At the Utah Capitol, appropriation subcommittees continued to stay busy as they advanced base budget bills and started to consider appropriation funding requests this week. Additionally, new bills kept flowing out with over 600 bills introduced/filed as of Friday morning. In this update, we’ll share some key appropriations to watch, note a few new bills you should be aware of, and share some highlights from the week. Meanwhile, it’s been an eventful week in Washington D.C. We’ll also share some federal information regarding the proposed and subsequently rescinded federal funding freeze from earlier in the week. 

President Stuart Adams and Speaker Mike Schultz joined WFRC members and partners to share their perspectives on growth and infrastructure issues for the legislative session. Both are former members of WFRC’s Council and long-time partners in our work. 

They both shared the importance of providing multimodal choices when investing in transportation and highlighted the strategic doubletracking of FrontRunner as a critical project to help manage congestion, maintain mobility, and increase access to opportunities. They also shared some of their other infrastructure priorities for this session including energy and water.

Senator Wayne Harper, who is a member of WFRC Council and serves as the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, joined us to discuss several bills he is running that are highlighted below. We also welcomed Representative Ariel Defay, a new Council member of WFRC, who serves as Vice-Chair of the House Transportation Committee. 

We appreciate all of their leadership, partnership, and willingness to share their thoughts with us. We look forward to working with them and the Legislature over the next few weeks to continue making progress for our region and state.

As a reminder, you can stay up to speed on the legislation that has either a direct or indirect impact on the work of WFRC and its partners with our WFRC 2025 Bill Tracker which is updated regularly. The tracker shares summaries, bill status, and WFRC’s positions of “support,” “oppose,” or “neutral.” Those indicated as a high priority in the tracker are those that we’re more presently engaged in or that directly impact WFRC’s work. 

Notable bills include:

• SB195, Transportation Amendments (Harper): This bill, commonly referred to as the “transportation omnibus” includes several changes to various transportation programs. WFRC has prepared a comprehensive summary of SB195 for your review. Notable changes include:
• Requires cities by 2027 to develop a plan to connect roads that dead-end at water conveyances (canals), and then — along with their MPOs — make substantial progress to implement the plan by the end of 2029. If they fail to do so, the bill would require UDOT to withhold and redistribute their motor fuel tax class C road funds, beginning in 2030.
• Clarifies Station Area Planning (SAP) reporting requirements, by requiring the city to report to their MPO in five-year increments after the SAP is certified. The report (which would not need to be approved by the MPO) would share the status of actions in the SAP, and identify potential updates to the implementation plan that would advance the SAP objectives.
• Allows UDOT’s Transportation Investment Funds (TIF) to be used for corridor preservation.
• Shifts responsibility for maintaining certain street lighting systems for state highways from municipalities to UDOT. 

WFRC will work in coordination with our partners at the Utah League of Cities and Towns, Mountainland Association of Governments, and with Senator Harper on the water conveyance element of this bill. We will keep you all updated on the progress made. 

• SB 174, Transportation Governance Amendments (Harper): This bill makes several clarifications to the governance structure of Utah Transit Authority (UTA):
• Refines the allocation of responsibilities among the UTA Board of Trustees, Executive Director, and Local Advisory Council, based on the experience of the last several years since this relatively novel governance structure was established.
• Establishes that Utah Department of Transportation will have oversight for all “fixed guideway” transit capital development projects in the state, rather than only those projects that are state-funded. This includes FrontRunner Commuter Rail, TRAX Light Rail, and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems that use dedicated lanes. The bill allows UDOT to delegate responsibility for project management to UTA and enables the two agencies to work together on a project-by-project basis to determine the optimal approach.

WFRC supports this bill because it reflects a reasonable refinement of the allocation of responsibilities at UTA while reinforcing the partnership with UTA for significant transit capital projects. Most importantly, it reflects the importance of Utah’s transportation partners working together to prioritize multimodal transportation choices. UTA has prepared a comprehensive summary of SB174 for your review. 

The Legislature wrapped its second week of appropriation subcommittee hearings and is likely to finish passing base budget bills today — the funding bills that include a continuation of the core of existing, ongoing state appropriations, which make up over 90% of the budget. They also started to hear requests for new appropriations from various agencies and community entities. We anticipate that they will begin to rank their budget priorities for new appropriations near the end of next week. Once ranked, each subcommittee will send their lists to the Executive Appropriations Committee for further consideration in the final funding bills. 

As a reminder, our WFRC 2025 Appropriations Tracker is up to date with the latest information we have about relevant funding items included in base budget bills, and Requests for Appropriation (RFAs) that will continue to be heard in committees next week.

Earlier this week, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo instructing federal agencies to temporarily pause all activities related to the obligation and disbursement of federal financial assistance and grants. This directive created significant uncertainty across the transportation sector and beyond. However, not long after, the Administration rescinded the pause, allowing federal funding programs to proceed. 

Before the brief funding pause, the White House issued many executive orders (EOs), some of which will impact transportation planning and funding. First, the EO "Unleashing American Energy" directed the cessation of "Green New Deal" activities. Newly confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy then released a memo titled, "Implementation of Executive Orders Addressing Energy, Climate Change, Diversity, and Gender," with directions to USDOT. 

Like many of our transportation partners nationally and in Utah, we are awaiting further guidance and evaluating the exact impacts of these directives. We’ll be sure to share more on this as information becomes available.

Best,



Miranda Jones Cox

Government Affairs Manager