Sep 5, 2026 · 52 min · 9 segments
**Host:** Heidi Hatch **Guests:** Maura Carabello, Exoro Group, and Doug Fiefia, Utah representative and Senate candidate - Utah Legislature dives into issues months before the session - To Flock or…
Maura CarabelloGuest
Doug FiefiaGuest
Heidi HatchHost
So my next question before we move on, because we've been having some interim sessions where there seems like to be a lot of planning ahead of the next legislative session.
And last week, Mara and I were talking about the fact that it seems like there's never a downtime and there's a lot going on.
You haven't had the experience of knowing what other interims are like since you're new at this.
Do you feel like from the talks up there that things are operating differently or what's the vibe right now?
This is where the real work happens, right? We have a 45-day session, which everyone thinks, well, that's where the work happens.
A lot of preparation, meeting with stakeholders, ensuring that the policies that we have that actually go public and we vote on have been through a bit of refining and so that it doesn't just pop up and no one's heard of the bill.
And I sit on economic development and workforce services, the interim committee.
And so we have just been going through what does that look like? What does the future look like? I think the public has been very clear that they want the process to be more transparent and they want more eyes on it.
And so we have kind of gone through what does that look like? How do we make sure that we're posting every facet of how much electricity it's going to take, how much water it's using, what does the heat look like? What does the sound in those surrounding areas? So there's so many different aspects to a data center.
So that when we get to the session, we've been out in front of the public, we've met with all the stakeholders, and hopefully we're doing right by the public to make sure that what is passed that the public feel like they are brought along in the process.
Has your office been digging into the data center issue as well, or is this something that's not on the table for you? Data centers are super interesting
I've never seen an issue in which almost every state in the United States turned against an issue at about the same time.
It had this really moment where, well, one, we should point out we've had data centers for 20 years.
So my next question before we move on, because we've been having some interim sessions where there seems like to be a lot of planning ahead of the next legislative session.
And last week, Mara and I were talking about the fact that it seems like there's never a downtime and there's a lot going on.
You haven't had the experience of knowing what other interims are like since you're new at this.
Do you feel like from the talks up there that things are operating differently or what's the vibe right now?
This is where the real work happens, right? We have a 45-day session, which everyone thinks, well, that's where the work happens.
A lot of preparation, meeting with stakeholders, ensuring that the policies that we have that actually go public and we vote on have been through a bit of refining and so that it doesn't just pop up and no one's heard of the bill.
And I sit on economic development and workforce services, the interim committee.
And so we have just been going through what does that look like? What does the future look like? I think the public has been very clear that they want the process to be more transparent and they want more eyes on it.
And so we have kind of gone through what does that look like? How do we make sure that we're posting every facet of how much electricity it's going to take, how much water it's using, what does the heat look like? What does the sound in those surrounding areas? So there's so many different aspects to a data center.
So that when we get to the session, we've been out in front of the public, we've met with all the stakeholders, and hopefully we're doing right by the public to make sure that what is passed that the public feel like they are brought along in the process.
Has your office been digging into the data center issue as well, or is this something that's not on the table for you? Data centers are super interesting
I've never seen an issue in which almost every state in the United States turned against an issue at about the same time.
It had this really moment where, well, one, we should point out we've had data centers for 20 years.
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