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Utah delegation from Washington urges state to prepare for devolution, stresses balanced budgets and transportation needs
Summary
Senators Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, Congressman Bill Orton and Congresswoman Enid Waldholtz addressed the Utah House on federal priorities — unfunded mandates, balanced‑budget efforts, welfare and health care reform, and transportation funding — and answered questions from members.
A delegation of federal lawmakers visited the Utah House on Feb. 20 to brief legislators on Congress’s agenda and to discuss how federal changes could affect state priorities.
Congresswoman Enid Waldholtz told the House the 104th Congress is pursuing reforms to make federal work more transparent and to restrain unfunded mandates. "We applied 10 major civil rights and employment laws to the United States Congress," she said, and described efforts to eliminate subcommittees, ban proxy voting in committee, and use a stricter budget baseline. She urged a federal‑state partnership on welfare and health‑care decisions and highlighted constituent services including a South Valley office and a mobile office schedule.
Senator Bob Bennett reported that Senate passage of the Kempthorn unfunded‑mandates measure marked progress toward returning responsibilities to state and local governments. He said he now serves on the Appropriations Committee and will press Utah’s transportation case there, but warned that overall federal discretionary resources would be constrained. On air quality, Bennett said administration officials are more aware of Salt Lake Valley inversion spikes and that dialogue is producing constructive results.
Congressman Bill Orton praised Utah’s Single Parent Employment Demonstration (SPED) as a model for federal welfare reform and repeated his support for measures such as the Congressional Accountability Act, the line‑item veto and a balanced‑budget amendment. Orton encouraged states to prepare for potential federal divestiture of programs and to consider how to sustain services if block grants are ratcheted down.
Senator Orrin Hatch discussed the balanced‑budget fight in the Senate, noting it requires additional Democratic votes to reach the constitutional threshold and urging members to press their congressional counterparts. He also addressed judicial‑nomination standards and supported targeted measures on crime, insurance and medical‑liability reform.
Each federal official took questions from legislators about transportation funding, air quality measurement and the design of federal policing and prison programs. Lawmakers repeatedly pressed the delegation on how to access transportation dollars and whether federal condition‑setting would hinder state implementation. The delegation emphasized efforts to reduce federal strings and increase flexible block grants while warning that budget constraints will limit the size of any new federal packages.
The House dissolved the Committee of the Whole after the delegation’s visits and returned to business.
