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House approves changes to revenue share from federal land exchanges in SB 66
Summary
The Utah House passed an amended Senate Bill 66 to adjust revenue diversions from federal‑to‑state land exchanges and return a larger share of mineral revenues to affected counties; sponsors said the change restores funds to counties that had lost revenue after land swaps.
The Utah House on March 4 approved an amended Senate Bill 66 aimed at restoring a larger share of the mineral‑lease revenue that counties lost after some federal parcels were exchanged into state trust lands. The bill passed after floor amendments addressing several percentage allocations and passed the House twice — first as an amendment and later after a technical fix during reconsideration.
Representative King, who opened debate, said the exchanges left counties worse off than promised and cited a concrete example: "This last year after this was discovered, Carbon County, for example, had to write a check back, for almost $2,000,000 because of the difference in that percentage." He said the bill "reduces by half each of those diversions and thus returns ... it will end up being 40% of 40%, which is 16% instead of the 11.9 that it currently is."
Representative Hatch moved an amendment to alter several percentage lines in the distribution formula, proposing to strike 3.6% and insert 3.0% on one line, replace 1.4% with 3.0% on another and change a 4% figure to 3.0% elsewhere. Hatch argued the change "balances out" the diversions and noted the effect was relatively small in one account: "There's a total of those of you that wanna know about $80,000 annually in that particular account." Supporters called the amendment "friendly." The body initially adopted the Hatch amendment and recorded a favorable vote.
Later in the day representatives reconsidered and approved a technical adjustment to the amendment to correct rounding: the House replaced a 40% figure with 39.5% and adjusted another line from 5% to 4.5% before passing the bill again. The clerk reported the final House tally as favorable and the bill was referred back to the Senate for further consideration.
Supporters described the measure as an effort to make counties "whole" after state trust conversions changed the formula for distributing revenues from mineral leasing. Opponents did not mount sustained floor opposition on the final passage recorded in the House journal.
Next steps: The bill was returned to the Senate for further consideration and any remaining differences will be resolved through interchamber action or conference committee as needed.
