BY BRIAN MAFFLY
Several mineral-rich eastern Utah counties banded together a few years ago to build costly commodity-moving projects needed by extractive industries to tap underground resources and get them to market.
Utah's isolation puts energy development at a competitive disadvantage, so, these county officials argue, the state should subsidize export terminals and rail, pipe and utility lines that help move Utah's coal, oil, gas, power and potash. That "throughput" infrastructure, in turn, helps lift economic prospects for rural Utah communities, including Price, Monticello, Huntington, Richfield and Vernal, that have historically relied on resource extraction.
So goes the logic behind the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC), which has sought and secured millions from Utah's Permanent Community Impact Fund, a massive pool of federal mineral royalties set aside to help rural areas that struggle with puny tax bases, thanks to having so much public land within their borders...