Utah Legislature has elected new leadership teams, here are their 2025 priorities

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Legislature has elected new leadership teams in both the House and the Senate. On Tuesday, leadership teams released their priorities for the upcoming 2025 legislative session.

 

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Energy

Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore told KSL NewsRadio that energy is something you are going to hear a lot about.

“Utah was pretty good about … taking an initial stab at AI policy. And that’s something that we need to continue to address,” Cullimore said. “But I think what is becoming evident is that AI is going to start affecting all factors and all parts of our economy and sectors of society and everything. But AI is not possible without significant energy.”

Cullimore also said that in the AI race against China and other countries, we have to develop the energy and make it available to companies that need it.

Commitment to position Utah as a global hub for energy innovation is also on the list of priorities.

Cullimore said they hope to clear the path for other sources of energy.

“We’re hopeful that with a new administration, a coalition of state can make appeal to the federal government to kind of ease up the regulatory burden to get some of that newer power online so that we can have that clean energy sources of power.”

Economy

Cullimore said they want Utah to be a business-friendly environment.

“One way we can do that, obviously, is by looking at our regulatory scheme and making sure that businesses are in the right environment to thrive but also making sure that Utah is an affordable place to live and making sure that it’s a an affordable government. And so we’ll be looking at tax cuts again.”

He also said they will be looking at rural Utah and creating new economic opportunities off the Wasatch Front.

Housing

Cullimore also said that housing is one of their biggest limiting factors of continued growth and prosperity in the state. He said the problem really comes down to supply.

“We need more homes, and there are a lot of homes that are already entitled, but we simply don’t have the infrastructure to meet them yet, you know? And so we’ve got to continue to invest in infrastructure. We’ve got to encourage more development of homes, particularly first-time homes, affordable homes that new families can buy into.”

He said that they plan to look into what laws we can pass here in Utah that would help encourage developers, zoning, and infrastructure.

“We really need to continue to invest in the infrastructure so that we can get these homes built that are ready to be built. We just need the roads; we need the water; we need the utilities out there.”