Home to the seventh wonder of the world, rolling expanses of forest-covered slopes, the roaring Colorado River, and the beautiful Sonoran Desert, Arizona is truly a special place. Protecting our natural heritage while building up our economy and creating tens of thousands of new jobs should be an imperative for all Arizona leaders.

The nation’s largest nuclear plant, , produces more than 32 million megawatt-hours of carbon-free energy every year right here in the Grand Canyon state. Generating clean, abundant power is a model for the nation and commands energy production throughout the Southwest. In fact, this innovative site has for using surplus electricity to generate clean hydrogen gas, which could be used for powering fuel cell cars and the trucks of tomorrow. 

In his experience leading the Arizona State University College Republicans, Joe Pitts has seen firsthand that acting on environmental issues is not partisan. There is support for clean energy and emission-reducing technologies on both sides of the aisle. Arizonans are uniquely positioned to be national leaders in clean energy and conservation efforts.

For example, Arizona leaders reached across the aisle to pass the , which prepares us for future water shortages and clears the way toward further water conservation. Republican Governor Doug Ducey, President Donald Trump, and Arizona’s Congressional delegation spearheaded the effort, along with the hard work of stakeholders across Arizona. Surprising to many, despite our state’s population explosion over the last few decades, over the same time. For years, Arizonans have come together on important issues like water management, and the trend that we’ve long seen in our state has been reflected on the national level, breaking through partisan gridlock.

My Republican colleagues in Congress–including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy–have expressed support of the efforts in the , a realistic climate plan that pledges to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 through innovation, energy investment, and natural solutions.

We Republicans, both in Congress and on the grassroots level, are acting on conservation, environmental protection, and the reduction of CO2 emissions. Not by burdening business, but by encouraging enterprise. Not through heavy-handed federal mandates, but through free market innovation. Not by embracing socialism, but by stimulating private sector investment and expanding economic freedom.

The United States leads the world in innovation. As tens of thousands of American companies innovate our path to the future, America steadily decreases its carbon output. Here in Arizona, we have seen these innovations in the form of new technology start-ups such as , which produces electric trucks and cars and the of renewable energy use.

Through the adoption of an all-of-the-above approach, including harnessing the power of natural gas–which is –the maintenance of nuclear energy, and carbon sequestration, we can achieve great success in reducing emissions and leading a cleaner world.

Utility companies across our state have announced record investments in new technologies like solar battery storage, which shows the continued growth of clean energy in our state. These investments are possible because private sector innovation continues to crash the cost of new technologies to make them more efficient and cost effective, not because of mandates from Washington.

Furthermore, we must foster a regulatory environment which is conducive to free enterprise and green industry. This includes smart financial incentives such as expanding carbon sequestration tax credits, known as 45Q, that I have championed in the House. This initiative would enhance the value of the credit for critical direct air capture projects, provide stability for investment and expand its availability to more innovators, incentivizing private sector projects to remove more carbon from the atmosphere.

In January, I joined a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to introduce the which creates an economically responsible and technology neutral  credit that will help emerging technologies enter the marketplace, increasing our dominance and competitiveness in the energy sector. And all the way back in early 2019, I introduced the bipartisan , which would put the tracking of air quality into our community members’ hands for monitoring the air we breathe. This would create a faster, healthier, and fairer process to reduce bureaucratic red tape and promote safer air quality.

For young activists like Joe, climate is a pressing issue, and leaders must step up and pursue realistic, actionable policy to reduce our emissions. The solution to our environmental challenges is not bigger government nor more federal control over our everyday lives. It involves stimulating American ingenuity, creating tens of thousands of new jobs, and investing in 21^st century energy infrastructure. As the far left fantasizes about socialist pipe dreams, Republicans are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Let’s work together to reduce emissions, create new, high-skilled jobs, and lead the world in a new century of renewable American energy dominance.

Congressman David Schweikert represents Arizona’s 6th District, Joseph Pitts is the Arizona Director for the American Conservation Coalition and a student at Arizona State University’s Barrett the Honors College.

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Arizona’s engineering masterpiece, the Central Arizona Project (CAP), is celebrating 35 years of delivering Colorado River water to the state’s populous regions. 

The decades-long struggle to get the canal project approved and then built in some of Arizona’s most unforgiving landscape, is legend. But its economic impact cannot be overstated. 

Among the fruits of its labor? The booming Sonoran Corridor megaregion that encompasses metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson. 

“Central Arizona Project is the largest water provider in Arizona. It’s instrumental in bringing over half of Arizona’s entitlement of Colorado into Central and Southern Arizona where, with few exceptions, there’s not a lot of surface water,” General Manager Ted Cooke said during a episode celebrating the anniversary and the amazing feat of construction.  

Since making its first water delivery in 1985 to farmers in the Harquahala Valley Irrigation District west of downtown Phoenix, the winding canal has generated more than $2 trillion for the state’s economy, according to an conducted by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

Today, the canal system’s water deliveries generate approximately $100 billion annually into the state’s economy. 

CAP’s supply of water to its customers in 2017 alone is estimated at annual employment of nearly 1.6 million jobs.

The top five sectors that have benefited most since CAP’s water deliveries began are government, healthcare, real estate and travel, retail and construction, the ASU analysis shows.  

Decades of struggle to get congressional approval 

Prior to CAP, inland farmers had been using precious groundwater, so the ability to use surface water supplies was important not only for them, but for the entire state. The first delivery heralded a new era for water use and sustainability.

Efforts to get the project approved started in the mid 1940s, Cooke said. Arizona finally succeeded in 1968. But not without a cost. It had to agree to hold only “junior” priority rights to the river, meaning it suffers deeper cuts in water supplies than other states when shortages occur.

Engineers from ‘70s and ‘80s ahead of their time 

Finally, in 1973, CAP construction began just outside of Lake Havasu. It took 12 years to build the first 100 miles of the canal system through unforgiving landscape, including drilling through 22 miles of Buckskin Mountain. 

“It meanders — on purpose — over those many miles to take advantage of the terrain,” Cooke said. “Sometimes the canal has to be above the ground and sometimes it has to be below ground with less than 5 inches per minute of decline before it has to be pumped again to take advantage of the natural terrain to get the water to move.

“It’s an engineering marvel that was done in the 1970s and early 1980s. It just boggles the mind.”

Water policy leadership role   

CAP has also been a major player and influencer in water decisions including a leading role in the seven-state-and-Mexico drought contingency plan (DCP) by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Donald Trump last year. 

At the time, the state was facing a water crisis with the mighty river diminishing under the heat of a 19-year drought, the longest in Arizona recorded history. 

The legally-binding DCP requires water holders like CAP to cut back on water supplies and store up water in the river’s two main holding “tanks,” Lake Mead and Lake Powell. 

CAP and its governing board, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District, contributed leadership, funding and expertise to push the legislation through. 

Cooke and Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke, co-led the wieldy, often contentious, 40-member statewide steering committee of competing water interests that was charged with negotiating Arizona’s piece of the DCP.

With the DCP in place, a water crisis for the Southwest was averted. Now, state leaders are starting to prepare for the next DCP in 2026, and to find other ways to shore up water for the future. To view more about this engineering marvel, go to:

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