Utah lawmakers are debating whether automatic license plate readers, used by law enforcement to catch criminals, violate the privacy rights of Utah citizens. KCPW’s Whittney Evans reports on the ethical questions raised during a legislative committee meeting at the state capitol Wednesday.

Utah lawmakers got their first look at what the Medicaid data breach could potentially cost the state on Wednesday. A legislative committee questioned several people who are working to resolve the issue, and as KCPW’s Jessica Gail reports the dollars are quickly adding up.

About 80 percent of those who are incarcerated in Utah suffer from some sort of addiction and a third of inmates are sex offenders, state corrections officials told Utah lawmakers yesterday. And Mike Haddon, Deputy Director of the Department of Corrections, says since 1982, the incarceration rate has grown by 408 percent. He says typically, the state contracts with county sheriffs for additional beds, but they anticipate the prison system will occupy all of them by 2015. So what does the state do after that?

Utah’s new director of state parks says don’t plan on seeing park closures anytime soon. Fred Hayes, who took over the position at the end of April, spoke to lawmakers at the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment interim committee meeting this morning, saying he will do everything in his power to keep all 43 state parks up and running.

A conservation group is appealing the Utah Division of Water Quality’s preliminary approval of a permit for a tar sands project at a two-day hearing in Salt Lake City. Rob Dubuc, an attorney for Moab-based Living Rivers, made the case against granting a groundwater discharge permit for the PR Springs project in Uintah County this morning.