Chamber happy with legislative results

By Bice Wallace

The state’s largest business association is generally pleased with the recently concluded legislative general session, during which it had an 89-percent success rate on its priority issues.

The Salt Lake Chamber took a position on 86 bills and had a 76 percent success rate with those, and it had an 89 percent success rate with bills related to 19 priority bills.

“The one we really benchmark is that 89 percent, which is our effort on bills that we were actually involved in,” Michael Parker, the chamber’s vice president of public policy, said during a recent legislative recap event. “We shoot for 90 percent every year.”

The session was record-setting in many ways. More than 1,500 bills were filed and 535 passed — both setting new marks.

The chamber’s “signature” wins came in the form of a bill and an executive order related to regulation reform, boosts to education and transportation infrastructure funding, a makeover of alcohol laws, and bills that could lead to better air quality. The organization was happy to see a “détente” on non-compete agreements, although some tweaks could be made before the next general session, but was frustrated that tax reform was delayed until the interim period.

Regarding regulation, the chamber in December called for better evaluation on the costs of Utah’s bills and administrative rules to individuals, businesses and the state’s economy. The session included a bill and executive order that together represent the most significant overhaul of regulatory policy in state history, according to the chamber. They will ensure that the costs of new regulations are better understood from the outset.

HB272 requires all future bills to include a regulatory note spelling out the expected impacts as “low,” “medium” or “high” and whether the measures reduce or enhance regulatory burdens.

“Legislators will have an informed decision, before they pass a bill, whether there’s a regulatory impact on business,” Parker said. “There will be room for discussion that doesn’t exist today.”

Gov. Gary Herbert’s executive order requires state agencies, as part of rule analysis, to spell out the expected burdens the rule may have on state and local government and on businesses. Parker said the order “clamps down on regulations” and means “we do our homework before we put a regulation out there.”

“It will just get much more specific than it is today and help people make an educated decision,” he said. “There’s a role for regulation. We’re not opposed to regulation. We just want smart regulations on the books.”

The Legislature produced no bills during the most recent session regarding non-compete agreements between employers and employees. The lack of action this year followed the release of an extensive study indicating that employers and employees generally were happy with a compromise bill produced in the 2016 session. That bill put a one-year limit on such agreements. Parker said future alterations to that bill could focus on whether low-income employees should be subject to such agreements and whether better prior notice about agreements should be made before an employee accepts a job. Those alternations could be in place prior to the 2018 general session.

“Not done, more to come,” is how Parker sees the non-competes issue. “But we’re in a great spot where everybody has the same information to work off of, instead of anecdotal stories” on each side of the issue. “We’re done with the anecdotals, and we have some good data that no other state has to make a really good, data-driven decision about non-competes.”

Regarding tax reform, the Legislature took no action on remote (Internet) sales taxes and also delayed any tax system overhaul. “We’re excited about the prospects of tax reform but we’re also disappointed that they weren’t able to get something this session,” Parker said.

But that left the door open for comprehensive discussions during the interim session.

“It’s unfinished business,” Parker said of tax reform. “It’s going to be a big issue coming into this next year. We already know legislative leadership is looking at different options and they’re trying to get it to a place where they can say, ‘Here is a comprehensive package.’ … Now that they have the interim period, where they didn’t pull the trigger on anything [in the general session], everything is probably on the table.”

All exemptions and credits will be subject to review, he added. “This coming year, everything’s going to be on the table. If you’ve gotten a carve-out for your industry for any reason, it’s going to get looked at with a really fine-toothed comb, and they’re going to go hard and fast looking at exemptions,” he said.

On other major issues:

• Higher education and public education got a boost of $340 million in new funds. “That’s not a small sum,” Parker said. “It’s not to the degree that I think that a lot of people feel makes that one-time generational investment that starts moving the needle in a substantial way, but at the same time it shows the economy is really strong and it shows the Legislature is taking investment in education really seriously, because they could put the money somewhere else.”

• The Legislature approved a $1 billion bond to improve transportation infrastructure and tied the gasoline tax index more closely to changes in inflation. A Transportation Policy Task Force will study the state’s transportation future.

• Restaurants will have more options on how to handle the “Zion Curtain” issue, while retail outlets selling alcohol will face a stricter limit on where alcohol can be found in the stores.

• A new air quality board will serve as a forum to vet clean-air proposals and refineries have an enhanced credit designed to be an incentive to aid in the switch to producing Tier 3 fuels. If all five area refineries switch to those fuels, vehicle emissions could be reduced immediately by 7 percent to 11 percent, Parker said. The reduction level could reach 80 percent if both Tier 3 fuels and Tier 3 vehicles become prevalent.

• The chamber helped prevent passage of a bill that would have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour.