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1 week ago | 
shorturl.at | Anastasia Hufham
The U.S. Supreme Court today cleared a major hurdle for the construction of a proposed oil railway in northeastern Utah. The decision brings sweeping changes to how federal agencies consider environmental impacts. The Uinta Basin Railway, if built, would connect the remote, oil-rich Uinta Basin to the national rail network — potentially quintupling oil production from the region, according to estimates from a 2021 environmental review.
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1 week ago | 
sltrib.com | Anastasia Hufham
Utah wasn't the only state vying to be the site of a small nuclear test reactor that Valar Atomics plans to build, according to the startup's founder, 25-year-old Isaiah Taylor. "To be honest, it was a tight race," he said, not naming the other competitors in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. But Utah Gov.
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1 week ago | 
moabtimes.com | Anastasia Hufham
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives struck down a move to sell off thousands of acres of public land across Utah and Nevada May 21 after immense pushback from conservationists, sportsmen and other groups who opposed the measure. Rep. Celeste Maloy, also a Republican, proposed an amendment to President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ earlier this month that would have put about 11,500 acres of Bureau of Land Management land in fast-growing southwestern Utah up for sale.
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1 week ago | 
moabtimes.com | Anastasia Hufham
Utah lawmakers last week unanimously approved Gov. Spencer Cox’s pick to lead the state’s Department of Agriculture and Food, despite his history of controversy. Cox announced Kelly Pehrson of San Juan County as his choice to run the department last month. Pehrson has served as UDAF’s deputy commissioner since 2019 and as interim commissioner since the prior department head’s retirement earlier this year.
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2 weeks ago | 
sltrib.com | Anastasia Hufham
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3 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Anastasia Hufham
State leaders have nothing but praise for the Trump administration’s decision to significantly shorten the environmental review process of a southeastern Utah uranium project. Earlier this week, the Department of the Interior announced it was fast-tracking the permitting process for Anfield Energy Inc.’s plans to reopen the Velvet-Wood uranium mine in San Juan County.
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3 weeks ago | 
moabtimes.com | Anastasia Hufham
A Utah representative wants to sell off thousands of acres of public land in the state, a move environmentalists say is just the first in a forthcoming Republican-led effort to ease the national debt and pay for tax cuts by selling federal land. Rep.
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3 weeks ago | 
sltrib.com | Anastasia Hufham
The northern Wasatch Front has some of the worst ozone pollution in the country. But the state of Utah says the region should not have to adhere to stricter federal air quality standards - and the Trump administration is listening. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December docked Utah for not meeting federal ozone standards in the Salt Lake City area, moving the region from "moderate" to "serious" nonattainment.
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1 month ago | 
sltrib.com | Anastasia Hufham
This year's predicted spring runoff into Lake Powell has decreased yet again as the impacts of a dry winter begin to show. Hydrologists at the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center said Wednesday that the amount of water flowing into Lake Powell between April and July this year is expected to be 55% of average. "Average," in forecasting, refers to the average runoff between 1991 and 2020. That prediction follows a decline in forecasted flows since the start of winter.
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1 month ago | 
sltrib.com | Anastasia Hufham
Utah's residential energy prices are the lowest in the nation, even as coal increasingly takes a backseat, according to a report released Thursday. Utahns pay 11.33 cents per kilowatt hour on average, or about one-third lower than the cost of the nationwide average of 16.43 cents, a new research brief on the state's energy sector from the University of Utah's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute and the Utah Geological Survey says.
