But newly installed House Minority Leader Brad King, D-Price, said the governor's priorities are encouraging. He has not heard of any budget priorities from the Republicans, but he added, "I hope they do the same thing as the governor. These are three really good priorities to me."

Even so, King said he would be surprised if air quality rose to the top three priorities of GOP lawmakers.

Over the next two weeks, Huntsman has set up "social/information" meetings with all of the 104 legislators and their spouses. Huntsman spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley said that at those closed, informal meetings, Huntsman plans to tell legislators what he wants out of the 2008 Legislature and to get to know the lawmakers and their spouses better.

Covering the state's 300,000 uninsured has been on the governor's priority list since he first campaigned. Having nearly 12 percent of Utahns without medical insurance puts incredible stress on medical benefits and service providers.

In Utah, as in many states, most medical-insurance plans are provided through the workplace. The governor's office is becoming even more convinced that core-level reform in health care — not just the cost of services — is needed.

The rapidly rising cost of services, which are twice the rate of inflation, is fueling the rapidly declining numbers of private companies providing insurance plans. A report issued Nov. 1 by the Economic Policy Institute showed Utah leading the nation in the rate of employers who have dropped medical-insurance coverage as an employee benefit.

Advocates for air-quality improvements reacted with delight to the governor's listing their concern as a top priority for the 2008 Legislature.

"We applaud him for doing so," said Dr. Brian Moench, an anesthesiologist who is president of the advocacy group Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. "Following through and actually implementing public policy that will improve the situation will take some real courage, because it will involve changing lifestyle."

Changes to help air quality will require modifying legislation that is "fairly entrenched and steeped in tradition," Moench said. "We want to do everything we can to help him succeed in that."

Together with other clean-air advocacy groups, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment plans to sponsor legislation to require the state to adopt a program in which a certain amount of in-state electricity comes from renewable energy. "We're thinking 20 percent," Moench said. Such a law would reduce or eliminate the need to build new coal-fired power plants, the group believes. "If we were to pick one priority piece of legislation, it would be that," Moench said.

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