This bill addresses bromine and chlorine pollution, which can worsen inversions by up to 25%, a monumental win for air quality in the Salt Lake Valley. It also builds off of a bill that one of Stewardship Utah’s merged entities, O2 Utah, passed in 2023, HB 220, which directed the Utah Division of Air Quality to inventory halogen emissions and develop a reduction plan and state standard for these pollutants–97% of which come from US Magnesium. HB 420 implements these recommended controls and forces US Magnesium to reduce their chlorine and bromine emissions by 75%!
Thank you so much to all of you (over 200!) who reached out to your Utah Representative and urged them to support this bill. We could not have done it without your voices. We want to give special thanks to Representatives Clancy, Cutler, Okerlund, and Shallenberger for signing on as cosponsors to the bill, as well as Representative Kyle for speaking in favor of the bill. If you are a constituent of these Reps, we encourage you to reach out and thank them for their support! It’s been awesome to see the consensus among legislators that US Magnesium needs to do more to reduce their emissions.
HB 420 is now moving onto the Senate, where it will be assigned to a Senate committee and debated there. Assuming this bill passes out of committee, it will receive a Senate floor vote before, passing assumed, it will be sent to the Governor to be signed into law.
Stay tuned for future action alerts on this bill!
Onwards,
