A Republican representative in Arizona’s state legislature is challenging the right of the Arizona Corporation Commission to require utilities to add more renewable energy in their portfolio with a bill that would strip them of the responsibility.

The legislation state representative Carl Seel has introduced marks the next step in a campaign mounted by the extremely conservative think tank Goldwater Institute on behalf of several customers of the state's largest utility aimed at overturning the ruling on renewable energy.

The commission passed its Renewable Energy Standard in 2006 which sets a target for utilities to source 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.

In Arizona, as in most states, electric utilities have long been regulated at the state level by public commissions that are semigovernmental bodies, originally set up to oversee the public interest in common goods like water and electricity back in the days of the robber barons.

Originally, the Goldwater Institute filed a suit after the energy standard was made law, in which it lost. The lawsuit questioned the constitutionality of forcing electric utilities like the Arizona Public Service Company to meet certain levels of renewable energy in their portfolio or to levy a tariff through customer bills to help pay for it.

Theoretically, the institute – named after conservative icon Barry Goldwater – would litigate any government management of the economy. However, the group has notably mounted no lawsuits regarding other tariffs imposed by the commission such as paying for new nuclear, natural gas or coal plants.

The Arizona Supreme Court sided with the commission and its right to regulate utilities "in the absence of any legislation" that would challenge that right.

Now, the Republican congressman for Phoenix has come up with that legislation: House Bill 2381 which challenges and removes that right of the commission to mandate renewable energy standards.

Kris Mayes, chairwoman of the commission, was disappointed at the news. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why certain legislators want to kill renewable energy,” she said.

Arizona holds unequalled solar resources. About 87 percent of Arizona voters had given their stamp of approval to renewable power during a poll a poll undertaken by the commission to seek public opinion on the energy standard when it was still being proposed.

In the absence of such legislation, utilities tend to favor traditional, nonrenewable sources of electricity, consequently resulting in states with the unhealthiest electricity in the nation.