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SALT LAKE CITY — Policy, government and education leaders from around the Beehive State gathered on Monday for the opening of the Utah Policy Innovation Lab and to watch Utah Gov. Spencer Cox ceremonially sign seven different bills aimed at fostering innovation in Utah.
The Utah Policy Innovation Lab is housed in the Thomas S. Monson Building in downtown Salt Lake City and will serve as a collaboration space for higher education institutions, policy experts and business leaders to share best practices that benefit Utahns and leverage collective expertise to address complex policy challenges facing Utah.
"This is a place where everyone's welcome," said Natalie Gochnour, director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. "We're all trying to serve the state. Remember that a public university has a teaching mission, research mission ... and then we also have a responsibility to serve, so that's what's going to be happening here."
The lab is also partnering with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute to ensure a data-driven approach to the work that will ultimately inform statewide policy and decision-making.
House Majority Whip Jefferson Moss said that he views the new space as a chance to remove the barriers between education, business and policy leaders.
"When we go up to the Capitol, it just kind of feels like we go into this legislative mode," said Moss, a Republican from Saratoga Springs. "Sometimes you get into that mode of thinking. What we want to do is try to break those walls down. Get them here, get them in a place where we can have better communication. If you look at these rooms with these whiteboards around, it's literally made to be a brainstorming innovation lab."
Ceremonial signings
Running with the theme of policy and innovation, Cox also held a ceremonial bill signing Monday morning where he signed seven different pieces of legislation focused on innovation in the Beehive State.
HB42 — Technology Commercialization Amendments
HB42 bill was the driving force behind creating the Utah Policy Innovation Lab to bring together higher education institutions, policy experts and business leaders to make data-driven decisions to inform policy and Utah's future.
HB357 — Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Amendments
HB357 bill creates a legal framework for decentralized autonomous organizations — an emerging form of legal structure that has no central governing body and whose members share a common goal to act in the best interest of the entity — to operate in Utah.
Senate Majority Assistant Whip Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Sandy, who was the Senate floor sponsor of HB357, said that the bill will allow Utah to become a leading state for decentralized autonomous organizations.
HB426 — Statewide Energy Policy Amendments
HB426 is all about energy research and policy in Utah, as it provides matching grants to applicants that have received federal or private grants for specific ongoing energy-related research projects. "We believe that we need to provide reliable and affordable energy for our constituents, and so that's what this bill does," said Moss, the bill's sponsor.
HB470 — Government Digital Verifiable Record Amendments
This bill is aimed at creating a pilot program for digital verifiable credentials.
"This sets up a working group ... to make sure that Utah is leading, in terms of our policy around digital verifiable network records keeping, and also sets up a pilot to show that this can be done safely and securely," said bill sponsor Rep. Paul Cutler, R-Centerville.
Utah's a state that is forward thinking and innovative. This morning we joined @LGHendersonUtah and legislators to ceremonially sign a handful of bills that we believe will help solve future problems and make lives better for Utahns. Here are some highlights:
— Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox (@GovCox) April 10, 2023
➡️ HB 42 creates… pic.twitter.com/YKRtjc58lQ
SB35 — Reciprocal Professional Licensing Amendments
SB35 creates a path for people coming from foreign countries or other states to continue working in the field in which they are already professionally licensed by obtaining the certification or license through the Utah Division of Professional Licensing.
"Doctors and nurses and cosmetologists and construction workers and all of those kinds of folks, when people come in from foreign countries, they often cannot work in their chosen profession, in the profession that they've been credentialed from their previous country," said Margaret Busse, executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce.
"Too many states are making it harder for those most in need, who have amazing skills, to actually enter the workforce," Cox said. "We are changing that here in Utah and setting the standard for the nation."
SB62 — Hydrogen Amendments
SB62 is another measure focused on diversifying the state's energy portfolio by directing the Department of Natural Resources to establish a hydrogen advisory council within the Office of Energy Development.
"This council is really to bring together this industry for a hydrogen ecosystem so that we can, through our conservative and Utah way, really push and strengthen our position already as the hydrogen hub as the crossroads of the West," said Rep. Melissa Garff Ballard, R-North Salt Lake.
SB125 — Transportation Infrastructure Amendments
The transportation infrastructure amendments designate the ASPIRE Engineering Research Center at Utah State University as the lead research center for strategic planning for the electrification of transportation infrastructure.
"This is very important. The state of Utah has many of these bills due. We're going to make sure that Utah is again leading out in not only the country, but in the world," said bill sponsor Sen. Chris Wilson, R-Logan.
He added that SB125 will allow the state to apply for "hundreds of millions of dollars" in federal aid as the state looks to consolidate different modes of transportation.
To Cox, the signing of these bills and the opening of the Utah Policy Innovation Lab signal a priority in solving the problems that will face generations of Utahns to come.
"These are bills, again, kind of loosely joined together in that they are forward-thinking, they're bills that are encouraging or are themselves innovative and will help Utah as we move into the future, really about solving problems and making life better," Cox said.
