Utah's $1.2B annual ski industry asks Republican governor to comply with Clean Power Plan

Concerned that climate change could hurt Utah's $1.2 billion annual ski industry—which employs more than 18,000 seasonal workers—14 alpine ski resorts have formed a partnership with advocacy group Protect Our Winters to urge Republican Gov. Gary Herbert "to commit the state to develop a strategy to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan," Mike Gorrell reports for The Salt Lake Tribune.

Ski Utah president and CEO Nathan Rafferty wrote in a letter to Herbert, "On the heels of a hot and dry winter in Utah we're all increasingly alarmed by the local economic impacts of climate change . . . We are concerned by the disruptive impact of increasingly extreme weather events, like the Texs floods of last month. Utah's recreation industry is not immune to these types of events. Warming at this level means economic ruin for the skiing industry." (Utah State University map)