Senator Ron Winterton and Representative Scott Chew provided highlights from Utah’s 2025 legislative session during the Vernal Chamber luncheon. Among the items highlighted by Senator Winterton was a bill trying to solve the funding problem created when mineral lease money stopped coming back to the counties of origin. Over the last three years they’ve worked to return a portion of that money and this year the legislature passed local impact amendments to assess a few cents a barrel to the counties of origin for use on transportation needs within that county. It will go into effect July 1st in order to start being collected in January. A similar assessment was passed on natural gas. Senator Winterton also spoke in detail about changes that will eventually go into effect with Mail-in Ballots. Basically, a voter can opt in to vote using mail-in ballots by going in and signing up using an I.D. and creating a 4 digit I.D. number to be used to verify the ballot. Another change is that any ballot sent by mail must be to the county clerk’s office by 8pm on Election Day. It will no longer matter when it was postmarked. It just needs to be there on Election Day by 8pm to count. Representative Chew also spoke on several bills. One that he said was the highlight for him was getting funding needed to take care of the high mountain wilderness lakes.
