From Deseret News archives:
Huntsman drops lobbyist
The state had hired Bill Simmons in the Washington office of Dutko Worldwide to focus on fighting the Private Fuel Storage nuclear waste site planned for Tooele County. Money that would have been spent on the contract will be reserved to use if needed to travel to Washington to discuss specific issues.
"Dutko was hired to specifically address nuclear waste," said Huntsman spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley. "The governor certainly feels that we've come to a point with PFS that we've moved beyond that issue, and it was a great success."
After Huntsman took office in 2005, he closed the state's two-person Washington, D.C., office and put out a bid for lobbying services.
The state signed the $90,000 annual contract in August 2005 with Dutko that expired on May 31, according to a copy provided by the governor's office. Now the state will rely on the congressional delegation to represent its interests.
"The system should work with the governor's office working closely with the congressional delegation. We have five offices in Washington," Roskelley said, referring to Utah's three House members and two senators. "More than anything, the contract's up, so the governor had made the decision that it didn't need to be renewed."
There is a pending bill in Congress that would create a fourth seat for Utah, which the state is likely to get anyway after the 2010 Census.
Last fall, federal agencies disapproved a lease that allowed PFS to use tribal land and also refused to grant the rights of way needed for transporting nuclear waste through the state to the site.
In 2005, Congress approved the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area, designed to protect military training mission at the Utah Test and Training Range as well as cut off PFS's preferred railroad starting point to its proposed nuclear waste storage site
The decision doesn't mean the state will never hire another lobbyist, Roskelley said. "We don't need it right now. But if something some up, we'll look into it," she said. "If we have another issue like PFS, then maybe we will pull out all the stops. ... Right now, we don't feel this is detrimental to the state by any means."
Simmons, who worked for former Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, said it is the nature of the lobbying business to get a client, work on a specific problem and then move on to something else.
"We finished what we were hired to do," Simmons said, comparing it to hiring a lawyer to work on a specific case.
"It was a great pleasure to work with the governor and his team," Simmons said. "It was a wonderful experience."
E-mail: lisa@desnews.com; suzanne@desnews.com
