Downtown Salt Lake City is shrouded in a thick pollution haze on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Utah leaders like to brag about the “Utah Way,” that we’re different, or “special.” U.S. News and World Report has ranked Utah the best state in the country three years in a row. But I wonder if anyone from that publication has visited Utah in the last two weeks. Because lately we have also been “number one” in the country in something far less admirable — deadly air pollution. As many as 8,000 Utahns die annually from our air pollution and it costs our economy billions.
Fixing or even acknowledging our notorious air pollution has completely fallen off Utah’s radar. The legislature’s bipartisan Clean Air Caucus has disappeared. I have not read or heard about a single clean air bill filed by the Legislature. I have not heard any lip service from any of our state leaders about air pollution in a long time, nor from our members of Congress. Rather Utah’s Capitol Hill and Washington, D.C. have become headquarters for a full-frontal assault on clean air, clean water, and environmental protection of any kind…