House approves broad cleanup for Natural Resources code, adds enforcement language and technical fixes

The Utah House on the fourth day of the 2007 legislative session passed House Bill 48, a more-than-50-page update of Department of Natural Resources statutes aimed at correcting outdated language and aligning state rules with federal standards.

Representative Richard Wheeler, the bill sponsor, told colleagues the measure is intended as a technical cleanup — a ‘‘horse sense’’ revision he said would modernize statutes 40 to 50 years old. Wheeler said Amendment No. 2, which the House adopted, expands the state engineer’s enforcement scope from situations involving only ‘‘diverting’’ water to any time water is ‘‘diverted, impounded, or used improperly,’’ giving clearer jurisdiction for enforcement actions.

Wheeler also said the bill makes targeted substantive corrections: it updates the name ‘‘Shade Tree Commission’’ to the Utah Community Forest Council; it brings duck and waterfowl bag limits into compliance with federal law; it defines certain all‑terrain vehicles at 50 inches wide to match the federal definition; and it changes a three‑year statute of limitations for pursuing loss‑of‑cost claims due to fire to six years to align with a federal limit. On water‑rights procedures, the bill standardizes many permit notices to a common 60‑day timeframe and eliminates a requirement for registered mail in favor of mailed or certified notices in some places.

Wheeler described some provisions as technical cleanup that nonetheless prevent statutory loopholes — for example making licenses obtained by fraud invalid rather than merely unlawful to obtain — and noted the measure corrects orthographical and numbering errors across multiple titles.

After debate and a waived summation, the House opened a vote on HB48 as amended. The Clerk announced that HB48 received 70 yes votes and 5 no votes. The bill passed the House and was referred to the Senate for further consideration.