Washington, D.C.—Last Friday night, just prior to the close of the 114th Congress, three of Senator Hatch’s most critical bills passed unanimously and are now headed to the President’s desk. These three pieces of legislation address some of Utah’s most urgent priorities, including authorization of the land transfer for the Utah Test and Training Range, provisions to hold the EPA Accountable for the Gold King Mine spill, and much-needed protections for the foreign art on display in Utah’s art museums.

“My focus in the Senate has always been to deliver legislative results that reflect Utah’s values,” Hatch said. “I’m pleased to have done so on a wide range of issues in the 114th Congress. With landmark reforms that give local leaders in Utah decision-making power over education, a long-term infrastructure plan  that enables Utah to complete major highway projects without raising taxes or adding a dime to the deficit, a health bill that will allow rural Utahns to access the same high-quality health care services patients receive in large metropolitan hospitals, and important tech and innovation legislation that supports jobs all over the state of Utah—just to name a few—I’ve sought to bring people together, find areas of common ground, and develop serious solutions to the problems Utahns face. If we were able to achieve this much in a divided government with a President who rarely sought to work with Congress, imagine what we can achieve with a President eager to work with us.”

Utah Test and Training Range Enhancement 

After several years of work behind the scenes with local leaders in Utah, Senator Hatch was able to see his Utah Test and Training Range enhancement proposal included in the National Defense Authorization Act. The state-federal West Deseret land exchange covers 625,643 acres, and is necessary to accommodate the needs of 5th Generation Aircraft and Weapons like the F-35. The proposal will add additional resources and revenue to our public school system by enabling the transfer of certain federal lands from the Bureau of Land Management into the state-owned school trust lands system.  

In an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, Hatch wrote:

Hatch’s proposal, along with the rest of the National Defense Authorization Act, with its critical funding for our military families and defense capabilities in Utah and around the world, will be signed into law by President Obama in the coming weeks. You can find out more about Hatch’s proposal here.  

Holding the EPA Accountable for the Gold King Mine spill

Senator Hatch’s proposal to hold the EPA accountable for the Gold King Mine Spill was included in the Senate’s Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which passed the Senate late Friday night and will also be signed into law by the President in coming weeks. 

This legislation expedites payments to state and tribal entities that assumed response costs associated with the Animas River spill and directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to work with affected states, communities and tribes on a long-term water quality monitoring program of rivers contaminated by the spill. 

Keeping Borrowed Artwork Safe While Exhibited in the U.S.

One of the final bills considered in the 114^th Congress was Senator Hatch’s Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, which keeps borrowed artwork safe while on display in the United States. This legislation is particularly important to Utah museums, including the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah, and the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University. 

Lending art for exhibition could expose a foreign government to a lawsuit over art and cultural objects still in the possession of that government. Individual art museums, and the Association of Art Museum Directors, report that this confusion is a disincentive for foreign governments to lend art for exhibition in the United States. The bill states that if a foreign government loans art that is reviewed by the State Department, the exhibition will not be the basis for a lawsuit. 

The Director of the BYU Museum of Art and the Executive Director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah wrote an op-ed about the importance of this bill: