SALT LAKE CITY — Members of the Utah State Legislature will have summer homework.
A list of items for "study" during interim sessions was approved last week, outlining some big agenda items that could wind up as bills before the full Utah State Legislature next year. Some are revisiting bills that failed to pass in the legislative session, like a bill that sought to unwind Utah's ban on flavored vapes.
"It's 90% of our revenues and right now businesses are closing up shop. We’ve got people who had to layoff employees they’ve had for years. Financially? It’s a catastrophe," said Juan Bravo, a vape shop owner who fought the ban.
He was glad to see the legislature putting the ban up for study, but feared it was coming too late for vape shop owners.
Other items up for study include:
- An examination of rural tourism taxes
- Olympic preparations
- Affordable housing policies
- The cost to build schools
- Energy policies, including more on nuclear power
- Voter ID and voter registration
- Whether a physician should be able to refuse to treat people, in some circumstances
- Use of artificial intelligence in criminal investigations
- Ticket re-sale policies
- Weather geoengineering
House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, told FOX 13 News that infrastructure will remain a top priority for lawmakers.
"We need to continue to build across the state... so that we’re not stuck in traffic, we have a good multi-modal transportation system, so we’ll be continuing to look at that," he said.
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Great Salt Lake dust mitigation is also a study topic. It is a departure from previous approaches of trying to get water into the lake.
"That’s really the number one thing to address dust, but that’ll take time," said Tim Davis, the executive director of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality. "So in the meantime, if there are hotspots for dust, figuring out what information we know, what do we not know and how do we mitigate?"
Federal cuts will also be a topic of study, something supported by House and Senate Republicans and Democrats. But they are looking at it from a different lens. Speaker Schultz said he would like to see Utah manage some of these programs.
"We’re even saying to DOGE, 'Look, we’ll help you. Reduce it by 10, 20%, cut bureaucracy out of it.' These are moneys that are Utah taxpayer dollars that are being sent to Washington DC that we’d just like to keep here in Utah," he said.
Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, said she would like to see the impact of such cuts.
"When it’s a very targeted cut to specific populations that may disproportionately be very low-income, working poor families, younger families with kids, if it’s impacting health care to the most vulnerable populations," she told FOX 13 News. "That’s where we need to make sure we are ready to understand, that’s an impact on our workforce."
Read the full interim study list here:
