SB 250 Utah Senate · 2026 General Session

Great Salt Lake Amendments

SB 250 modifies how $198.5 million in state funds (transferred from the Water Infrastructure Restricted Account) can be used to acquire water rights for the Great Salt Lake, restricting it solely to managing lake water levels. It also allocates $1.5 million from the General Fund for the Great Salt Lake Commissioner's office operations. The bill ensures these funds cannot be used for any purpose other than water acquisition or lake management, as specified in Utah Code Section 73-32-304. This directly affects state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources, responsible for Great Salt Lake water resource management.

Issues: ✓ Environment

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2026

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Feb 4, 2026 Last action Mar 7, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

Introduced → Substitute #1 · 6 edits

MODERATE

This bill was revised to remove provisions related to the Water Infrastructure Restricted Account and Bear River development, focusing exclusively on Great Salt Lake water acquisition. The substitute version simplifies the bill by eliminating the Water Infrastructure Restricted Account amendments and streamlining the Great Salt Lake Account provisions. The funding amounts remain the same, but the scope of the bill has been narrowed to focus solely on Great Salt Lake water rights rather than broader water infrastructure projects.

Scope change

The bill's scope was significantly narrowed from addressing both Water Infrastructure Restricted Account and Great Salt Lake water issues to focusing exclusively on Great Salt Lake water acquisition and management.

SCOPE

Removed all amendments to Section 73-10g-104 regarding the Water Infrastructure Restricted Account, Bear River development, and Colorado River projects

Eliminated provisions related to water reuse, desalinization, dam building, and water conservation projects that benefited Colorado River drainage

Removed requirements for counties and municipalities to adopt specific water conservation measures like grass restrictions and drought contingency plans

TECHNICAL

Changed bill numbering from Section 1 and Section 2 to Section 1 and Section 3 (renumbering to accommodate removed content)

Updated Utah Code Sections Affected list to only include 73-32-304 instead of both 73-10g-104 and 73-32-304

Changed formatting from plain text to include line numbers and bracketed deletion markers for clarity in legislative markup

Floor votes

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Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 4, 2026

Upper · Passed

Senate/ comm rpt/ sent to Rules [Senate Rules Committee]

upper

Mar 3, 2026

Upper · Passed

Senate Comm - Recommends Returned to Rules [Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Committee]

upper

Feb 9, 2026

Upper · Passed

Senate Comm - Held [Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Committee]

upper

Feb 5, 2026

Committee

Senate/ to standing committee [Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Committee]

upper

Feb 4, 2026

Introduced

Senate/ 1st reading (Introduced)

upper

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors