Arizona Senate president to meet with Trump administration officials

PHOENIX — Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen is meeting with multiple members of President Trump’s cabinet in Washington D.C. this week to discuss key issues in Arizona.

Petersen will meet with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to talk about Arizona’s gas prices, air quality and water security.

The Republican leader said Arizona has issues with its gas blend that makes gas more expensive in the Grand Canyon state. He said he’ll also talk to Zeldin about mandates on electric cars.

“We wholeheartedly believe in being good stewards of the environment, but it should make sure that you make the environment better,” Petersen told KTAR News 92.3 FM.

“You shouldn’t have a regulation that doesn’t help the environment at all (and) all it does is styme a business, so what we’re looking for are common sense regulations that protect the environment but allow businesses to be prosperous and allow us to have affordable gas, affordable homes (and) affordable cars. Everywhere you look at it, these regulations have been impacting us from top to bottom.”

Arizona senate president to also meet with U.S. Attorney General

In addition, Petersen will also meet with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss litigation and illegal immigration issues in Arizona.

Petersen said there are “at least 50 lawsuits” that he can talk to Bondi about.

“I think the goal is for us to discuss a lot of these really substantive issues that are affecting Arizona,” Petersen said.

“I’ve found, as I’ve been down here at the legislature, whenever we have a problem that can’t be fixed, when I get to the root of it, it’s usually a court ruling, a court case, a bad court ruling or it’s some kind of federal regulation. So we have lots of federal regulations, we have litigation that we’ve dealt with.

“We want to be able to talk about the many federal regulations that are preventing Arizona from being prosperous and progressing and seeing how we can work with them to unwind some of those things,” he added.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Heidi Hommel contributed to this report.

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