SALT LAKE CITY — A compromise bill making changes to the Utah Inland Port Authority’s land use and taxing authority cleared another legislative obstacle Tuesday.

The Utah House of Representatives voted 65-6, with only a handful of Democrats voting against it, to approve HB347. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

The bill’s sponsor, House Majority Leader Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, moved to tweak the bill on the House floor to include new language as part of negotiations to specify the Utah Inland Port Authority may not use any tax increment (or future tax dollars collected from new growth) in the port authority’s jurisdiction on projects that do not meet minimum environmental standards.

The bill states the Utah Inland Port Authority — an 11-member board charged with overseeing the development of about 16,000 acres west of the Salt Lake City International Airport — “shall establish minimum mitigation and environmental standards that a landowner is required to meet to qualify” for the use of tax increment controlled by the port authority.

“The authority may not use property tax differential for a landowner’s development in a project area unless the minimum mitigation and environmental standards are followed with respect to that landowner’s development,” the amended bill states.

Gibson, speaking on the House floor, said the amendment is “another attempt” from him to address environmental concerns within the concept of a Utah Inland Port Authority.

For years, legislative leaders have pushed the creation of a Utah Inland Port, or a massive global trade hub made up of truck, train and air connections in order to give international customs clearance to imports and exports and address a “bottleneck” of products sitting offshore waiting to clear customs.

“I will readily admit not all of their concerns have been addressed,” Gibson acknowledged, but said he’s been working to find common ground and balance concerns with stakeholders.

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Utah Inland Port protesters say compromise bill still ‘terrible,’ a giveaway to developers

Utah and Salt Lake City leaders are standing by the compromise bill as one that seeks to balance city and state powers — and one that only solidifies developer rights that city leaders already approved two years ago.

Deeda Seed, a campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity and a lead organizer of the group Stop the Polluting Port, said Tuesday the bill is still “deeply flawed.”

Seed pointed to a provision in the bill that gives property owners vested rights to develop for inland port uses under 2018 city zoning that “inadequately protects the community from the harms that will come from this development.”

“It’s worth noting that these 2018 zoning changes were developed under restrictions set by the Legislature with the original statute,” Seed said. “As a result, unfortunately Rep. Gibson’s new language saying the port authority ‘may not’ use tax differential unless the ‘minimum mitigation and environmental standards’ are followed doesn’t assure us that the community will be protected because those standards are so low.”

Distrust still permeates much of environmentalists’ opposition to the port project.

“The port authority has a lot of work to do to show that it cares about preventing environmental harm,” Seed said.

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

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