What is the Clean Air Caucus?

In an attempt to start addressing the air quality issues faced by Wasatch Front residents, the Utah House of Representatives has formed a bipartisan group called the Clean Air Caucus. See here, here, or here. Rep Patricia Arent is not only the founder and co-chair (there are six co-chairs), but has also proposed five different bills on air quality. Arent is pictured at right (photo from here).

Among other things, the caucus is sponsoring bills to more strictly enforce red burn days, promote the construction of electric charging stations, raise the sales tax that funds public transit to a full 1%, create a new sustainability coordinator in the governor’s office, and/or set aside $200k for a loan/grant program to help citizens move to cleaner vehicles. I’ll further detail the bills in a separate post.

The co-chairs of the caucus include:

Rep Patricia Arent (D-Milcreek)
@RepPatriceArent
parent@le.utah.gov

Rep Lowry Snow (R-Washington County)
@lowrysnow
vlsnow@le.utah.gov

Rep Jack Draxler (R-Cache County)
dlifferth@le.utah.gov

Rep Rebeccca Chavez-Houck (D-Salt Lake City)

@rchouck

rchouck@le.utah.gov

Rep Edward Redd (R-Cache County)
@ed_redd
eredd@le.utah.gov

Rep Joel Briscoe (D-Salt Lake County)
@RepBriscoe
jbriscoe@le.utah.gov

These are the people crafting the policies that will or won’t solve our air quality issues. Whatever your opinion, they won’t know how you feel unless you tweet or email them. It would also be help to urge the rest of the House or Senate to support this caucus.

Overall, it appears that the legislature is likely to read what you write, as I’ve received a number of helpful responses to my tweets and emails.