Back to the BYU Cougars Newsfeed

The rise and fall and rise of a controversial gravel-mine protection bill hated by Utah’s clean-air activists

A controversial gravel-mining protection bill that easily passed the House about halfway through the 2019 Legislature disappeared for weeks only to arise from the pit on the last day of the session and pass the Senate with amendments.

That evening, it returned to the House for approval and went down to a narrow defeat. But just about an hour before the 45-day session ended, Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield, stood to say that she’d made a mistake in voting to kill HB288.

“I misunderstood the changes the Senate made,” she said, going on to say that the amendments made it “a more narrowly tailored bill than it was before.