I don't know about Bill Richardson's motivation, but our wonderful Arizona Governor had only herself in mind when she declared the emergency. It frees up a million and a half dollars to send to those counties, which will do almost nothing to fix the problem. Janet vetoed several legislative bills that would have solved many of the problems in this state, and the Republicans have been scoring lots of points from that, so she needs to do something that will make it look like she's taking significant action. Basically she's using $1.5 million in our taxpayer dollars to make herself look good.