It's been going on for 20 years. It has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. It has been snuck around the back door by the Clinton administration."

Harris also said the declaration and its tenets are promoted by a German-based organization, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, which supports green initiatives in cities that pay it a membership fee.

Haha, we mean, OH NO NOT A MEMBERSHIP FEE!

The upshot of all this is that Arizona will never be able to have nice things, and when Phoenix is a ghost town because there is no more oil to run the air-chilling machines, Judy Burges and her crazy friend can feel very good about having taken a stand against the terrible plot that is solar power in a desert. Your editrix was once at an Eagle Forum convention (jealous?), and a lady panelist said, exact quote, "When I think of the environment, I think of trees falling on our children, whatever ..." and then she trailed off into pin-pupiled silence. So the Arizona state Senate is basically that lady plus 29 or so more of her. Kill the environment! For the children. 

[ AZCentral, via ThinkProgress ]