Sen. John Curtis wants the federal government to recognize that they need to be more flexible on regulations on Utah’s air quality.

“Utah’s unique geography and natural phenomenon require a nuanced approach,” said Curtis.

“Approximately 80% of our ozone comes from ozone emitting from the Earth’s surfaces or from outside of the region. And as Utahns, that means we only control 20% of the ozone in the area,” he noted during the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee confirmation hearings. The committee was considering the nominations of David Fotouhi to be deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Aaron Szabo to be assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Air and Radiation.

Utah’s elected officials and leaders have committed to improving air quality, and the state is seeing positive results, said Curtis. He added that the “great investments in new technology to improve our air” have also served the state well, as have the Trump administration’s commitment to bringing relief.

“Utah’s Uinta Basin faces similar challenges. Oil and gas production in the region, where we provide affordable, reliable, and clean energy, are burdened by EPA standards, and don’t account for this unique geography that we have in Utah,” he said.

As the Deseret News previously reported, a 2015 revision to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, established by the EPA under the Clean Air Act, lowered the federal threshold for ozone concentrations from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb, designating areas above that level as “nonattainment” areas. Utah did not meet these standards.

Curtis receives commitments from EPA nominees to address Utah air quality challenges

Despite the progress, Curtis expressed frustration with the Biden White House EPA’s decision to reverse course.

On Dec. 9, 2024, the EPA designated the Northern Wasatch Front and the Uinta Basin as nonattainment areas that did not meet the federal air quality standards.

This type of designation requires state and local governments to develop and implement plans to comply with federal law. It means stricter regulations on industries, vehicle emissions and energy efficiency.

This had a significant economic impact on Utah, Curtis said.

He indicated his concerns about small energy producers in the Uinta Basin struggling to comply with methane regulations due to financial constraints and advocated for a more outcome-based approach to EPA regulation.

He asked Fotouhi and Szabo for a commitment: “Can we count on this flexibility and working with regional administrators to follow their lead in dealing with these tough issues?”

Both the nominees promised to work with the Beehive State to resolve these issues.

Curtis also noted small energy producers in Utah “really struggle to meet the methane regulations.”

“Not out of will, but just simply out of resources,” he said. “And, we find that EPA sometimes has been overly restrictive in how they fix the problem, rather than kind of defining what they want fixed and letting people get there through using different types of technologies.”

The nominees, offered their commitment again to work with regional administrators and avoid prescriptive regulation.

Salt Lake City
AP
 — 

Utah on Wednesday became the first state to pass legislation requiring app stores to verify users’ ages and get parental consent for minors to download apps to their devices.

The bill headed to the desk of Gov. Spencer Cox has pitted Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, against app store giants Apple and Google over who should be responsible for verifying ages. Similar bills have been introduced in at least eight other states in the latest fight over children’s online safety. The proposals targeting app stores follow legal fights over laws requiring social media platforms to verify the ages of users.

Meta and other social media companies support putting the onus on app stores to verify ages amid criticism that they don’t do enough to make their products safe for children — or verify that no kids under 13 use them.

“Parents want a one-stop shop to verify their child’s age and grant permission for them to download apps in a privacy-preserving way. The app store is the best place for it,” Meta, X and Snap Inc. said in a joint statement Wednesday. “We applaud Utah for putting parents in charge with its landmark legislation and urge Congress to follow suit.”

The app stores say app developers are better equipped to handle age verification and other safety measures. Requiring app stores to confirm ages will make it so all users have to hand over sensitive identifying information, such as a driver’s license, passport, credit card or Social Security number, even if they don’t want to use an age-restricted app, Apple said.

“Because many kids in the U.S. don’t have government-issued IDs, parents in the U.S. will have to provide even more sensitive documentation just to allow their child to access apps meant for children. That’s not in the interest of user safety or privacy,” the company said in its most recent online safety report.

Apple considers age a matter of privacy and lets users to decide whether to disclose it. The company gives parents the option to set age-appropriate parameters for app downloads. The Google Play Store does the same.

Apple and Google are among a litany of tech companies that help support the Chamber of Progress, a tech policy group that lobbied Utah lawmakers to reject the bill. Last year, Apple helped kill a similar bill in Louisiana that would have required app stores to help enforce age restrictions.

Kouri Marshall, a spokesperson for the Chamber of Progress, called the measure “a tremendous encroachment of individual privacy” that he said places a heavy burden on app stores to ensure online safety.

Republican Sen. Todd Weiler, the bill’s sponsor, argued it’s “a lot easier to target two app stores than it is to target 10,000 (app) developers.”

Under the bill, app stores would be required to request age information when someone creates an account. If a minor tries to open one, the bill directs the app store to link it to their parent’s account and may request a form of ID to confirm their identity. Weiler said a credit card could be used as an age verification tool in most cases.

If a child tries to download an app that allows in-app purchases or requires them to agree to terms and conditions, the parent will first have to approve.

Melissa McKay, a Utah mother, is among those who pushed for the legislation. She said she started asking questions about device safety after her nephew in 2017 was exposed to “really harmful content on another student’s device at school.” Inaccurate age ratings on apps and faulty parental controls are “at the root of online harm,” McKay said.

The eight other states considering proposals would similarly place responsibility on app stores to verify ages and seek parental permissions. A legislative committee advanced Alabama’s bill last week.

Lawsuits have delayed implementation of state laws regulating social media apps and websites. A federal judge in 2024 temporarily blocked Utah’s first-in-the-nation law requiring social media companies to check the ages of all users and place restrictions on accounts belonging to minors.

If Cox signs the Utah bill into law, most provisions would take effect May 7. The governor’s office did not respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday. Cox, a Republican, supported the state law currently on hold that requires age verification on social media.

SALT LAKE CITY — An agency measuring snowpack and water levels across the state says we’re either above or well below average — depending on where you look.

“It’s not been one of our better years,” said Jordan Clayton from the Utah Snow Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. “Statewide, we’re at about 85 percent of normal. Our organization measures the snowpack throughout the state of Utah and really throughout the West, making water predictions from that snowpack.”

He provided a map with the percent of average each region is right now. In the north it looks good, but in the southwestern part of the state, they’re seeing critically low levels.

“The Bear River Basin, for example, is above normal for this time of year, whereas southwestern Utah is setting records for how low its snowpack is for this time. The Gunnison area and the Sanpitch, which drains into that area, is about 79 percent of normal snowpack,” Clayton said.

Zach Jensen, the president of the Gunnison Irrigation Company, told FOX 13 News that the Gunnison Reservoir right now is at about a third of its capacity. He says they’re hoping for more precipitation in the next several weeks and a few good storms and what he called “low snow” to help fill the gap, but said overall they’re in pretty good shape thanks to two good water years back-to-back and about 25 percent of the water in storage.

“The Gunnison Reservoir sent us unfortunate pictures of cattle grazing the bottom of the reservoir when it was dry. We’re very encouraged by the replenishment of water into that reservoir system,” Clayton added.

FOX 13 News was there with SkyFox looking at the barren reservoir from above when the Gunnison Reservoir ran dry after a very dry year.

“We’re actually further along in filling up our reservoir system than other western states, and the reason why is we’re on the heels of two above normal snowpack years in a row, and that’s really boosted the reservoir system in the state,” said Clayton.

Utah gets 95 percent of its water — used for municipal and agricultural purposes — from its snowpack.

“Overall we’re about 75 percent of the way to our typical peak snow water equivalent, or our peak snowpack, and we have about a month to go, so let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope we get all the way there,” Clayton said.