Latest news with #StuartAdams
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Is Utah always best, or maybe just a little arrogant sometimes?
The Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch) Businessman and Utah Senate President Stuart Adams recently reminded America's other 49 states that 'Utah is the greatest state in the nation' due to its high ratings in 'management, the economy, and happiness.' Not only that, but the 'Rising Utah' project plans to grow Utah economically from being the current 'Crossroads of the West' (the title of which was already claimed by Indiana) to being the 'Crossroads of the World' just in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics games here. In his annual State of the State speech in 2024, Gov. Spencer Cox adopted a modernist Tower of Babel orientation. He said, 'Now is a time for building,' and 'We're not done doing big things. And we're not done building.' The key to Utah success is not education, apparently, but building: 'For 180 years and counting, Utahns have been building our way out of problems, even when things looked impossible.' In another nod to Utah's greatness, he said, 'Our home has become the envy of the earth.' However, Utah's young people, like elsewhere in the country, don't know much about how to work, having never seen or experienced a family farm in their lives. Nor do many high school graduates even want to work. Many are depressed and anxious and addicted to screen time. Wages are low; banks charge incredibly high interest rates on the working poor; corporations act like robotic authoritarian managers of worker lives; and many young people are afflicted with mental health issues keeping them from being productive workers. Too many lack college degrees and technology skills. The Salt Lake Chamber adds a lack of sophisticated workforce training, out of control housing prices, transportation shortfalls, and expensive energy to that list of challenges. How great is it to be a little bit better than one's neighbors at rowing a lifeboat if one is on the sinking American Titanic? Utah's state motto, 'Industry,' seems well tailored to its current boasting about being the best economy now and forevermore. On the other hand, we would be wise to learn from the state mottos of other jurisdictions across the country. Missouri has one particularly well suited for Utah to learn from: 'The welfare of the people is the highest law.' Utah has an aggravated problem of homelessness, poor historical commitment to civics education, and progress-blocking monopolies in its communications industries and political parties all harming the general welfare. North Carolina's motto could be put to good use in Utah: 'To be, rather than to seem.' In other words, let your actions do the talking, rather than constantly boasting of greatness. How about a little humility, Utah, rather than constantly publishing political administration mottos like 'Life Elevated,' and 'Keep Utah Great.' How about Oregon's motto, 'She flies with her own wings.' Wouldn't it be nice if Utah made it easier for women to get involved in leadership in corporate, government, and church affairs? Women have wings to fly if we just give them a runway to take off from. Instead, Utahns subscribe to the idea that 'childless cat ladies' are the bane of American life. They must be barefoot and chained to the refrigerator to be effective women. It might be a source of pride to point out as our local media does that Utah leads the nation in Halloween decorations, but is that the best way for women to be spending their time? Maryland's motto would be a good look for Utah if we could ever climb off our high horses: 'Strong deeds, gentle words.' A lot less bragging, more humility, and a lot more results would go a long way toward getting things done. Wouldn't it be nice to see not nearly so many Republican party advertisements of election candidates pointing rifles, firing them off into the blue, and reloading. 'Gentle words' people, not fireworks displays and visions of Second Amendment grandiosity. My grandmother has some advice for Utah's political leaders today. As a young woman at the turn of the 20th century over a hundred years ago, she sang in the Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City. She married an Idaho college graduate and moved back east where the couple got involved in worldly national corporate economic affairs on Wall Street in New York City. She often would say, 'If I could buy him for what he's worth, and sell him for what he thinks he's worth . . .' There are plenty of social issues to bring Utah down to earth, if it ever realizes its current value is not as great as it thinks: teen suicide; high divorce rates; a focus on luxury housing rather than affordable housing; what to do about gun control; a civically underinformed higher education system; plunging Medicaid availability; a dearth of union collective bargaining; how to humanely handle people in the country without documentation who commit crimes; whether to be banning books or tolerating them; how to deal with the current philosophy of making vaccines voluntary rather than mandatory; and how to build back trust in all three branches of government. Folks, 'The welfare of the people is the highest law.'
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.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion: Utah is right to lead with nuclear
Utah is booming. We had the third-fastest growing economy of any state over the last five years, and the population continues to increase. But a booming economy means greater demand for energy and the very real threat of higher prices. Utah needs a lot more energy — and we need it quickly. The best way to meet this rising demand is to invest in nuclear energy. That is why we need more leaders in our state to step up and join the movement to do just that. When it comes to leading-edge technology, this is the place. Artificial intelligence data centers are bringing jobs and opportunity to Utah, enabling Utahns to play a leading role in strengthening America's national security. As Senate President Stuart Adams puts it: 'The country that controls AI will control the world.' America must win the AI race, which means Utah must continue to make advances in AI. But the energy cost of AI is staggering. Each data center requires several gigawatts of energy — enough to power millions of homes. The entire state of Utah currently runs on just four gigawatts. The good news is that Utah's elected officials recognize this need and are taking action. Gov. Spencer Cox launched Operation Gigawatt to double Utah's energy production in a decade. Adams wants to triple it by 2050. Such a dramatic increase in energy production is an enormously difficult task. But a growing number of leaders recognize that Utah can meet this challenge if we invest in nuclear energy. Cox and Republican leadership in the state Legislature have proposed the innovative solution of using small modular reactors (SMRs) to power our data centers — something that has never been done in America. SMRs have about one-third the capacity of a modern nuclear plant, but they take up far less space and are much cheaper and easier to build. SMR opponents have raised concerns over the safety of nuclear energy. High-profile disasters from nearly a half-century ago still linger on the minds of those who grew up in an era of anti-nuclear activism. But nuclear technology has made incredible strides over the last four decades. Thanks to advanced reactor designs, passive safety systems and other innovations, today's nuclear power is the safest form of energy we have. Nuclear is also the most reliable energy known to man by far. A nuclear-powered grid would mean no rolling blackouts, no dirty smokestacks polluting our air and our kids' lungs, and, of course, lower energy prices, even as Utah's economy and tech sector continue to grow. As our new United States Sen. John Curtis has put it, 'Nuclear power is a critical component of our clean energy future. Its ability to generate large amounts of electricity with minimal greenhouse gas emissions makes it an invaluable part of our energy grid.' There is no time to waste: China is neck and neck with us on AI technology and beating us on nuclear energy. China made the world's first commercial SMR and plans to build 150 new nuclear reactors in the next decade. Because of the economic and national security implications of falling behind in this energy race, President Donald Trump, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and others in Washington are moving aggressively to reform federal energy permitting policies so that we can catch up. This gives Utah a historic opportunity to take a leading role in nuclear energy — just as we play a leading role in AI. Utah has always been a state of early adopters, and as with most technologies, there are substantial benefits to being the first to market. Because of its location and existing energy infrastructure, Utah is uniquely poised to lead on next-generation nuclear, and the sooner we adopt this new technology, the more of a boost it will be to Utah's economy and quality of life for Utahns. The state Legislature realizes this, which is why they have moved quickly this year to advance major legislation to create a Nuclear Energy Consortium and a Utah Energy Council to designate specific zones for SMRs. By embracing nuclear energy, Utah can secure its place as a leader in both technological innovation and energy independence. With swift action, we can ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy for generations to come — powering our homes, businesses and critical industries while strengthening America's national security. Thank you to our state Legislature, Gov. Cox and Sen. Curtis for their ongoing efforts to make this vision a reality.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Here's what the Utah legislature did with tax cuts in 2025
SALT LAKE CITY ()— The Utah legislature has passed a tax cut package, reducing Income tax, social security tax, and expanding child tax credits in the waning days of the 2025 legislative session. The GOP-led legislature is touting the relief as promoting upward mobility for all Utahns, while Utah Democrats argue that it drains resources from some of the state's essential services, such as child care and public education. Utah public unions seek to repeal controversial law banning collective bargaining The primary tax cut bill – – passed the Utah legislature and awaits the likely signature of Governor Spencer Cox. It lumps together three proposals — a reduction of the income tax rate from 4.55% to 4.5%, expands the child tax credit to children under six, and gives a tax credit to businesses to build and operate childcare facilities. Another bill, — raises the threshold for seniors who don't have to pay income tax on their social security from those making $75,000 up to those making $90,000 or less per year. Utah lawmakers to cut sexual assault prevention funding, advocates asking for community outreach 'Once again, we are prioritizing caring seniors on fixed incomes, supporting young families and championing upward mobility for all Utahns,' said Senate President Stuart Adams (R-Layton). 'Thanks to Utah's robust economy and our steadfast conservative policies, we're putting money back where it belongs—with the people who earned it.' But Utah Democrats argue that the lean budget does not support the cuts. The tax relief money comes from the income tax fund, which pays for the state's public and higher education and some social services. 'This is the fifth income tax cut in recent years, costing the state more than $165 million annually; money that could instead strengthen schools, expand services, and improve healthcare,' said the Senate minority caucus. But, GOP leaders argue that they've added to education spending over the last decade. Major alcohol bill fails to advance in Utah legislature over cities having 'proximity' control 'Public education funding in Utah has increased by $3.1 billion, a 112% increase from 2015-2025,' said senate leaders. Democrats also took issue with the fact that the child tax credit and business tax credit were originally run and passed through the House as separate proposals but were later lumped into H.B. 106. 'Combining them with an income tax cut is a coercive and unfair move that mirrors a Washington D.C. style of political tactics,' said Senate Minority Leader, Luz Escamillia (D-Salt Lake City). 'This is a disservice to Utah's working families.' Democrats argue the income tax cuts would be minimal, saving the average family around $45 per year. The bill's republican sponsor, Kay Christofferson (R-Lehi), acknowledged that when debating the bill, but argued the cut is still worth it. Bill targeting app store accountability passes through Utah legislature 'It's a small amount really,' he said. 'Each family gets a small amount but it is some relief for families who want to use that the way they see fit to meet their needs.' President Adams also argues that small cuts — now five years in a row — add up. 'By cutting taxes for the fifth year in a row, we're ensuring more of Utahns' hard-earned dollars stay in their pockets, all while maintaining our commitment to essential services and fostering long-term economic growth for future generations,' he said. In total, the tax cuts add up to $127 million. In December, the Executive Appropriations Committee set aside $165 million for tax relief. The remaining $38 million, Senate leaders say, will be restored to the state's rainy day fund. In addition to the tax cuts, GOP leaders are touting that $276 million of the state's $28 billion budget is going toward a direct salary increase of $1,446 for teachers, a $1,000 bonus for education support staff and a 4% funding increase for school districts. The 4% funding increase, known as the Weighted Pupil Unit, is required by law to increase with inflation and enrollment numbers. As for the rest of the state budget, the Executive Appropriations Committee meets Thursday afternoon to finalize what your tax dollars will pay for, that should pass Friday in what's known as the Bill of Bills. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion: SB337 would take us further down the road to a state-controlled economy
Last year at this time, our Republican legislature's leaders proclaimed their belief that small government and free markets promote individual freedom. Senate President Stuart Adams recently affirmed the party's allegiance to Ronald Reagon's philosophy that 'Government is not the solution to our [economic] problem; government is the problem." How quickly they forget. It is astonishing how far Utah's Republican supermajority has strayed from its spiritual roots. Conservatively, its various development authorities have already used nearly $5 billion in government subsidies to steer over $15 billion in capital investment away from free-market outcomes. This reduces efficiency, misallocates resources and increases prices. In the current legislature session, the supermajority proposes a radical escalation of its campaign to remake our state's commercial real estate and energy markets. If it succeeds, those markets will be shaped more by legislative fiat than by the 'invisible hand' of competition. When our Republican supermajority and governor pursue non-market outcomes, they work through various development 'authorities.' These authorities create zones called Project Areas within which developers receive tax subsidies. Within Project Areas, subzones are created called Public Infrastructure Districts. PIDs issue bonds and obtain government loans, both at below-market-rates because they are backed by local tax revenue. Utah has over 138 PIDs and counting. Unfortunately, authority decisions to distribute these financial gifts to specific developers and specific projects are not made objectively by the 'invisible hand' of free markets, where all the needed information is open and public. Their decisions are unavoidably political. Legislators (or their proxies) sit on authority boards to influence where development zones will be established, which private developers and which projects will benefit from tax subsidies, and which will obtain below-market-rate loans. Typically, these decisions are being made by non-experts behind closed doors, heavily influenced by developers whose private interests are at stake. What could possibly go wrong with such a process? The governor and legislative leaders now propose creating yet another authority to intervene in Utah's energy markets. HB249 would create a Utah Energy Council dominated by the Legislature's appointees. The council would formulate state energy policy, create 'electric energy investment zones,' and oversee an Electric Energy Development Investment Fund. Through this fund, legislators would influence which transmission lines, energy storage facilities and related infrastructure get subsidies. HB249 has other important anti-market features. It would establish a consortium overseen by the Office of Economic Development to promote nuclear power over renewables, despite the high costs, technological uncertainty and decades-long lead times that plague nuclear projects. This statutory bias against renewables would reinforce another one adopted in 2024 which arbitrarily pressures Rocky Mountain power to choose coal over renewables. Compare this government-dominated approach with competitive markets for grid-scale power generation. There, 90% of buyers choose renewables paired with battery storage because this combination provides more reliable base load power than aging coal plants, has much shorter lead times than nuclear, costs less than either and protects our health and our climate. Monday of the last week of the session, our legislative leaders filed substitute SB337. It comes close to abandoning free markets altogether. It proposes to create what amounts to an 'authority of authorities.' This bill would establish an Economic Opportunity Coordinating Council that would function as an unconstitutional standing legislature with broad powers to choose which growth path that Utah's economy will take, what economic sectors Utah's taxes will subsidize, what technology a given sector should adopt, what firms will be chosen to build out that technology and where those buildouts will be located. To implement the Council's policy, its Chief Executive Officer could decide which of Utah's geographic zones will be spared and which will be covered with asphalt and concrete using just a map and a magic marker. He could then order the proposed new Beehive Development Authority to reach into its bag of tax subsidies and make it happen. SB337 is a 147-page bill that alters over 100 provisions of current law that took months to draft. It is inappropriate to spring a bill granting such sweeping powers to new government agencies in the last week of the legislative session, rushing it through under suspended rules. SB337 is not ready for decision. It should be withdrawn and resubmitted in the next legislative session, early enough to receive the close scrutiny it deserves. Our Republican state leaders insist on expanding state control over our economy despite their professed 'small government' beliefs. They seem happy to abandon the bedrock conservative principle that an 'invisible hand' guides free markets to an optimal result. The development authorities they have created are becoming arbitrary and secretive shadow governments. Their reliance on subsidies leads to an oversupply in the areas subsidized, reduced efficiency, higher costs and a more polluted environment. Ask your legislator to listen again to Ronald Reagan, reread Adam Smith and oppose both HB249 and SB337.
