SALT LAKE CITY — It's full steam ahead for another Utah Inland Port Authority bill filed late in the Utah Legislature's general session, this year to create a funding mechanism for low-interest loans for rural port projects.
Even though dozens of public speakers lined up both online and in person on Utah's Capitol Hill Monday — filling the Senate committee room's limited capacity due to COVID-19 and multiple overflow rooms — the committee's chairman, Sen. Daniel Thatcher, allowed less than 15 minutes of public comment on the bill as lawmakers barrel toward the end of the 45-day session this week.
"We're running out of time here," Thatcher, R-West Valley City, said as he called on the last few public commenters to speak. Not long after, the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee swiftly voted 6-1 to endorse the bill, with only Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, voting against.