Utah

11/03/2009 -- WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is adding three new hazardous waste sites that pose risks to human health and the environment to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites. Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

To date, there have been 1,610 sites listed on the NPL. Of these sites, 340 sites have been deleted resulting in 1,270 sites currently on the NPL (including the three new sites added in today’s rulemaking). There are 63 proposed sites awaiting final agency action: 58 in the general Superfund section and five in the federal facilities section. There are a total of 1,333 final and proposed sites.    » read more »

Listing makes cleanup of Tooele County facility a high priority

(Denver, Colo. -- November 2, 2009) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with support from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (UDEQ), today announced it has added U.S. Magnesium, LLC, in Tooele County, Utah, to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites.

Listing U.S. Magnesium on the NPL makes the cleanup of the site a high priority nationally. It also enables EPA and UDEQ to use Superfund authority under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act to initiate and oversee the cleanup of the site. Sites listed on the NPL are among the nation’s most contaminated places.    » read more »

November 3, 2009 -- Washington, DC – Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that more than $38 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being awarded to 4 states to support energy efficiency and conservation activities. Under DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program, these states – Alaska, Kansas, Utah and West Virginia - will implement programs that lower energy use, reduce carbon pollution, and create green jobs locally.    » read more »

October 16, 2009 -- Washington, D.C. -- Congressman Jim Matheson said today that more than $9 million in funding for the Utah State Energy Office to help communities improve energy efficiency and create jobs is on its way this week. Matheson supported the federal economic recovery legislation that provides $3.2 billion overall for the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation block grant program.

“The state energy office will be able to distribute the money to local communities who have ‘shovel-ready’ projects that result in energy savings and that boost local employment,” said Matheson.    » read more »

October 7, 2009 -- Washington, D.C. -- Congressman Jim Matheson -- speaking at a hearing before the Health subcommittee Wednesday—told colleagues that breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for Utah women. He urged support for several bills designed to improve education, treatment and screen programs for the disease.

“Everyone has been touched by cancer. I hope we will make significant strides in research, education and screening,” said Matheson. “Though the national incidence rate of breast cancer among women is much higher than Utah ’s, Utah ’s mortality rate is the same because a higher percentage of Utah women are diagnosed in the cancer’s later stages. If breast cancer is caught early, survival is much more likely.”    » read more »

SALT LAKE CITY - Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert today sent a letter to Utah's Congressional delegation and key members of Congress negotiating healthcare reform, emphasizing the important roles states can play in the process.    » read more »

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - Larry EchoHawk, the U.S. Department of Interior's Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, is among featured speakers at next week's Native American Summit, hosted by Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert.

The two-day event will take place Sept. 2 and 3 at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. In addition to Assistant Secretary EchoHawk, the conference's keynote speaker is Ivan G. Bolden, the first Chief of Public Private Initiatives for the U.S. Department of the Army.    » read more »

June 8, 2009 -- WASHINGTON -- Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) today introduced legislation that would extend and expand the research tax credit, which would provide a boost to thousands of research-based companies in Utah. Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, was joined in the bill's introduction by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).    » read more »

Campaign and 2009 State Energy Champion Awards

May 26, 2009 -- Salt Lake City - Utah Lt. Governor Gary Herbert will launch a new energy efficiency partnership campaign on May 27, 2009. The event will announce the 2009 State Energy Champion Awards for energy savings excellence for procurement, new and existing state building conservation and design, fleet efficiency, energy efficiency leadership and to announce a new state employee annual campaign.

The new annual state employee campaign will challenge state employees and leadership to partner together to find ways to communicate, educate and motivate employees to find ways to save energy in the workplace.    » read more »

Application for Part 1 of Utah's State Stabilization Funds Approved Today

April 28, 2009 -- U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that more than $321 million is now available for Utah under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. This funding will lay the foundation for a generation of education reform and help save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs at risk of state and local budget cuts. Utah will be eligible to apply for another $158 million this fall. Today's funding is being made available per Utah's successful completion of Part 1 of the State Stabilization Application, which was made available on April 1.    » read more »

April 17, 2009 -- WASHINGTON—Six energy companies, in three settlements, have agreed to install pollution control equipment at a cost of over $6 million to comply with the Clean Air Act at their natural gas producing facilities in the Uinta Basin, near Vernal, Utah, the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today. The facilities are located on the Uintah & Ouray Indian Reservation.    » read more »

Central Utah Project Will Create Jobs, Address Water Supply Challenges, Restore Environment

April 15, 2009 -- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced the Department of the Interior will invest $50 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the Central Utah Project, which delivers water from the Colorado River to users in Central Utah while mitigating adverse environmental impacts and conserving fish, wildlife, and recreation resources.

Overall, the Department of the Interior will manage $3 billion in investments as part of the recovery plan signed by the President to jumpstart our economy, create or save jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so our country can thrive in the 21st Century.    » read more »

Mar 19, 2009 -- Salt Lake City - Utah Governor Jon Huntsman today signed Senate Bill 260, Housing Relief Restricted Special Revenue Fund. Upon his signature, he immediately directed the Utah Housing Corporation to begin dispersing 1,600 $6,000 grants to homebuyers purchasing a newly constructed home.

With more than 3,000 unsold newly built homes available and 18,000 Utah construction workers who lost jobs last year, this program is intended to directly deal with the most distressed area of our economy.    » read more »

Wireless-Only Phone Use Varies Widely Across United States

March 11, 2009 -- Oklahoma leads the nation in the percentage of households with cell phones only, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than a quarter of households (26.2 percent) in Oklahoma had only wireless and no landline phones in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, only 5.1 percent of households in Vermont were wireless–only in 2007.

The report from CDC′s National Center for Health Statistics, “Wireless Substitution: State–level Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, January–December 2007,” is the latest report on wireless substitution in the United States.    » read more »

March 6, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today affirmed the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove gray wolves from the list of threatened and endangered species in the western Great Lakes and the northern Rocky Mountain states of Idaho and Montana and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah. Wolves will remain a protected species in Wyoming.

“The recovery of the gray wolf throughout significant portions of its historic range is one of the great success stories of the Endangered Species Act,” Salazar said. “When it was listed as endangered in 1974, the wolf had almost disappeared from the continental United States. Today, we have more than 5,500 wolves, including more than 1,600 in the Rockies.”    » read more »