Legislators review session at Bear meeting

Two local legislators related their activities and the activities at the
Utah State Legislature's recent session during the general membership
Business Expansion and Retention meeting on March 16.
Both Senator David Hinkins (Senate District 27) and Representative
Christine Watkins (House District 69) spoke giving the group some insight
into what went on from the middle of January to the first part of March in
the 45 day marathon that is called the General Session.
"This year I ran more bills than I usually do, about 10," said Hinkins. "
Some in the Senate run as many as 40."
He said altogether in the Senate that members ran 280 bills while the House
ran somewhere between 400-500.
He said that while he ran what he thought were some very important bills he
favored the bill allowing some money to go to rural telcom companies to
extend their service into remote areas of the state. Senate Bill 130 helped
to rectify some problems he saw with how the universal service fund is
working in these changing times. The fee is charged to all customers using
telephone service so that it spreads the cost of putting phone availability
into most parts of the country, because remote areas often cannot justify
the cost it takes for a company to install its equipment  and provide
service in those areas.  The idea of a universal service fee originated in
the 1934 Communications Act and was later codified in the 1996
Communications Act. At present the public service commission oversees that
fund. Hinkins said that the diminishing number of land lines has really
affected the fund.
"We did get opposition to it from larger telcom companies and cell
providers," he said. "While there is no universal service charge for cell
to cell calls, once that cell phone ties into a land line the fee must be
paid."
He also said that cell phones are charged as one unit, no matter how many
phones are on any individual plan.
"Without this legislation land line charges would have gone up, but this
way everyone will have to pay something," he explained.
He also ran a bill, Senate Bill 189, that seeks to give property owners
some compensation when companies use their land for extracting gas or oil
from below when the surface owner does not own the actual mineral rights.
The split estate, as it is called, he says often plagues farmers who are
obliged to let extraction industries onto their land and drill wells and
run pumps and lines with no compensation.
"We did run into some problems on this bill because some local officials in
Duchesne and Uintah County thought we were trying to take away their right
to regulate what was going on there," he said. "But once they understood
what we were trying to do they felt better about it."
In some cases the federal government owns the mineral rights and not only
they, but the state and the counties get money out of the situation, while
the landowner sits without any compensation. He said he is working toward
getting Representative Jason Chafetz to run a bill in Congress so some of
the federal money goes to the landowner. He also wants to get the state to
give them some money as well.
In another matter he said there have been concerns about the possibility
the School Institutional Trust Lands Administration could lease land they
have to various kinds of groups, thereby keeping the public off those
parcels. The money from the SITLA lands goes to support schools and was set
aside for that purpose at statehood. The land is public in a sense, and yet
it is in a trust like private land, making it a different kind of animal to
deal with. There is about 3.1 million acres of SITLA land in the state.
"Some time ago we were able to take a portion of the hunting license fees
(about $800k) that kept the leasing from occurring and that led to
continued access to these lands for the public," he said. "However,
SITLA officials
looked at states around Utah and felt that amount of money was not adequate
compared to what other states were paying their agencies. So the
legislature appropriated another $1 million to keep the land open for
public use. The fact is that money goes to schools so that was good. If we
had not done that there probably would have been a big fight."
Both legislators then talked about the town of Wellington, and some
measures that were taken to help it. First of all they were able to get
$150,000 for engineering studies on the Price River to keep it from
flooding like it has twice in the last three years causing some large
damage in the area. On top of that they also worked to get help for
Wellington and other towns that were decimated by legislation from a few
years ago that took away sales tax on mining equipment that was sold within
the towns boundaries. That regulation, while intended to help mining
equipment companies sell more competitively, took away a great deal of tax
base from a number of towns, some of which had used the financial
projections from that money for infrastructure and other long term
obligation projects. A total of $320,000 will be going to the towns that
have been affected. Watkins said that that measure, Senate Bill 165, came
out on the floor not long before the session ended, and she read it to the
House for approval. It passed without one dissenting vote.
Watkins then talked about the workings of the House, which operates
differently from the Senate partly because it is a much bigger body. She
also talked about the compromise that legislators must make if they want to
garner support for legislation they want approved.
"I found myself voting for some measures that I wasn't too crazy about, but
I knew I would need some support from some of those that favored those
bills later," she said.
Watkins sponsored two bills, but while the first was being written by
staff, one of the attorneys working on it told her that another measure
that had passed a few years ago did the same thing but that it had never
really been enforced. The measure specified that recreationalists could buy
a card from the state that worked kind of like an insurance so that if
someone was hurt or lost and search and rescue personnel had to come get
them they would owe nothing for those emergency services.
The other bill she worked on was to help people who had traumatic brain
injuries. The intent of the bill was to issue some kind of identification
to those individuals so they could show it to law enforcement in case they
were questioned about their actions while driving.
"It was to be used to show them that the person is neither on drugs or
drunk," she said. "However, it was more complicated that anticipated and we
just didn't have time to get that all together."
Other things she helped with included getting a new welding building built
on the Uintah Basin College of Technology campus in the Basin and an
extension for five years of the outdoor recreation grant program (which was
where some of the money used to restore the river in Helper came from).
She also talked about some bills to help with wild horse populations and
the damage they are causing to the land and native species, and education
which she said is finally getting some help to bounce back from the great
recession. Hinkins also pointed out that since all income tax in the state
goes to education, anything that digs into that takes money away from
schools.
"I had one lady from Springville call me up and she was mad because we had
decided to cut subsidies (tax credits) to the solar industry," he said.
"Then she started in on me about not putting enough money into education. I
explained to her that if we continued the tax credits for solar that would
hurt education because those subsidies come directly out of the education
fund."
Watkins and Hinkins both talked about how the vehicles on the roads are
changing with more electric vehicles and soon there is the probability of
hydrogen powered semi trucks pulling loads through the state. Hinkins said
that new ways of financing roads may have to be found since so much of the
money to take care of them comes from fuel taxes. Hinkins said the new one
billion dollar bond that the state is going to go with will help take care
of bigger projects along the Wasatch Front and that some of the other money
that will be freed up by that will be used on projects including some on
Highway 6. One project he pointed out that he would like to see is an
overpass that allows drivers to safely get on and off of the highway to
travel Highway 89 south toward Fairview.
One of the committees Watkins is on also heard from a group that was
comprised of college and high school students who had put together a
proposition that they thought the  legislature should pass that would
eliminate the burning of fossil fuels in the state at some point in the
future. The committee voted 5-5 on the measure and she said the students
were very disappointed that it didn't go to the floor. However one of the
legislators on the committee told them that they were young and the way to
solve the problem the see was for them to find a solution to the problem
themselves, and that would change things.
"Overall it was a pretty calm session," Watkins said basing that view on
her previous stints in the legislature a decade ago. "We set a record for
the number of bills filed, but many were pulled before they got very far."