Mere weeks after signing an agreement with Utah Aerospace and Defense to bring Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) to the state, eVTOL and eCTOL developer BETA Technologies demonstrated the capabilities of its aircraft through a series of successful flights over the course of three days.

BETA Technologies is a fully integrated electric aircraft and systems developer based in Vermont. It’s been three years since the young company debuted its first electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the ALIA–250.

That BETA vessel has since been renamed the ALIA VTOL and completed a piloted test flight transitioning mid-air about a year ago. We also got a closer look at its five-passenger interior this past October.

In addition to the ALIA VTOL, BETA has also been developing an electric conventional takeoff and landing (eCTOL) plane called the ALIA CTOL. It has flown tens of thousands of test miles en route to evaluation flights for FAA certification. As we’ve reported in the past, that aircraft is targeting full approval for commercial operations by 2025.

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BETA has completed its first bonafide production build of the eCTOL in South Burlington. Following a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the production-ready aircraft took to the skies for a test flight last November, piloted by its founder and CEO.

Most recently, BETA signed an agreement with 47G (Utah Aerospace and Defense) to establish AAM operations in the state, to work alongside the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) and the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (GOEO) to identify locations to install multimodal charging infrastructure and identify priority routes for eVTOL and eCTOL rides.

To garner excitement for its technology, BETA recently completed three days’ worth of ALIA eCTOL demonstration flights around Utah to showcase the quiet, efficient mobility potential of its aircraft.

BETA’s eCTOL technology shines above Utah

BETA Technologies shared details of its successful eCTOL flight demonstrations, including the aircraft traveling to six different Utah airports covering over 350 miles. Those visits included Salt Lake City Airport, Provo Airport, Heber City Airport, Logan-Cache Valley Airport, Ogden Airport, and Vernal Airport.

BETA shared that its all-electric flight technology is not only quieter and more sustainable but also cuts the travel distance to those airports by two-thirds compared to relative drive times. 47G and UDOT hosted the flight demonstrations alongside BETA Technologies as the former works to bring commercial operations to the state. Carlos Braceras, Executive Director of UDOT, spoke about BETA’s eCTOL technology and what it means for the future of mobility in Utah:

We move people—and the things they need—using more than just roads. These demonstrations are more than just a technology showcase — they represent a fundamental shift in how we think about mobility. Utah’s population grows and we face increasing demands on our ground transportation system, we know that advanced air mobility offers innovative new solutions to address our evolving mobility needs.

The BETA ALIA can transport up to five passengers at a time or up to 1,250 pounds of cargo. Looking ahead, BETA and its new partners in Utah will align to establish a statewide electric charging network for both aircraft and electric vehicles, create pilot training programs, and develop a model to forecast flight operations.

The agreement with BETA is part of a broader effort from 47G to integrate advanced air mobility into Utah’s transportation sector by the 2034 Winter Olympic Games, which will be held in Salt Lake City. Chris Metts, 47G Project Alta Executive Director, also spoke:

By integrating cutting-edge electric aircraft into our mobility ecosystem, we are ensuring the highest standards of safety, advancing medical response capabilities and driving technological innovation that will create lasting benefits for communities across the state. Utah is attracting investment, accelerating the development of critical infrastructure and enabling the deployment of aircraft that make our transportation system safe and truly multimodal.

The Utah Department of Transportation posted video footage of the BETA eCTOL flight demonstrations; you can view it below:

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he will discuss changes with lawmakers to decrease the number of bills jammed into the state’s short legislative session.

The Beehive State has one of the shortest lawmaking periods in the entire country, coming in at a constitutionally mandated 45 days. In 2025, only one other state has a 45-day session, Virginia, most other states range from four months to yearlong.

Despite its abbreviated session, Utah has seen a steady increase in the number of bills introduced and passed by the House and Senate’s 104 members over the last decade, and especially in the last three years.

In 2025, the Legislature introduced 959 bills and resolutions — a new record. And it sent 582 bills to the governor’s desk — second only to 2024, which saw elected representatives write, debate and approve 591 pieces of legislation.

“I think we passed way too many bills,” Cox told reporters on the final night of the legislative session.

Cox touted the work of his administration collaborating with the legislative branch to fit so much into such a short time and complimented legislators’ “messy” “sausage-making” as having produced mostly good policy. But there is room to improve, he said.

Cox committed to talk with legislative leadership during the interim between sessions about ways to “ratchet” down the number of bills “so that we can have more process, so that we can get better outcomes.”

“The process really matters,” Cox said. “How we do things is almost as important as what we do.”

While legislators got to say goodbye to the Capitol late on March 7, the end of the session marked the beginning of an intensive 20-day window where Cox’s office will review each of the bills.

Cox refused to comment on whether he planned to veto any specific bills. In 2024, Cox used his veto power on seven bills to instruct the Legislature on which bills were unnecessary because they could have been solved with a “phone call.”

“There is a cost associated with each new piece of legislation, and I’m increasingly concerned that we’re not giving government administration adequate time to implement policy changes — both at the state and local levels,“ Cox told the Deseret News in a statement on Wednesday. ”With this recent trend of record-setting numbers of bills, it’s time to rethink our approach.”

Will lawmakers limit bills?

Over the last 15 years, the number of bills introduced each session has increased from the low 700s to the high 900s, according to data compiled by Adam Brown, an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University.

The number of bills passed has similarly increased from around 480 to 580. As the number of bills has gone up, the time spent on the floor debating bills in both chambers has decreased from a median of around 14 minutes to 11 minutes, Brown’s analysis found.

“Lawmakers have a built-in incentive to introduce legislation, since passing more bills in their own name gives them something to highlight to voters,” Brown said. “But with only 45 days in the legislative session, more bills inevitably mean less time for thoughtful debate.”

Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, said during the last week of the session that the number of bills being passed at the state level might actually reflect positive differences between Utah and Washington, D.C.

Unlike Congress, where updates to code, small amendments and new provisions can all be added into federal statute in one giant “omnibus” bill, the Utah Legislature must consider each separate issue in state code in separate bills. A large portion of these bills are passed rapidly with a unanimous “consent” vote.

“We have the one subject rule,” Cullimore said. “Some of them are just tweaking things that we’ve done in years past, and it’s a line or two. At the federal level, you’d see that just merged into other bills.”

Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, pushed back against policy changes to bring down the total number of bills.

While he would prefer there to be fewer bills, Adams said there is already a vigorous vetting process in place that winnows the initial number of around 1,500 bills that start being drafted, to less than 1,000 that are introduced, to less than 600 that are ultimately passed on the floor after committee consideration.

“We’re not going to limit the number of bills,” Adams said. “We’re not going to set a quota on it.”

How does Utah compare to other states?

Utah legislators actually introduce far fewer bills than legislators in other states — though this may have something to do with the truncated legislative session.

Over the 2023-24 legislative session, New York lawmakers introduced 24,284 bills, Massachusetts had 16,670 and Texas had 13,092, with many states hovering between 2,000 and 5,000.

Utah sat at the back of the pack, with Alaska introducing the fewest bills, at 812, and Wyoming, Idaho and the Dakotas joining Utah at around 1,000 introduced pieces of legislation.

Some states have placed a limit on the number of bills each lawmaker may introduce. California limits its lawmakers to 35 bills that they can introduce during each two-year session.

Utah could follow California’s lead in setting a cap on the number of bills each lawmaker can introduce, Brown said, or the state could also consider extending the length of the session, letting lawmakers hire professional staff to help evaluate bills or setting earlier deadlines for lawmakers to draft, introduce and pass bills.

But, at Utah’s levels, an increasing number of new bill files might actually be a good thing, according to James Curry, a professor of political science at the University of Utah.

“One of the measures of a healthy legislature is members actively introducing policy ideas (rather than doing very little and letting unelected bureaucrats make policy),” Curry said. “We should want them trying to do more, not less.”

The more interesting question is why Utah legislators introduce so few bills, Curry said. The reasons could include the inertia of doing things as they have been done in the past or a desire from leadership to maintain more control over the process, Curry said.

Which lawmakers introduced the most bills?

The number of bills introduced by individual lawmakers vary dramatically.

Over the past four legislative sessions, a handful of lawmakers have consistently introduced two to four times the number of bills as the median lawmaker.

These lawmakers include: Sens. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville; Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan; and Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross; and House Rules Chair Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan.

In 2025, Weiler, Harper and Fillmore again topped the list, with Weiler requesting 33 bill files and Harper and Fillmore each requesting 26. Teuscher requested more than any other representative, with 19 bill requests.

SALT LAKE CITY — It’s never happened before in Utah, both state prisons have female wardens. Trailblazers and role models, both wardens worked their way up through the ranks of the Utah Department of Corrections and in observation of Women’s History Month FOX 13 News is committed to showcasing their stories.

Ironically, Utah’s first-ever female warden, Kristen Kiesel, wasn’t sure the corrections department would be her career. “But as I got into the field and seen all the opportunities within the department, I found the direction I wanted to go.”

In 2023, Kiesel was named warden of the Utah State Prison in Gunnison.

Utah’s second female warden, Sharon D’amico, began her career in corrections as a challenge to herself after seeing a help-wanted ad. “And I remember seeing the advertisement and going; I wonder if I can do that? Apparently, I guess I can do it because it’s now 29 years later,” D’amico remembered.

D’amico was named warden of the Utah State Prison in Salt Lake City last year. Now, both women are linked, not only through work but also historically. For the first time, both state prisons have female wardens.

Warden D’amico says her focus is on the job of running Utah’s largest correctional facility. “I honestly never even really thought about it until we both became wardens.
And we work really well together, we collaborate a lot so that our prisons are similar.”

Warden Kiesel agrees, “I like to go out and visit with my staff, be with them, see the challenges that they’re facing, and make those decisions with that in mind.”

Warden D’amico now hopes they can be role models to other young women.

“So I think it’s needed, and I really hope that women, more women come to this career and believe in themselves that they can do it because they can.”

Both Wardens say they work together to keep their facilities safe, engage their staff, and ensure that the inmates have every opportunity to rehabilitate and successfully reintegrate into society.