Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
- Utah's legislative session prioritized electricity ratepayer protection and energy sector challenges.
- Lawmakers addressed data center costs, energy transmission and rural electric cooperative safeguards.
- Key bills focused on nuclear energy, waste disposal and critical mineral supply strategies.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers made protecting existing electricity ratepayers one of their top priorities this past session — especially for rural consumers; they moved to keep the Intermountain Power Plant open and they tackled the use of AI for existing apps and app developers.
Additionally, the lawmakers put in guardrails for above-ground storage tanks for petroleum products, and they assessed a five cent tax per barrel of oil to help local communities pay for road repairs associated with industrial activity.
At a Tuesday webinar hosted by the Utah Petroleum Association, multiple representatives from energy, mining and retail associations detailed some of the bigger impacts that came from a record-breaking session that saw 959 bills introduced.
Rikki Hrenko-Browning, association president, said there were 159 bills those industries tracked, with some coming down to passage in the final minutes of the session.
"Overall, it was a successful session," she said, although there was a lot of wrangling, negotiations and last-minute angst.
Lawmakers moved to amplify energy transmission and put in safeguards for rural electric cooperatives, said Nathan Johnson, executive director of the Utah Rural Electric Cooperatives.
"I think we walked away as unscathed as was possible. I think the issues that we saw and just the underlying kind of political issues were the House and Senate were not fully aligned on how they wanted to deal with the issues of data centers, and so that created some obstacles and challenges for us," Johnson said.
'We've had a lot of success'
Those safeguards were contained in SB132, which deals with large load electricity consumers — those of 100 megawatts or greater — to operate within rules and cost allocations to be developed by the Utah Public Service Commission.
Johnson said a key aspect of the measure deals with data centers that want to access existing electric utility providers and the transmission infrastructure without necessarily paying for those costs.
Another win for industry came from HB378, which establishes a predictable funding source for Endangered Species Act mitigation, which will be the species protection account after the bill takes effect.
"We obviously don't need to preach to the choir here and tell folks how problematic an endangered species listing can be for extractive industries. And so the work of this fund is very, very important, and it's something that, you know, we've had a lot of success over the years as a state," said Brian Somers, president of the Utah Mining Association.
The fund has been inherently troublesome because of its variability, Somers added.
"Over the years, the funding has really gone up and down from year to year based on the budget situation. And where most of these projects are very long term, and they're getting multiple year projects, it's difficult," he said. "It was difficult for us on the advisory committee to really figure out how to allocate funds when one year we would have a couple of million dollars, and maybe if it was a good budget year, we'd get a couple million extra dollars."
Waste disposal
Changes in the bill rope in transmission lines for wind and solar generation, which was contentious for those industries that will face an assessment based on per mile of line of those systems that generate 340,000 volts or more.
HB201 changes how the Public Service Commission evaluates integrated resource planning by PacifiCorp, while SB159 moves the state to be more protective of handling nonhazardous waste by requiring synthetic liners at disposal facilities.
"Those waste disposal facilities are going to be regulated under (the state division) of waste management and radiation control," said Hrenko-Browning.
"This sets out some requirements to ensure that there are synthetic liners or liners with equivalency in terms of transmission of fluids to ensure that we've got cradle to grave protection for those oil and gas wastes that go into these kinds of landfills," she said. "It's done in a way that it's structured over time, so we're not asking folks to immediately close their facilities if they don't meet some of those liner requirements."
Two big bills were attention grabbers this last session — HB70 and HB249.
The latter will establish a nuclear energy consortium as Utah eyes advanced nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors to provide carbon free baseload power. Utah has been one of many states across the country that see nuclear energy as a long-term answer to embrace new energy demands.
Participants pointed out the framework solidified in the bill is in tandem with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox's "Operation Gigawatt" that seeks to double the state's energy production in the next decade.
In the interim, Hrenko-Browning said natural gas will have a large part to play because new coal-fired power plants simply aren't being built anymore.
HB70 preserves the state's ability to protect the assets of Intermountain Power Agency's power plant in Delta, and its attendant infrastructure, so it could produce that energy for Utah for the grid.
The Utah Retail Merchants Association closely tracked SB226, which kept the group's president reaching for antacid pills.
"This bill took several years off my life," said Dave Davis, president and chief legal officer for the retail association.
The bill imposes certain requirements on app developers, which Davis said could deter implementation of those services.
"I think technology is something that is going to touch us all, and we need to make sure we keep a very innovative environment here that isn't stifled by government regulation," he said.
In the end, lawmakers agreed to a delayed implementation date for 2027, which Davis said gives the group another chance at the Legislature in 2026 to work out any bugs.
"If there are problems with the system, then we still have another legislative session that we can come back and hopefully tweak or fix or address any of those concerns that come up," when it comes to liability if a transaction isn't made clear to consumer that they are using AI, he said.
Lawmakers, in a nod to the importance of critical minerals, also passed SJR11, which recognizes the importance of developing a national strategy when it comes to supply chains of these minerals. They also passed a measure to tackle problems associated with the large infrastructure tax credit for mining operations and mineral extraction via SB234.
