Saturday, February 15th, 2025

Happy Valentine’s Day to our friends, colleagues, and readers! While members of the WFRC team spent a portion of the week in our Nation’s Capitol attending the National Association of Regional Councils (NARC) conference, and meeting with Utah’s Congressional Delegation, work continued here on Utah’s Capitol Hill during the fourth week of the 2024 General Legislative Session.

State Legislation

The bills keep coming – at the end of week four there are over 800 bills or resolutions introduced – and they’re slowly making their way through the process. Here are a few minor updates on the key bills we’re watching or engaging in:

SB195 Sub#1, Transportation Amendments (Harper): As we’ve shared, WFRC and our partners at ULCT, UDOT, and MAG worked closely with the sponsor to move away from mandating that cities make roadway connections over water conveyances and withholding road funds if they don’t make substantial progress, to an approach that focuses instead on identifying and planning for priority connections, and encouraging the prioritization of various funding resources to make those connections. You can see those changes in our comprehensive summary of SB195.
(This bill unanimously passed out of committee this week. WFRC testified in support.)
HB454, Local Government Fees Amendments (K. Peterson): This bill spells out the parameters by which a municipality could impose a transportation utility fee (TUF), and HB454 allows for a differential rate for certain users, including “house of worship” users that generate use of transportation facilities three or fewer days of the week. It also amends when a public safety utility fee may be imposed.
We’re waiting to see if an additional TUF bill will be released. HB454 will be heard in committee next week. We anticipate Rep. Karen Peterson will join our next weekly legislative update meeting to share more about her bill.
Housing and Land Use Legislation: It was a big week for housing and land use bills, as a number of the key bills were heard in Political Subdivisions Committee this week (note that we cancelled our last Thursday legislative briefing to attend that meeting, but anticipate a housing update at our Feb. 20 meeting). We won’t attempt to summarize all of those bills for you, but highly recommend referencing information from the Utah League of Cities and Towns and tuning into the League’s Legislative Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday (2/18) to get up to speed.
We do want to report on HB37, Utah Housing Amendments (Dunnigan), which was approved unanimously by the House Political Subdivisions Committee this week.
As HB37 was originally introduced, it would have required the Commission on Housing Affordability to identify housing regions and proceed toward developing regional housing plans.
Through dialogue with ULCT, Senior Advisor for Housing Strategy Steve Waldrip, and others, Rep. Dunnigan has modified the bill, to now require GOPB to coordinate the creation of a state housing plan, and “may develop regional housing plans within the state housing plan.” This will enable stakeholders, including AOGs/ MPOs to continue to engage in dialogue about regional approaches to determine the optimal path forward. Note that phase 1 of the State Housing Strategic Plan has already been developed; HB37 would codify the requirement to develop that plan and provide some additional structure.
HB37 says that the state housing plan should "promote a holistic and regional approach to housing;" “enable connected communities and center-based development;” “acknowledge cross-issue policy alignment;” and “maintain a long-range vision;” if those sound familiar, it's because they are already included as ‘guiding principles’ in phase 1 of the state housing plan. And furthermore, they are consistent with and inspired by the Wasatch Choice Vision. WFRC and our partners have been involved in the development of the state housing plan, and look forward to continuing this important work.
The bill also requires the state housing plan to include data and metrics, which are of course essential to good policymaking. It would also modify some of the processes for Moderate Income Housing Plan reporting, and would allow — not force — cities and counties to implement a “density overlay” in a “housing-eligible zone” of their choice. In other words, the bill would give city leaders another tool in their planning toolbelt to zone for certain, higher-density housing types in areas that are already classified for residential use.

Don’t forget about our bill tracker! We work to keep it up-to-date and current throughout the week. If you see something is missing, please let me know. You can also find our partners’ bill trackers below:

Appropriations

Appropriations subcommittees finished their work this week as they prioritized the hundreds of funding requests submitted for consideration. Those prioritized lists are now in the hands of the Executive Appropriations Committee (EAC), where they will receive final prioritization and a determination of funding. EAC will meet over the coming weeks, informed by updated revenue estimates which we anticipate to be finalized next week.

Our appropriations tracker is now up to date with the ranked requests for appropriation (RFA). Notable RFAs in the tracker include UDOT priorities which fared particularly well, however, as we’ve shared before, a majority are reallocations within UDOT’s existing funding, not new General Fund requests that compete against other appropriation requests.

Federal Update

National Association of Regional Councils, Conference of Regions

WFRC and MAG attended the NARC Conference of Regions in Washington D.C. this week to meet with our peers from around the nation and with various policy and administrative professionals, including from the key congressional transportation committees, the National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and more about current events in Federal law and policy. The dialogue and information was particularly timely as the new Administration is proactively advancing their agenda, and coming on the heels of a flurry of executive orders and the federal funding pause that we shared information about in our Jan. 31 Government Affairs Update. The MAG and WFRC team engaged in deliberations regarding strategy and approach to working with the new Administration, developing priorities for the upcoming transportation reauthorization, and collaborating on other key infrastructure and budgetary issues, to make sure that Utah’s needs and priorities are advanced.

(Commissioner Bob Stevenson as NARC Transportation Committee Chair moderating a panel of congressional committee staff)

(WFRC and MAG staff and leadership at the U.S. Capitol Building, and visiting the newly installed statue of Martha Hughes Cannon - with Johnny Cash forlornly being ignored in the background.)

Congress

In addition to the conference, the WFRC and MAG teams met with Members of Utah’s Congressional Delegation to highlight issues of importance to Utah’s communities and the critical need for stability and predictability of federal investment in Utah’s transportation system, and ensuring a focus on Utah’s core transportation priorities, reflected in Utah's Unified Transportation Plan. Notably, the group discussed the next surface transportation authorization bill, which is set to be reauthorized in 2026. Utah has great partners in our delegation, several of which will play key roles in the reauthorizing legislation given their committee assignments on House Transportation and Infrastructure (Owens and Kennedy), Senate Environment and Public Works (Curtis), Senate Commerce (Curtis), and Appropriations (Maloy). We look forward to working with them over the next year to ensure positive outcomes for Utah’s transportation needs and quality of life.

Our Members of Congress also shared about some of the most pressing federal issues they’re currently facing, including federal budget negotiations. The House and Senate Budget Committees are busy at work negotiating budget resolutions. Once passed, those resolutions will allow Congress to begin the “reconciliation” process, which allows budgetary items to be passed under a simple majority vote threshold in the US Senate—which normally requires a 60-vote majority. Republican leaders have said they intend to use budget reconciliation to extend tax cuts, address border security, immigration, and energy permitting issues.

Congress needs to address the looming federal funding deadline on March 14, 2025, and if it does not extend current funding levels or pass an annual spending bill by that date, the Federal Government will shut down. Our Members of Congress expressed their concern that a temporary government shutdown is possible in March, or Congress may opt to pass a continuing resolution to extend current funding levels through the end of the federal fiscal year (FY25) ending in September 2025.

We appreciate our delegation members for their leadership and collaboration. We look forward to working closely with each of them and their offices over the weeks, months, and years ahead as we address Utah’s growth opportunities and challenges.