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Show Utah House Braces for Large Work Load Processing an ava lanche of new bills filed on the February 11th deadline for new measures, meas-ures, the Utah House of Representatives began the second half of the 41st Legislature facing some 600 unfinished Legislative Leg-islative packages. Hailing a spirit of cooperation co-operation and dedication during 12 to 16 hour workdays, House Speaker Ronald L. Rencher congratulated con-gratulated the House lawmakers law-makers for their efforts to approve land-mark legislation specifying the orderly process of utility rate increases. "Hard work of the Legislators Leg-islators is best exemplified exempli-fied by House Bill 227," continued Speaker Rencher, Ren-cher, "which enhances the ability of the Public Utility Commission to process utility rate increase in-crease requests with greater speed and thoroughness thor-oughness to serve both the utilities and the public. pub-lic. Earlier utility rate-making rate-making bills which were approved by the Senate, SB 17 and SB 43, were found to be unacceptable to House members. Recognizing Re-cognizing the vulnerability vulnerabil-ity of public utilities unable un-able to seek reasonably swift relief from cost increases, in-creases, the Representa tives spent hours of hard work arriving at compromise compro-mise HB 227, which allows al-lows for speedier rate decisions by the Public Utilities Commission, partial emergency rate increases for utilities, and yet maintains continued contin-ued public supervision over the rate-making process. In other action, the House gave its stamp of approval to House Bill 21, the Safe Walkways Act, which extends State aid to construct sidewalks side-walks for schoolchildren who must walk to school along hazardous high- ways. Additionally, the House passed HB 112, which creates a system of uniform uni-form fiscal and performance perform-ance budgeting and accounting ac-counting for counties. House Bill 135, allowing a tax-free dollar checkoff check-off for Utah taxpayers who wish to support public pub-lic financing of the political polit-ical process was also passed and sent to the Senate. On Tuesday, February Febru-ary 18th, the House will debate the controversial Equal Rights Amendment in what is expected to be the most intense and emotional of issues this year. In order to meet their responsibilities to consider consi-der all 600 remaining bills in a fair, deliberate and exhaustive manner, Speaker Rencher expects that Legislators will soon begin evening and weekend week-end sessions. "It's a 24 hour-a-day job if Representatives Repre-sentatives are to meet the needs of Utah in the 30 remaining days of the Legislature," concluded Speaker Rencher. For further information, informa-tion, please call, toll free, 800 - 662 - 5350, House of Representatives public information desk. |