2025 Utah Legislative General Session: January 21 – March 7, 2025
H.B. 198 Highway Expansion Impacts on Signage Amendments
This bill sponsored by Representative Val Peterson would remove the current 1-mile limitation for the relocation of billboards. This means billboards could move anywhere in any city, regardless of a community’s preferences.
BACKGROUND
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recently audited Utah’s Outdoor Advertising Control Program and the Utah Outdoor Advertising Act (UOAA) and found Utah to be out of compliance with federal billboard law codified in the Highway Beautification Act (HBA) and the Utah-Federal Agreement. You can read the FHWA full report here and/or our summary of the report.
The UOAA, when first adopted, substantially conformed to the requirements of the HBA, but over the years it has fallen out of compliance through repeated amendments and on-the-ground billboard changes, all in violation of federal law, and all at the behest of the billboard industry.
OPPOSE
Scenic Utah opposes HB 198. Besides preempting local decision-making, it would extend the noncompliance with the HBA (see background info above), putting Utah at risk of losing 10% of our annual federal highway funding, the penalty for states failing to effectively control outdoor advertising. In Utah, that amounts to $50 million!
Scenic Utah is advocating for lawmakers to reject this bill and amend the UOAA to conform with federal law, and for UDOT and the State Legislature to “remove illegal billboards expeditiously”—as the FHWA has directed Utah to do before June 30, 2025.
TAKE ACTION
The billboard industry is lobbying legislators and local elected officials to protect its interests, maintain its full inventory of signs—even those the FHWA has declared are illegal and need to be removed —and convince lawmakers to ignore federal law.
To help stop this bill, please contact your state legislator and ask them to oppose HB 198, and to stop allowing Utah to ignore federal billboard laws!
Your state legislator must hear directly from you. Your Voice Matters!