This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
State governments do, indeed, have the power to override the legislative and administrative actions of local units of government. But that power, like any other, can be abused.
And the Utah Legislature seldom passes up an opportunity to abuse that power. The current session affords several examples of lawmakers out to veto perfectly valid local ordinances and practices, not because there is a compelling reason to do so, but just because they can.
Examples include efforts to quash local laws on the display of firearms, even in communities where such a sight would be perceived as nothing other than a threat, and to limit the number and nature of billboards, even in cities that are sick of the blinking monstrosities.
High on the list of moves that are not only an abuse of power, but a demonstration of faulty logic, is HB104. That's the bill that would stop any Utah city or county from doing what Salt Lake City has done, and that is pass an ordinance to prohibit vehicles from being left to idle for more than two minutes.
As is often the case, the bill is being carried by a lawmaker who is not from the city he seeks to rescue. The bill is the brainchild of Rep. Wayne Harper, a Republican from West Jordan, who argues that a law that seeks to limit one source of the pollution that so often fouls the air along the Wasatch Front is somehow an invasion of property rights.
Harper's claim, that it is one thing to police conduct on a public street, and another to limit pollution sources on private property, is without merit. Unless he's found a way to leave your truck running in your driveway or parking lot and keep all the resulting pollution from drifting up and out into the haze that afflicts the area's lungs, hearts and eyes.
Pollution is pollution. The Salt Lake Valley has more than its share. And there is no magic bullet, or even six magic bullets, that can solve the problem by itself.
But auto emissions generally are a major source of pollution, amounting to about a third of the heavy PM 2.5 particle pollution that casts such a pall over our community. That's why people who care are looking to use every tool available.
Salt Lake City's idling ban is one, admittedly small, tool. It already contains many exemptions, such as warming a car on a cold day or when a vehicle is in line at a drive-through business, and first-time violators will only get a warning. It is not the intrusion that Harper and the other 41 House members who approved the bill last week imagine it to be.
It is, instead, Harper's bill that is the intrusion. Members of the Senate should see that, and switch this bill off.