Castle Country Radio is conducting weekly Legislative updates with Representative Christine F. Watkins while the general session is taking place this year. She will give a brief report on the dealings taking place on the hill twice a week, so she took time on Thursday to speak over the telephone about a few bills that relate to our area.

The first bill that she wanted to talk about is House Bill 116, Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy Act. This is a bill that she sponsored along with Senate Sponsor, David P. Hinkins. “What this does is it helps developers of bio-fuel projects throughout the state of Utah to finance their projects by providing access to the private capital and it’s called CPAC, which is what I just said, Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy. By opening this up is allows for commercial properties to access funding and once they get this loan, its treated by the bank just like any other loan,” stated Representative Watkins.  This has already passed unanimously in committee; it will be the last hurdle that our Wellington Microteach Refinery will have to deal with and hopefully they will be breaking ground this year. More to come on this bill as the week progresses.

Another bill that pertains to our area and will hit the floor this week has to do with the San Rafael Research Center. “It’s called the San Rafael State Energy Lab bill, it’s my bill, and what it does is it establishes San Rafael Energy Center, it creates the state energy lab, and it creates some membership and the duties of a board. In that board there’s going to be nine members, it also allocates money to buy the lab from the county,” explained Representative Watkins. Basically, it allocates an ongoing appropriation for this lab to function and more will come out about this bill as it makes it way through the legislative process.

Finally, there was a story on social media about a handicapped girl that had been raped by her stepfather and the mother was seeking help to get legislation to increase the penalty for such a crime. The mother has ties to the Carbon County area and was advised to reach out to legislative members to assist her. “She is angry that the law doesn’t give more penalties for this situation. I promised her if I get re-elected, I will take care of this and I not only have the drafting attorneys here, but the prosecuting attorney that can help give me the advice on exactly the wording and what we would need to do. Its just kind of interesting that we don’t have the law, its sometimes takes a sad case like this to bring this to our attention,” stated Representative Watkins.