Editors Note: This article was originally published in the March 6, 2024 issue of the Chronicle Progress. Some information may be outdated.
Last minute change to SB161 strips out language sought by IPA, 23 municipalities
A bill allowing the state to acquire Intermountain Power Project’s coal-fired plant awaits the governor’s signature after legislators passed SB161 last week.
A sixth substitute of the bill— proposed at the last minute in the House with language previously sought by Intermountain Power officials removed—was adopted last Wednesday in the closing hours of the 2024 legislative session after considerable debate.
Various incarnations of the bill sailed through Senate and House committees despite almost zero support voiced by anyone but Republican legislators.
Democrats, a host of Utah environmental activists and IPA officials joined various representatives of the 23 Utah municipalities that own IPP in speaking out against the legislation, sharing concerns that taxpayers will be on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to bring the plant into federal environmental compliance as well as potentially harming IPP Renewed, the natural gas and hydrogen plant currently under construction outside Delta.
Republicans in the House and Senate, led by Sen. Derrin Owens and Rep. Carl Albrecht, mostly shrugged off the concerns, outlining the state’s desire to maintain secure, available and affordable power supplies.
Rep. Casey Snider, a District 5 Republican from Cache County, introduced SB161’s sixth substitute, arguing that the original fourth substitute was “Shanghaied” in the Senate before moving to the House.
“Improving upon this, we are actually trying to go back to where we were…Unfortunately, in a last little bit of Shanghai on the Senate floor, changes were made. And the sixth substitute takes us back to what was committed to happening before and moves this project and the state forward,” Snider said.
Not all Republicans supported the substitute bill or how quickly proponents were seeking to pass it.
Rep. Raymond Ward, a District 19 Republican from Davis County, sought to delay the bill to give legislators time to study the new language. He said he’d been watching for a substitute and noted the sixth sub was posted for legislators to read not more than two minutes from the start of debate.
“As best as I can tell the sub was put in the system within one or two minutes prior to the bill coming up,” he said.
The motion to delay debate on the bill failed by voice vote.
One House member who voted to speed the legislation along was Rep. Bridger Bolinder, the District 29 Republican who represents Millard County.
“This discussion has gone on and on and on and on for a long, long time,” he said, urging colleagues to support the sixth substitute.
Rep. Ward continued to lead opposition to the bill throughout the brief debate before and after the failed effort to delay.
At one point, the legislator enumerated the various concerns of those opposed to the state’s plan.
“So the municipalities that don’t want this to happen will be told by the state we’re going to take this asset from you—it was yours, but the state is going to take it from you—and while we do this study we’ll put the cost on you to do the study for the decommissioning (or lack thereof). That doesn’t sit quite right with me,” he said.
The previous fifth substitute of the bill was noted by state auditors to likely cost about $2.4 million over three years. The sixth sub reduced those costs to $1 million—but that’s because the remaining costs were set to be foisted on the cities and towns that own IPP.
“To me that also doesn’t seem quite right,” Rep. Ward said.
Despite the vocal opposition, SB161 passed out of the House by a vote of 47 to 25, with three members absent.
It later cleared the Senate by an 18 to 10 vote, with one member not voting.
A spokesperson for IPA later lamented that legislators chose to strip language meant to protect ratepayers and avoid conflict with federal regulators from the bill.
“The sixth substitute was passed mere minutes after being made publicly available and IPA and other stakeholder input was not requested or allowed,” the spokesman, John Ward said. “As approved, the bill imposes an expensive unfunded mandate on the 23 cities that own IPP to pursue a permitting process that will not benefit them. And the permitting process it imposes will likely trigger disputes with federal environmental regulators that will not only affect IPA, but could harm other major emitters throughout the state.”
House Democratic Leader Rep. Angela Romero, who forcefully opposed the legislation throughout the process, issued a statement after the bill’s passage. She pointed to the one commodity Republican supporters of the bill were desperate to protect—coal.
“SB 161 Energy Security Amendments demonstrates the Utah Legislature’s support for the declining coal industry,” he statement reads. “Under this bill, the state can acquire the Intermountain Power Project’s coal units which will require significant investment from the state to sustain the operation of the plant. Concerns of the actual owners of the plant, including 23 Utah municipalities that operate their own power systems, have been left out of the debate.”
Among Millard County municipalities left voiceless by the last-minute maneuver to adopt a sixth substitute are Fillmore, Oak City, Holden, Kanosh and Meadow.
SB161 specifically seeks to impanel a commission to study a path to acquire new air and operational permits for the coal plant. It also directs state resources to determine a fair market value for the plant and even acquire it should a buyer remain elusive.
Albrecht summed up what some of the bill intends during debate.
“This bill gives the state the option to purchase the generation facilities beginning July 2, 2025 for a period of 24 months,” he told his colleagues. “The state will only exercise this option if the dual path air permitting process is established and third-party purchasers are in place to purchase the plant with the criteria met.”
During previous studies conducted by the legislature, a number of options were identified, including selling the plant to a data center operator. Another possible buyer identified was a company specializing in turning coal into graphite, with a process that also produces hydrogen.
Oddly, not one of those options does anything to support the state’s power grid, unless there was some means to transmit any excess power produced to Utah consumers.
Rep. Ward pointed out during House floor debate that all of the transmission lines emanating from IPP go to California, where public policy prevents the future purchase of coal-generated power. He wondered whether legislators really contemplated spending tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars building new transmission lines—on top of spending hundreds of millions of dollars bringing the plant into federal compliance and another likely huge financial burden maintaining the almost four-decade old plant.
SB161 was last being enrolled after passing the Senate. It was unclear Monday when or if Gov. Spencer Cox was expected to sign it into law.
