(KCPW News) The 2018 Utah Legislative Session opened Monday with a bit of bragging.
During opening remarks, Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes congratulated his fellow lawmakers for working collaboratively in recent years to address homelessness and enact criminal justice reforms, and to pass resolutions encouraging changes to Utah National Monuments.
Hughes said those resolutions bore fruit when President Donald Trump visited the state in December to downsize the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments.
In his final opening speech as House Speaker, Hughes also set his sights on the pharmaceutical industry, saying Utah would be well served suing drugmakers for “the carnage that has been created” by the American opioid epidemic.
Hughes said that a number of bills are in the works to hold drug manufacturers accountable.
The Speaker said his additional priorities for the session include changing the governance structure at the Utah Transit Authority, where he once served as board chair, and further efforts to increase education funding.
Greg Hughes has been a member of the Utah House of Representatives since 2003 and House Speaker since 2015. Earlier this month he announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection in the November election.
The Utah Legislative session runs from now until the second week of March.
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