A governor's top legislative priority would have created a state agency more powerful than MIDA and the Inland Port Authority combined. Cross-partisan opposition killed it without a floor vote — and everything critics warned about is now what the Governor himself says about its sister agency.
Utah already has MIDA, the Inland Port Authority, the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, the Utah Lake Authority, the State Fair Park Authority, and the Fairpark Area Investment and Restoration District — six separate state bodies with power to override local zoning, issue bonds, and capture tax revenue inside their own project areas. In 2025, Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore introduced a bill to build a seventh, bigger than the rest, explicitly designed to sit above and coordinate all of them. The Salt Lake Tribune called it "the one authority to rule them all." It never became law.
S.B. 337, "Land Use and Development Amendments," 2025 General Session. Chief Sponsor Sen. Kirk A. Cullimore. It would have:
The original draft let BDA designate up to three project areas per city, per year, with no local consent required at all. After weekend negotiations with the Utah League of Cities and Towns and the Utah Association of Counties, Cullimore introduced a substitute requiring a city or county to consent within 45 days of a draft plan — but specified that once given, that consent is irrevocable.
Property and sales tax generated inside a Utah taxing area is normally split among the local entities that actually serve that area — the school district, the county, the city, and any special districts (fire, water, and so on) — each getting a share set by its own certified tax rate. Inside a BDA-designated project area, up to 75% of that revenue would instead have flowed to BDA itself, for infrastructure and project subsidies, before any of it reached those entities.
Opposed from the right: Utah Legislative Watch (executive director Maryann Christensen: "I'm viewing this bill as a tipping point... It's too much of a power grab"), Utah Eagle Forum, and a leader of the Utah County Republican Party. Opposed from the left: the Utah Rivers Council and Senate Minority Whip Karen Kwan (D-West Valley): "I'm not comfortable with the idea of the bill to begin with." Sen. John Johnson (R-North Ogden) voted against it in the Senate Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee, citing government overreach and process concerns: "we're losing credibility with the public that thinks we rush into things."
"Beehive Development Agency — or B-A-D for short — undermines our constitutional framework of local governance, transferring power from elected officials to an unaccountable, private entity with statewide power."
Elaine Oaks, South Davis Water District board member, committee testimony
The Utah League of Cities and Towns' own staff materials recommended lawmakers "Oppose as drafted." Zachary Frankel of the Utah Rivers Council testified the bill would "fast track multibillion-dollar water projects by exempting local land use controls" — calling it "bad utility planning."
The bill was pushed by Gov. Spencer Cox's office and supported by Senate President Stuart Adams, who cast what Utah News Dispatch called "a rare vote of support" during the committee hearing and told reporters afterward: "You need somebody to start controlling this... That control I think is something that's really important." Ryan Starks, then-executive director of GOEO, testified in favor, arguing the state needed better tools to "attract large-scale projects in energy and housing and business." Steve Waldrip, the governor's senior housing policy adviser, also testified in favor, framing BDA as fixing a "mismatch between job creation and our housing needs."
S.B. 337 passed two Senate committees narrowly — the Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee 3–2 on March 3, 2025, and the Revenue and Taxation Committee later voted 3–2–1 to pass a 1st Substitute out favorably (Adams, Millner, Owens yes; Johnson, Kwan no; Stevenson absent). It never reached the Senate floor. Per the Salt Lake Tribune's Robert Gehrke, writing March 5, 2025: the bill "appears to have died without even getting a vote in the Senate," despite being "one of Gov. Spencer Cox's top priorities this session." The 2025 General Session ended days later. S.B. 337 never became law.
On August 20, 2026, Utah News Dispatch reported: "After data center debacle, Gov. Cox says MIDA has had 'mission creep' and needs 'major reform.'" The story followed public controversy over the Stratos data center project in Box Elder County, approved through MIDA's existing authority.
MIDA is one of the six agencies S.B. 337 was written to coordinate with — a sibling authority in the same structural family. Every warning raised against Beehive Development Agency in March 2025 — unaccountable power, minimal oversight, an agency answering mainly to the governor's office — is now the exact critique Cox himself makes about MIDA. The coalition that killed a proposed seventh authority in 2025 turned out to be right about an existing one, on the record, a year and a half later.