WASHINGTON -- Many of the top-priority projects of Utah lawmakers are tucked into a huge, final, catch-all appropriations bill that Congress is passing before adjourning for the year.
They range from nearly $9 million to aid the 2002 Olympics to language that would allow satellite TV companies to compete more fully with cable TV, provisions to stop "cybersquatting" and funding for several new visitor centers in Utah's national monuments.That catch-all bill passed the House Thursday on a 296-135 vote, and was expected to pass the Senate Friday.
All of Utah's members said they favor it except Rep. Merrill Cook, R-Utah, who called it a pork-laden bill. "The bad outweighed the good," Cook said. "I have to say, I have been very disappointed to see how hard it is to cut waste around here."
The huge bill included legislation by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to permit satellite TV companies to offer local broadcast channels through their services. A 1988 law had prohibited that in many cases, even though cable TV companies could carry local broadcast signals.
Hatch complained that led to a situation in which people in rural Utah, where cable is unavailable and broadcast reception poor, could watch local news shows from Chicago or Atlanta by satellite but could not see any from Salt Lake City. He said the bill should increase competition between satellite and cable TV.
The catch-all bill also included legislation by Hatch to ban "cybersquatting," the unauthorized use of trademark names for Internet sites that often offer pornography or counterfeit products.
For example, Salt Lake lawyer Gregory D. Phillips, who represents Porsche, testified to the Senate earlier this year that 300 Internet sites had been set up using variations of Porsche's name and car models to lead Internet users awry. Some lead to pornographic sites.
Hatch himself fell prey to a cybersquatter this year when a Florida man registered several variations of Hatch's name and that of his presidential committee and then tried to sell them to Hatch for tens of thousands of dollars.
The catch-all bill also contains tens of millions of dollars for Utah projects, most of them shepherded into law by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, the only Utahn on an appropriations committee.
Among nearly $9 million for Olympics-related projects are $5 million to help upgrade communications among local law enforcement agencies to help with Olympic security and $973,000 for continued development of a public safety master plan for the Olympics.
Also included was $500,000 for planning for the International Olympic Youth Camp and International Paralympic Youth Camp; $500,000 for a tree-planting program related to the Olympics; $1 million to the U.S. Forest Service to upgrade facilities and trails and provide new signs for the Olympics; and $1 million for educational and outreach programs associated with the Olympics.
The legislation instructs the National Weather Service to spend money necessary to support operations and research needed for enhanced weather forecasting for the Olympics.
National parks and wildlife refuges also receive significant funding in the bill.
That includes $1.8 million to complete a new shuttle system in Zion National Park, designed to reduce traffic congestion there.
Also, it includes more than $9 million for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Of that, $3.15 million is for construction of visitor facilities and $6.4 million is for continued planning and management.
The bill also contained $1 million for a new visitor center at Hovenweep National Monument, and $1.9 million for the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge for a new visitor center and dike reconstruction.
Bennett also said the bill contains $300,000 for wilderness mapping activities by Utah State University, which he said should help with future public lands assessments.
Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said the bill contains $2.4 million for the Western Governors University, which allows people to use the Internet and other technology to study far from traditional college campuses.
Other major Utah spending in the bill includes:
$25 million to help settle Ute tribe water rights claims with the Central Utah Project.
$300,000 to install a modern early warning system for earthquakes in Salt Lake Valley.
$750,000 to continue land acquisition along the Bonneville Shore Trail.
$250,000 for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to acquire properties in and around the Grafton Historic Townsite near Zion National Park.
$750,000 to help implement the Virgin River Recovery Plan for endangered fish and peregrine falcons.
$125,000 for the Four Corners Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
The big bill also included two other pieces of legislation pushed hard by Utah's senators.
One is a five-year extension of a research and development tax credit. Bennett, chairman of the Republican High Tech Task Force, praised that as an important step to promote innovation in business. The other is the American Inventors Protection Act, pushed hard by Hatch. It is the first major reform of the patent system in 50 years, and is designed to guarantee prompt response to patent applications.