We had 2 big wins in the Utah State Legislature this last session.
S.B. 67 would have gutted the ability for Counties and Local Government to protect roads from being closed. Class A, B, C and D roads from being closed across private land. At one point this bill had increased in size to almost 290 lines of text, barely resembling the text of the previous law. With Hurculean effort during the last hours of the bill being passed, the Senator’s office was flooded with almost 500 emails received overnight. The bill was amended the next day. You can read the text of the bill here
H.B. 471 was a bill introduced by Representative Phil Lyman and Senator Curtis Bramble. By the time the bill was passed, it had 12 CoSponsors, something very rare to have such strong support. The bill asserts ownership and exclusive jurisdiction of roads included on a county travel plan and requires due process before the federal government may close a road.
-The bill:asserts ownership and jurisdiction over roads included on a county’s class B and
class D road map or a county travel plan unless the road has been closed through
proper adjudicative proceedings;
-The bill llows the state or a county to disregard any attempted closure of a road without due
process;
-The bill asserts that the burden of proof to show the need to close a road or to claim
ownership falls on the federal government;
-It allows the state and county to disregard the alleged closure.
This was a huge accomplishment, you can read the text of the bill here.
Many thanks to our OHV Advocate Brett Stewart for watching and influencing these bills.
