The 2025 session of the Utah state legislature is rapidly approaching its end as it adjourns on Friday, March 7, at midnight. To discuss the closing week on the hill, Rep. Christine Watkins joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss what she’s accomplished and her priorities for the waning moments of the session.

For the second year in a row, the legislature has pushed a bill that reinforces Utah’s stance on state sovereignty, with this session’s rendition being HB158. “What it says is that an international organization does not have any power, jurisdiction or legal authority in the state,” explained the Representative,” And so they cannot come in and do anything in the state. We’ve already got bills that say they can’t buy property, and they have so much time that if they have that property, a country has to sell it and not be involved in our state affairs.”

Another piece of legislation that builds on a previous bill is HB432, which modifies the sale of flavored nicotine products – namely vapes – in Utah. In the 2024 session, SB61 was passed, which increases the regulations required for the sale of electronic cigarettes and prohibits the sale of cigarette products that have not received market authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. It also creates a nicotine limit for these products while prohibiting the sale of flavored e-cigarette products.

“Last year, we said that you couldn’t buy flavored vapes because those are the ones that teenagers get a hold of and get hooked on vaping. So we said OK, you can’t have any flavors. And, of course, that made the adults mad,” stated Watkins. “So this new bill, which is sitting here in the house, changes it so you can’t buy flavored vaping anywhere but a specialty store. And they have to have cameras; they have to have special readers, they have to have special codes on all of the products so that if someone is not supposed to have that product, they can actually track down where it was sold from.”

The final bill covered by Rep. Watkins was HB106, which is this session’s income tax bill. “What this does is take our state income tax rate from 4.55% to 4.45%. So it’s not a huge drop, but we keep going down little by little. It also increases the age of exemption for children. Right now it’s one, they have to be one and no older than four. Well, this bill, which has passed, changes it from zero. So if you’re expecting a baby, you can count that baby for the tax year and five or younger. So we’ve expanded it on both sides.”

According to an analysis from Voices for Utah Children, these tax cuts would favor the top 1% of Utahns, offering annual savings of $1,929. The annual savings for Utah’s middle class would amount to $35.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving away from the bills, Watkins has welcomed several guests to the legislature over the past week and given out gifts to legislative leadership that represent HD67, buckets of coal. “I’m so proud of our coal country, and a friend of our family decided we needed some swag from coal country. So he got the buckets and got the real coal. And if you go on my Facebook, you’ll see the little coal buckets that are made in America. And I presented those to the Senate President, our House Speaker, and some representatives who have been so supportive of our coal industry.” Rep. Watkins added,” I’m proud to be representing coal country, and I want everyone to have those that have helped us and worked for us to remember us.”

Looking ahead to the remainder of the session, Watkins spoke on her priorities for the week,” I only have one bill left to get to the governor, and I passed it Friday in a Senate committee, so it’ll be going to their board … And that one deals with primacy for our class six gas wells, and we do want that primacy. So I’m hoping we can get it through; I’m planning on it.”

Even further ahead lies the 2026 general session, with Watkins explaining what she would like to emphasize in the next session,” I want to take what I learned this session and put it into making those bills more successful next session. I’ll be looking for bills related to energy that will help our area. Anything that will reduce red tape, in my opinion, is a good bill. And so I’m looking forward to that. And you never know what’s going to pop up between this session and the next session.”

Closing our conversation, the Representative shared,” I’m just finishing up, and I’m looking forward to our last interview in a week or so. We can wrap everything up, and we can really cover all the things that I was able to accomplish. What we did is a legislature that will help people in their everyday lives.”

*Photo Courtesy of Rep. Watkins