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002 Rain Forest

7/7/90 Kromko's bill to prohibit the use of tropical hardwoods in the construction of state buildings made Arizona one of the earliest states to provide this protection for rain forests.

003 Reservation Gaming

3/26/1993 When the legislature passed, and Governor Symington signed, a bill making reservation gaming illegal , it was a severe blow to the hopes of the Indian Nations.

John Kromko started a referendum petition that would prevent the law from going into effect. The necessary 57,000 valid signatures were gathered in a stunning 3-week period as many civic groups joined forces with the tribes.

004 Petitioning

1/3/1989 Kromko started the initiative petitions that led to: the repeal of the state sales tax on food, the AHCCCS health care program, allowing gaming on reservations, the "motor voter" voter registration system, an auto insurance rate rollback, and Arizona's first groundwater pollution law.

After massive insurance company spending, the insurance rate rollback was defeated on the ballot. Several Congressmen introduced a nationwide "motor voter" law which requires government agencies to ask people if they wish to register to vote. John was invited to the White House when President Clinton signed the bill.

006 ENSCO

2/28/1990 In 1989, a company called ENSCO was planning to build a hazardous waste disposal incinerator south of Phoenix. The proposal was gathering mild support around the state and people who lived near the proposed site were strongly in favor because of the jobs that would come to their community.

Then, activists from Greenpeace discovered that the proposed facility was far larger than necessary to handle Arizona's hazardous waste. After investigation, it was discovered that Arizona's waste was only a tiny part of the incinerator's work. The real purpose of the incinerator was to import hazardous waste from California to escape that state's high disposal fees.

Kromko successfully added an amendment to a Superfund bill that made it economically unfeasible to import hazardous waste into Arizona. It was the beginning of the end for the ENSCO project.

007 Water Pollution

As late as 1985, Arizona had no groundwater pollution law at all. After many attempts, the legislature had failed to enact an adequate law so John Kromko wrote a strong law and started a petition to put it on the ballot. After he had collected enough signatures, the legislature passed a similar law; it's the law that Arizona is still using today.

008 Tuition

The Arizona Constitution says that university tuition has to be "as nearly free as possible" and for many years, it was. As late as the early 1970's it was $50.

When the state universities started to increase tuition rapidly, John Kromko sued. It took several years to get to the Arizona Supreme Court which ruled that they were unable to decide what "as nearly free as possible" meant.

They left the door open for another suit in the future.

Environmentalist • John Kromko • Community Activist

"Bright Future" 8 Page News Letter

009 Two Bills Amended

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