During the Sierra Club Utah Chapter’s spring fundraising breakfast Tuesday, director Ashley Soltysiak shared a story from this year’s legislative session that sheds a light on how lawmaking really works in the deeply red Beehive State.
The Sierra Club, Soltysiak noted, had worked tirelessly against the Legislature’s proposed fee hike on electric and hybrid vehicles as part of its public transportation bill, arguing that the state should encourage more clean energy cars, not discourage them.
The note warned that if the group continued lobbying against the fee hike, the legislator would use his power to eliminate funding for all clean-air programs under the Department of Environmental Quality included in the appropriations bill — amounting to about $10 million.