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Committee sends bill expanding commerce authority to include sewer projects to the floor
Summary
State Representative Clay Handy, who represents District 27 (Cassia, Oneida and Minidoka counties), told the Local Government Committee that House Bill 171 would allow communities’ commerce (intermodal) authorities to plan and finance water and sewer facilities while excluding electricity production and distribution.
State Representative Clay Handy, who represents District 27 (Cassia, Oneida and Minidoka counties), told the Local Government Committee that House Bill 171 would allow a community’s commerce or intermodal authority to undertake, finance and operate additional utility services including water and sewer facilities, while explicitly excluding electricity transmission, distribution and production.
"What we have the need for now is all of a sudden our sewer ponds and everything wore out at the same time," Handy said, describing projects in Rupert and Burley and explaining that the commerce authority functions as a conduit for bonds to finance large infrastructure projects.
Handy read language from the bill outlining the authorities’ powers to "plan, establish, acquire, develop, construct ... improve, equip, operate, regulate" transportation, storage and other facilities and said the bill would clarify that ‘‘other facilities may encompass utility services, including water and sewer facilities, but excludes facilities to transmit, distribute and produce electricity.’’
Representative Wheeler asked whether current statute or practice addresses broadband as a utility and whether the commerce authority might be used for broadband projects; Handy said he had not heard of communities using the authority for broadband but that broadband could come into scope in the future.
Representative Birch raised a drafting concern about inserting the adjective "utility" before "services" on page 1, line 20, suggesting that adding that modifier might unintentionally narrow the authority by limiting "services" to utility services. Handy said any such narrowing would be unintended and that the bill’s longer list of permitted activities should preserve intended authority; he said he would double-check the language to avoid unintended consequences.
Representative Wheeler moved that the committee send House Bill 171 to the floor with a due-pass recommendation. The committee approved the motion by voice vote; no roll-call tally was recorded in the hearing.
The bill will now proceed to the legislative floor for further consideration.
