Lawmakers voted to abolish mask requirements in the state and introduced a bill that would exempt the Utah Capitol and other state-run facilities from the authority and jurisdiction of local health departments.
, sponsored by House Majority Leader Mike Schultz — would have required all switcher locomotives, used for assembling long trains in Salt Lake City and Ogden rail yards, to be powered by either electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. But Schultz withdrew the bill during its Senate hearing this week after receiving commitments from the railroad to re-power some of its Utah-based locomotives with cleaner “Tier 2″ equipment.
And as demographers project Utah’s population to nearly double by 2060, lawmakers passed a bill that would transfer the oversight of major transit projects currently under the Utah Transit Authority to the Utah Department of Transportation., sponsored by state Rep. Kay Christofferson, R-Lehi, allows the state to invest more funds and have more direct oversight of UTA projects that are state-funded. The Senate passed the bill on Thursday, which now waits for Cox’s signature.
The most concerning for those in the field were four bills targeting curriculum and educators’ lesson plans. The measures appear to be an offshoot of the conservative push that has grown across the country in the past year against critical race theory, and all of Utah’s versions came from Republican lawmakers.
Sen. John Johnson, R-Ogden, also proposed two controversial bills, one to punish both K-2 teachers and college professors for talking about controversial topics in the classroom. That was met with immediate pushback in the education community. A second measure would have let parents sue school districts or education officials for any perceived infringement of their rights, namely if a teacher taught something a parent said was disagreeable.
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