Governor Gary Herbert is trying to stay one step ahead of rising energy costs. Last week, he unveiled a 10-year energy plan that focuses on continuing to expand traditional fossil fuels and renewable resources. But as KCPW’s Jessica Gail reports, the Governor was also not shy about his plans to continue to discuss a nuclear power plant coming to Utah.
Republican Representative Carl Wimmer says lawmakers should repeal HB 477 when they meet for a special session this summer, instead of using that time to amend the controversial open records law. Wimmer supported the bill as it soared through the legislature the first time, but voted against it the second time. The lawmaker admits he didn’t realize the impact that it would have on the state’s Government Records Access and Management Act, or GRAMA.
Construction ceased today on parts of the City Creek development in Downtown Salt Lake City as workers formed a picket line on Main Street to protest low wages and few benefits. KCPW’s Whittney Evans reports.
The debate over HB 477 isn’t over, in fact, it has hardly begun. The controversial new law bars access to all text messages, voicemails, and instant messages sent by elected officials, raises fees, and puts the burden of proof on the public to argue why a record should be made available.
A routine monthly board meeting turned into a spectacle yesterday afternoon at the Salt Lake City Main Library. The focus of the meeting was supposed to be the budget, but as KCPW’s Jessica Gail reports, Library Director Beth Elder was met with a flurry of criticism questioning her leadership of the city library system.
The Salt Lake City Planning Division is proposing to cap the number of parking spots at future developments as part of an effort to get more people to take public transit, ride a bike or carpool to work. Principal Planner Nick Britton says in theory, if there’s less parking, companies have more of an incentive to offer their employees alternative ways of getting to work, like public transit passes or priority parking for carpoolers.
Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz got the chance to put the Transportation Security Administration on the hot seat for its much-criticized full body scans and pat downs at a congressional subcommittee hearing this week. But at first, TSA officials weren’t planning to show up. Every Friday, we talk with Thomas Burr, Washington Correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune and author of Political Cornflakes, a daily, online round-up of Utah politics.
The 2012 election is obviously more than a year away, but Dave Hansen isn’t taking anything for granted. The former chairman of the Utah Republican Party recently resigned from that post to once again be campaign manager for Senator Orrin Hatch, who’s running for a seventh term in office.
A number of businesses, Salt Lake City and the University of Utah have been awarded about $500,000 in grants and loans from the Utah Division of Air Quality to increase the use of natural gas in transportation. Lisa Burr, Senior Research Analyst for the division, says the money comes from a clean fuels grant and loan program funded by a petroleum settlement the state won years ago. Several types of energy qualify for the program, but Burr says natural gas is wildly popular in the state.
Nature Conservancy Senior Scientist Jonathan Hoekstra, lead author of The Atlas of Global Conservation, took part in the 2011 Nature of Things Lecture Series, sponsored by the Utah Museum of Natural History, at the Salt Lake City Main Library on Wednesday, March 16.
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