After a procedural skirmish with the House Rules Committee, the bill landed in the House Business and Labor Committee last Wednesday. The committee heard testimony, then adjourned — which, because it was the last day of committee hearings, automatically sent the bill back to the Rules Committee. That committee will decide whether to send the bill to the House Floor for action.

• SB8 would allow individual counties to raise vehicle registration fees by $20 to help preserve future road corridors, i.e. Legacy North. The bill passed by one vote in the Senate, but there is controversy over whether a new preservation fund is needed and how to involve counties in decision-making for road preservation.

• SB22, the Drug Offender Reform Act, remains in House Rules due to funding concerns. The bill would send most first-time, non-violent, drug offenders to intensive drug treatment in lieu of jail in an effort to lower Utah's growing rate of crimes committed to feed drug habits.

HB306, called the peyote bill, passed the House and was sent to the Senate for a first reading last week but has yet to make it on the calendar. The bill would require anyone using, or possessing the hallucinogen peyote to show proof of membership to a federally recognized Native American tribe.

HB311 has been sent to the Senate for a first reading but has yet to be placed on the calendar. The bill proposes that anyone found with any measurable amount of a controlled substance in their body can be prosecuted under Utah's DUI law.

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Contributing: Josh Loftin, Jennifer Toomer-Cook, Amy Joi Bryson, Tiffany Erickson, Deborah Bulkeley, Jenifer Nii, Geoffery Fattah

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; lisa@desnews.com