As of 11:55 p.m. on March 1, the 2024 legislative session is in the books! Every session has its own themes and peculiarities, and this year we saw a hybrid of libertarian and conservative sentiment with significant pushback against federal overreach (e.g., SB57, HB409, HB470), contrasted against a clear desire from the legislature to provide more direction to our state agencies (HB373, HB357, HB230). Water continued to be a major focal point, as was a more assertive stance on energy planning with a particular emphasis on ensuring dispatchable, low-cost power. Last year’s record-breaking stats were also put to shame with 1,487 bills requested, 934 numbered and 591 passed, setting new records (those of us who have to read all and track many of these hope that number is not eclipsed next year, but are not holding our breath). Through our cooperation with the Utah Manufacturers Association and Utah Mining Association, UPA held weekly legislative committee meetings where we tracked 182 bills, engaging on many. Not that we are necessarily judging the success of this session based on these stats, but of the 48 bills we took a position of support on, 38 passed (with most of the 10 that didn’t get past the finish line succeeding through both committees but failing to get funding in this tight fiscal year). Of the 10 bills that we were opposed to, eight failed. If you are wondering why we support so many more bills than we oppose, as much as I’m sure our legislative friends would like us to say, it’s because all of their bills are fantastic. The reality is we work hard to educate, advocate and cooperatively improve bills. Our goal is always to try to address the policy challenges so that we can move a bill from oppose to neutral or support. To that end, we provided language for substitutes or amendments that were incorporated in 10 bills. We also worked as a coalition to support appropriation requests to provide DAQ with resources to hire a third-party modeling expert to demonstrate the role of international ozone-forming emissions to the Wasatch Front. UPA also supported the agency funding request for an additional SIP coordinator, as well as added funding for the Endangered Species Mitigation Fund (ESMF), which has a proven track record of downlisting, delisting and avoiding new listings on the endangered species list. Despite this being a “socks and underwear Christmas” as the executive appropriations chair likes to say, we were able to secure all of these budget requests. 7 UPDATE
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