May 2001

Washington's a rough and tumble place. It's hardball politics. It will- - Hard to know exactly what it will impact, but I know it's significant and we'll just now deal with the situation as it is, and not as we wish it were.

Reporters in (order of appearance):

KEN VERDOIA, KUED
DENNIS ROMBOY, DESERET NEWS
CATHERINE BLAKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
LYNDA HORNE, KUER RADIO
SANDY RIESGRAF, FOX 13
CRAIG HISLOP, UTAH PUBLIC RADIO
GREG BURTON, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Transcript:

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, thanks for joining us on this Thursday morning. The shift of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords from the Republican party to an independent status has Washington in an uproar as we meet. Clearly it's certain to shift the balance of power in the United States Senate, it will remove Republicans from leadership positions, and it could add substantial political road blocks for the Bush administration. Have you been able to give any thought to the significance of this for Utah, perhaps for the various states?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I wish it weren't happening. I don't think it's particularly positive for Utah or the west. It's going to make it more difficult for the Bush administration to move forward with what I think is a positive agenda. But things change. Washington's a rough and tumble place. It's hardball politics. It will- - Hard to know exactly what it will impact, but I know it's significant and we'll just now deal with the situation as it is, and not as we wish it were.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Specifically, when we look at the committees of the United States Senate, where do you think we'll feel the greatest impact? Obviously Senator Orrin Hatch will lose his chairmanship of the judiciary committee, but there are other resource and energy-related committees that now will shift leadership as well.

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Yes, I think the one that Senator Jeffords himself claims as a prize for his defection, the environmental committee will be one that will likely affect us. He is a northeastern senator, and simply has a different view of the world than those from the west. And I believe that was, if I'm not mistaken, I think that committee was changed by, was it Senator Murkowski from Alaska? So it will be- - That'll be a significant change.

DENNIS ROMBOY, DESERET NEWS: Have you had any discussions at all with Senator Hatch or anybody back there about what's- -

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I haven't. I think the whole U.S. Senate is in a state of shock right now, and we'll have to just watch. I mean we' re clearly dealing in a different environment than we were yesterday, and- - But life goes on, and we'll do the best we can under these circumstances. The Senate is a place that requires 60 votes to do anything. It's a place where you basically have to find a sense of consensus, no matter which party is in charge. And so it'll have less effect, I think, than if the House were to change. But nevertheless, a very important event, and I'm disappointed but- -

CATHERINE BLAKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Do you blame President Bush at all for his defection?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I wouldn't put a blame on anyone. I don't know. I hear of speculation about people who did this or that, but I think the bottom line is, Senator Jeffords just saw an opportunity to shift power in a way he thought constructive. I don't agree that it's constructive, I think it's not helpful, and frankly, I don't think it's particularly fair. He was elected by the people of Vermont under a Republican nomination. When people voted in Vermont I suspect, like they did anywhere else, they were not just voting for the person but they were also voting for a party, and who should control the party in the United States Senate. And not everyone, but some of them did, and I think that a person has an obligation to carry that out. Now, it's one thing, people can change parties, they often do, but it seems to me when they do that, it's better to change parties and then run, as opposed to run and then change parties.

LYNDA HORNE, KUER RADIO: But Governor, does it give you some pause that he did change midstream, and does it make you pause and look at your own party and wonder if there are aren't constraints put on politicians within their own parties that are perhaps intolerable at times?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Both major parties, and all political parties, have dilemmas within them. Otherwise they'd be too narrow to be effective as parties, particularly governing parties. There's nothing new about the pressures that Senator Jeffords is responding to. I think what he's clearly responding to is that he can change the control of the entire United States Senate, and he can become a committee chairman over a powerful committee that he chooses to be, and it puts him in a place to have enormous power. I mean this is about power. This is just about power. It's pure hardball politics. It's less about ideology, because the ideology of the Senate isn't changing. The power structure is changing. And it's one of the things I suppose that has always troubled people about political power, is the way that it's used and the way it shifts and moves around according to the best interests of small groups and individuals. And I don't think we can change that, and I lament that it's occurred, but I'm resolved to say, here's the new situation, let's play forward. It's time to recognize that it happened, and we'll do our best to adjust.

LYNDA HORNE, KUER RADIO: So you don't see it as a need for reform, perhaps, within political parties themselves?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: There are a lot of things about political parties that I don't like. There are things about my own party that, if I had the capacity, I would change. But in order for a two-party system to work there has to be a breadth of give and take within the party, and in this case, you know, I think Senator Jeffords made a decision that was really best for him, and I suppose he'll couch it in the context of the country, and I'm not taking away from the honesty of anything he feels, I'm just saying this is hardball politics, playing out on a national stage, and it'll have a big impact for 18 months and then we'll have another election. And the scene will change again.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, I'd like to think about power in another context, the announcement, if you will, of the Bush administration's energy plan calling for 1300 needed new electrical generating plants, putting an emphasis on coal and natural gas, but also talking about nuclear needs. For many states it's viewed as an economic survival plan, California particularly, to meet their needs. But there are some states, perhaps Utah, where this might be an economic prosperity, the opportunity to export power. Do you view this as that opportunity for Utah to become an active power exporter for its own personal financial gain?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I really don't. Utah has, as part of the endowment we have, of natural resources, a lot of coal that's high quality, low sulphur coal. It provides a means by which we can create electric power for ourselves, for decades to come. It also means that when we have excess power, because you don't build it a kilowatt at a time, you build it 50 and 100 and 400 megawatts at a time, that during the periods that we don't need the power we can clearly sell it outside the state, and contribute to a regional solution. I believe we ought to recognize that our natural resources aren't limitless. And they are-- they won't last forever. And that we ought to be using them judiciously, we ought to be creating enough power for our own needs and to contribute to the regional solution of the power dilemma, we'll take some, we'll receive some, and the regional blend of it is what makes the whole thing work. I don't think we ought to try to make ourselves an energy farm for the west.

SANDY RIESGRAF, FOX 13: Can you explain what Utah's power dilemma might be? Can you compare last summer to this summer? Should Utahans be any more concerned that we might see blackouts, as in California, this summer, compared to last summer? Is there any concern there?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I don't believe that we will have power blackouts. I think we'll have availability. That's been a hallmark of the policy that we have set forward in this state, is to make availability our first priority, and price, which is always a very important priority, but to make it secondary to availability. There's nothing that will shut an economy down like a lack of electric power. We do have, I think, a very serious situation, but it's not driven by availability as much as it is price. Our, in the last several months, our power system has been in the spot market, which means in the open market buying power to supplement that which we produce here, only 4 percent of the time. In other words, we have a foundation, or a base load of power that we can count on year in, year out, day in, day out, to basically meet our needs. But there are periods that we refer to as peak periods, and typically these are on very hot days, when there's lots of consumption going on with swamp coolers and other kinds of things, when the power consumption gets very high. Well when there's just a little bit more than what we are making, they have to go out and buy that on the open market. Well there are so many people right now trying to buy it on the open market that those periods, those peak periods, are very expensive. In fact, as much as 10, sometimes 20 times as expensive. We generally pay in our state, as a consumer, or our utilities, about $20 to $30 per megawatt on the spot market. The last six months it's been as much as $300, $500, $750, $1,000 for what we would normally pay $20 or $30 for. Well, that very narrow period of 4 percent of the time when we're out buying power on that highly speculative market, it has cost Utah consumers somewhere in the neighborhood of two to $300 million over all. Now, that's a pretty serious economic drain, because it's, it means that a consumer who has a power bill of $100 in years past may have a $300 bill. For a person on a fixed income that's impossible. For a family with children to feed and clothe and nurture, that means that there's $200 that they're not able to provide for pia no lessons or for shoes. It means that those dollars aren't recirculating in our economy. They're going just straight out the door. It's a drain on wealth, it's a transfer of wealth outside of our state. Over the course of the next several weeks you'll see a great deal of discussion on the part of the state, I hope the public utilities, and I hope the media, about the importance of reducing our power consumption, particularly during those peak periods. Because it isn't just a matter of availability-it's clearly a function of economics and about family budgets. If we use our resources carefully we can save Utah consumers two to $300 million over the course of the next five or six months, and those are dollars that will stay in family pockets as opposed to going out of state. They're not going to our power company, they're not going to consumers inside the state. It's just flat leaving the state, and it's a very serious economic problem.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, we're going to turn our attention now to Craig Hislop of Utah Public Radio, who's joining us today from Logan. Craig?

CRAIG HISLOP, UTAH PUBLIC RADIO: Thanks, Ken. Governor, apparently we're going to have us an applied technology college in this state, that appears to be sure, but beyond that there are a lot of questions. Where would you like to see the control of this college and its budget fall?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I believe that applied technology education is, by its very nature, post secondary training. And even among high school students who study at applied technology centers, it's extra-secondary. That is to say it's different than the core curriculum that's generally taught within our kindergarten through the twelfth grade. I believe that because it is, by its nature, post secondary training, that we should integrate it more closely with the balance of our post secondary training, our system of higher education. I am supporting a proposal that we have put together between Speaker Stevens, myself, and Senator Blackham in the Senate, and which I believe will ultimately pass the legislature, that will create a new college of applied technology that will have tremendous advantages. First is, that it will create a vision of statewide availability of applied technology training. Right now there are pockets of good technology training, or applied technology training in our state, but they're almost all north of Salt Lake. If you're a public education student in the state of Utah south of the state capitol, in Salt Lake County or Utah County or in southern Utah, you're having less money spent on your public education than if you are living north. And we've got to spread this vision to have a statewide vision of applied technology training. Second, we need to make a sustainable system, because every citizen of this state has to have this kind of training, not just once, but many times in the next few years, as technologies change. So I'm interested in having a model that doesn't just depend on big, brand new buildings. I'd like it to be a system that can be taken into work places and public buildings and the existing high schools and other schools and colleges during times when their buildings aren't being used. We need to take this to people, not just having people coming to buildings. Lastly, we've had some governance issues revolving around this. The system of applied technology has been an orphan. It hasn't been public ed, it hasn't been higher ed, it's just kind of been out there by itself, and as a result it really has not been appreciated by employers or parents or by students. This is a gem. It needs to be enhanced, and the creation of this applied technology college will provide us with fast, inexpensive market-relevant education and training that can occur over and over among our citizens over the course of the next decade. I see it as a pivotal point and a key part of our plan to make Utah a 21st century economy.

CATHERINE BLAKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: In light of the Tom Green polygamy trial, do you think that the state needs to do more to crack down on the 30,000 other polygamists in the state?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Polygamy is against the law. It has been for a hundred years-plus in this state, and it ought to be. In situations where prosecutors find that they have a case, just in this one, such as in this one, they need to make those decisions. Those are local prosecution decisions. In cases like this one, where you had a person committing bigamy with 13- and 14-year-old children, I think that was a serious problem, and the decision was made in an appropriate way and the court has acted.

CATHERINE BLAKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: But do they need to do more than they're already doing? Because this is the first one in decades. Do they need to really pursue this in a more aggressive manner than they have in the past?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Those are decisions that local prosecutors need to make. It's against the law, it ought to be, and I believe the outcome of this trial was an appropriate one.

GREG BURTON, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: This was clearly a different case, though, because aside from the fact that it happened to be your brother was the prosecutor, the Attorney General lent two investigators and a lot of time, and the State Prosecutors Association paid part of the salary of a BYU professor to come down and prosecute this case. It clearly had the tenor of a state prosecution, not a local prosecution. Does it bother you? Do you wish that that hadn't happened that way? Or- -

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Well, I think what bothers me is that you had an adult who was committing bigamy with 13- and 14-year-old girls. That troubles me. And I think that troubles the people of this state. And I believe any such circumstances, particularly this one, where he was basically making a public issue of it-not that we shouldn't investigate and find them on our own-but in this case it was fairly evident, and I think the prosecutor in this case did the right thing, and clearly created a pathway that if there are other similar circumstances, other prosecutors can and should act similarly.

GREG BURTON, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: But still, the point that I was trying to make was there were two folks from the state, two Attorney General investigators, who contributed to this prosecution.

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: That's not unusual at all in cases such as this, or in capital crimes, or in complicated white collar crimes, or in difficult things on drugs. That's one of the reasons that we have statewide investigators, because they help out in cases where a county may not have the capacity to do it on their own. And that was certainly the case here.

GREG BURTON, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: But it makes it looks like a state-sanctioned, rather than just simply a local prosecution.

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: But there's nothing different about what we do about it in many, many other circumstances where we have trials that are more complicated than the normal, and that's why we have state resources.

SANDY RIESGRAF, FOX 13: Governor, we have some tape where you once said that polygamy was a Constitutional right in this state. Do you still believe that, or was that said in a different context than what you view Tom Green's situation?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Well, polygamy is against the law. It ought to be. It has been for a hundred years. I was asked sitting in this chair whether I thought it was, and I said I didn't know. And I think that it's clear it's again the law, and that the court has affirmed again, as they have before, that it's against the law and it ought to be.

SANDY RIESGRAF, FOX 13: The Attorney General suggested last week that maybe it become a misdemeanor rather than a felony in cases where you have consenting adults, rather than an adult and children involved, because he believes more people might come forward. Do you agree with that?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: What I strongly believe is that in cases where you have adults committing bigamy with 13- and 14-year-old children, they ought to be prosecuted, and prosecuted aggressively.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, even people who would assume a Laissez faire attitude towards what consenting adults might do raises questions about the appropriateness of state funds or federal dollars being funneled into the families for their support: Housing Authority funds going to help build homes, Aid to Families with Dependent Children going into families where it's clearly being used to sustain the families in this alternate, and as you say, illegal lifestyle. What can the state do? What should the state do to make sure that pipeline is closed?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I think one of the issues that this case, and others like it, and others similarly situated in various situations, highlight is the importance of the institution, the legal creation of marriage. Marriage is licensed by the state. When I first became governor, and I was informed that I had the power to marry, it raised the question with me, you know, why do we license marriages? The reason we license them is because there is a public interest. Typically marriages produce children. If people don't care for their children, they fall, by the nature of our society, upon society. And when a person marries, they take upon themselves, not just the capacity to have children, but the obligation of caring for them, of nurturing them, of feeding them, of caring for them. When they don't, we all end up taking care of them, because we want to live in a society where children are cared for. Now, if a person, under what whatever circumstances, chooses to have children, and then chooses not to support them-now there are a lot of people who can't, who try but can't-and even in those cases we step up. But if there are situations where the system's just simply being worked for the purpose of gaining money, then we have an obligation to step in, under whatever circumstances there are, and look after public resources, and that's what's happened here.

CATHERINE BLAKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: How do you feel about potentially losing one of your cities, Wendover, to another state?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I don't think of it as losing one of our cities. I've been out there many times and looked at it, and it's a tough problem. You have on the east the salt flats, on the north, mountains, on the south, an Air Force Base. It's basically landlocked. And then you have on the west, Wendover, Nevada, which is a quite vibrant community right now because they have an industry that's made up of gaming. So you have two police departments, two schools, two fire departments, a community that's divided, both culturally and financially, and it doesn't work.

CATHERINE BLAKE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: So you'd support- -

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I think it's a good idea, I've thought that for a long time, and I've even ventured at various times to send representatives of my office out to suggest that they want, that we'd be willing to support doing so. We shouldn't do it over the protests of the city. If they don't want that to happen, fine. But to me it seems like it's a logical way to resolve an almost unsolvable problem any other way.

GREG BURTON, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: You open the paper every day, there's a hundred layoffs or 200 layoffs or 300 layoffs at different high-tech companies. We're also in the midst of this budget shortfall in the state of Utah. Are you afraid that the Silicon Valley initiative is just ill-timed, that we're going to have trouble getting high-tech companies in Utah because they're having trouble across the country?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: No, I think it's the economy of the future. Yes, it's going through a slight downturn now. But we're, you know, a lot is made of a 100-job layoff, but not much is made of a company that's added three or 400 jobs. Our economy is still sound, we, like everyone else is seeing a period of resettlement. But it's going to come back. When it does we'll be more ready than we were. This is clearly where we want to be positioned, and I feel very good about the progress we're making.

DENNIS ROMBOY, DESERET NEWS: Are you concerned about the budget shortfall projection and the possibility it could spill over into the next fiscal year, and do you have any plans in the works for belt tightening or cutting budgets or holding back money or anything like that?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: I am concerned about it. We've had many years, now, of prosperity, but inevitably there's going to be a time when it gets softer, and right now it's a little softer than it's been. And it's clear to me that we will have some shortfall. But we'll manage it. We have a plan in place to deal with this year's. We don't know exactly what the size will be, but I expect it'll be somewhere between 45 and 60 million dollars. We'll likely deal with it primarily with buildings that we had planned to build that we won't. It's likely that next year it will have some effect as well. We're operating on estimates, and if it's down this year it's likely to be down next year. And I have asked my office of planning and budget to begin preparing scenarios at various levels to trim spending where we need to.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, we are in that awkward moment of the program where we have too little time for a question in depth, but I'm going to ask you a point blank one. There is a growing sense the nuclear regulatory commission has reached a conclusion on the licensing of the Skull Valley storage project for nuclear waste, that all of the agency's indications are leaning in that direction. Are you concerned that this is a done deal in the eyes of that agency?

GOVERNOR LEAVITT: Frankly I didn't ever think we were going to get a fair shake on this, they have a conflict of interest. They're trying to find a place to store waste that they're responsible for, and we've basically turned the permitting process over to the people who most need it. So we're going to have to seek other processes in order to resist it. And we are. I'll be announcing later this week the appointment of a very prominent, experienced team of legal, of attorneys who will fight. We're going to go to Congress, we're going to fight environmentally, we're going to resist this, we don't want it.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, thank you, we are out of time. Thank you for joining us for this edition of The Governor's Monthly News Conference. You can find the transcript online at www.uen.org. Good evening.

 

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