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Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
8 Utah bills going into effect on May 7 you should know about
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — After a busy session on Utah's Capitol Hill earlier this year, 584 bills were passed. Now, on Wednesday, May 7, roughly 400 laws and policies will go into effect. The bills range from school safety and homelessness to flags and fluoride, but here are a select few you may want to know about. S.B. 142 – App Store Accountability Act As part of Utah's continued push to hold digital services, such as social media platforms, accountable for their content, Utah lawmakers passed S.B. 142. The App Store Accountability Act forces app stores on both Android and Apple devices to require age verification in order to download apps. Specifically, the bill prohibits enforcing 'contracts,' such as a Terms of Service Agreement, for accounts belonging to minors without parental consent. Under this bill, parents or guardians would be required to give consent for apps, and app developers would have to verify that consent through the app store. The bill also opens avenues for parents or guardians of minors harmed by a lack of enforcement to sue app stores. H.B. 77 – Flag Display Amendments One of the more controversial and followed bills in the 2025 General Session, H.B. 77, otherwise known as the Flag Display Amendments bill, bans the display of certain flags on government property. The ban notably impacts public classrooms and restricts political flags from being shown, including pride flags, political movement flags, or any flag that is not listed as an exception, such as state flags, country flags, or municipality flags. SLC council unanimously pass Pride, Juneteenth themed city flags ahead of state flag ban H.B. 81 – Fluoride Amendments A bill that garnered national attention, H.B. 81 goes into effect on May 7, officially making Utah the first state in the nation to ban fluoride in public water systems. The bill was passed as a 'matter of individual choice' on whether or not to have fluoride in the water. And while Utah's water will no longer undergo fluoridization, the bill does allow for pharmacists to prescribe fluoride tablets as an alternative way of getting the benefits, should they want to. H.B. 249 – Nuclear Power Amendments In the 2025 General Session, Utah moved one step closer to bringing nuclear energy to the Beehive State. With the passing of H.B. 249, Utah will create the Nuclear Energy Consortium, the Utah Energy Council, and an Energy Development Investment Fund, starting May 7. The bill is part of Utah's plan to 'combat the looming energy crisis' the state faces with a rising population. While the Consortium will be tasked with providing knowledge and expertise, the Council will oversee energy projects, such as storage and development of power plants. H.B. 300 – Amendments to Election Law Another controversial bill that made its way through the legislative session was H.B. 300, and it goes into effect starting today. The bill makes a few significant changes to how Utahns will vote by mail, including phasing out signature verifications on mail-in ballots and sending out mail-in ballots by default. By 2029, Utahns will be required to opt in to receive a mail-in ballot and will be required to place the last four digits of their driver's license, state ID, or social security number on their ballot return envelopes. H.B. 322 – Child Actor Regulations A bill that sets up protections for child actors, including those who appear in content made for social media, such as YouTube, is set to go into effect on May 7. H.B. 322 requires parents or guardians to set up a trust fund for the child actor, where a portion of earnings from the content can be placed. Among other protections, it also gives minors the right to delete any content made while they were underage once they turn 18. How to protect your teeth after the fluoridation ban: DHHS offers tips H.B. 403 – SNAP Funds Amendments H.B. 403 starts the process to prevent soft drinks from being eligible to be purchased through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The bill, which went into effect on May 7, directs the Department of Workforce Services to file a waiver to the U.S. Department of Agriculture by July 1. The waiver would request authorization to stop the use of SNAP benefits to buy soft drinks, which, if approved, would begin enforcement within six months. DWS would then be required to track the public health outcomes of the restriction and renew the waiver every year. H.B. 505 – Homeless Services Revisions Among a list of revisions made to address homelessness in the state, H.B. 505 makes it a Class C misdemeanor to camp out on state property without explicit permission. This includes the use of tents, motor vehicles, cots, beds, sleeping bags, or cooking with a campfire, propane stove, or other cooking equipment, according to the bill. Latest headlines: Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion: Utahns must think carefully about becoming the nation's nuclear hub
Utah's Legislature has put hope in nuclear energy as a key component of our state's future energy mix. At the start of the 2025 legislative session, Senate President Stuart Adams proclaimed that he wants Utah to be the 'nation's nuclear hub.' Governor Spencer Cox, likewise, included nuclear energy in Operation Gigawatt, an initiative aimed at doubling the state's energy production over the next 10 years. With the passage of HB249, the state created the Nuclear Energy Consortium to advise nuclear energy development in Utah. Now we must consider whether nuclear energy is right for our state. To ensure decisions about how we will power Utah's future are as democratic as possible, all Utahns should be part of the deliberation. We call on Utahns, including our Legislature, governor and the Nuclear Energy Consortium, to evaluate nuclear energy's cost, timeline and environmental impacts. We have already seen how costly nuclear development can be here in Utah. In 2015, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) partnered with NuScale on a small modular reactor (SMR) project, planned to be at Idaho National Labs and provide power to several towns in Utah by 2030. The project was canceled in November 2023 after cost estimates increased from $3 billion to $9 billion. This failed project reveals the risk of investing millions of taxpayer dollars in technology that's yet to be implemented on a large scale. The investment required to develop nuclear power plants is massive. The state has lauded microreactors and SMRs as the stuff of the future. They claim new technology will make nuclear energy safer, easier to produce and cheaper. However, the electricity produced by UAMPS/NuScale project would have been more expensive than that produced by the most recent traditional nuclear power plant to come online in the U.S. That project was not an exception. A 2013 Union of Concerned Scientists report shows that SMRs will be more expensive than traditional nuclear plants. Developing nuclear power is costly and time-intensive. A 2014 study by Dr. Benjamin Sovacool and colleagues demonstrated that a sample of 175 nuclear reactors took on average 64% longer than projected. Dr. Arjun Makhijani argues that nuclear power is too slow and too costly to meaningfully reduce emissions, especially when renewables like solar and wind are ready now and cheaper than ever. The state's call to become a nuclear powerhouse is another iteration of the nuclear renaissance we saw in the early 2000s. However, calls for nuclear development in response to climate change then did not result in an increase in nuclear power. Nuclear consistently provides about 20% of electricity for the U.S. Skeptical public opinion, accidents at TMI and Chernobyl, cost, and long construction times have meant that only three new reactors have come online since the 1990s. Now we're seeing a new version of a call for a nuclear renaissance. In Utah, Adams said we need nuclear energy to meet the energy demand of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI requires massive amounts of power and water; experts expect power demand to skyrocket with the computing power needed for AI. Because tech companies have committed to reducing greenhouse gases, they are looking to nuclear power to supply the increased demand because, proponents argue, it can supply stable electricity that intermittent solar and wind energy cannot. However, there are other ways to provide baseload or surgable electricity, including battery storage and geothermal. Whether or not nuclear energy ends up powering AI, we should be asking ourselves if it is worth the cost and if Utah, already threatened by drought, should be seeking out such a water and energy-intensive industry. Our communities and our environment will continue to pay the price with our tax dollars, our water and our power. There is no one energy source that is inherently good. Each requires resources and has an impact on its surrounding communities and environments. If Utah is going to consider nuclear power, we call for state leaders and Utahns to engage in a nuanced and research-based analysis of its benefits and risks. Our own analysis makes us skeptical that it's the right energy source for Utah. And we're not alone — a former nuclear engineer also recently made the case against nuclear power for Utah.
