March 29, 2012

"I think parents do have the best idea of what is in the best interests of their children, and government does not."
-Governor Herbert

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Good afternoon.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, thanks for joining us today. This is the first opportunity for many of us to speak with you since your decision to veto a piece of legislation related to sex education policies in Utah's public schools. Perhaps just for background, let's begin at square one and say, why did you come to the decision to veto?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, I came to it in the same process I do other bills. We have a lot of bills that come before my desk, and we want to do due diligence to look at what are the intended consequences as well as the unintended consequences of any piece of legislation. This was a very emotional issue for a lot of people on all sides of it. We did our due diligence, and at the end of the day determined that this was an overreach, it took away parental choice, and just thought it was not good policy going forward for the people of Utah. Arguments on both sides were legitimate and good. I ascribe good intentions for the people on all sides of the issue. But at the end of the day, felt like it was not good policy for the people of Utah.

ROBERT GEHRKE, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Senator Osmond and Representative Kay have said that they want to try to get parties together to try to come up with something that maybe is a compromise. Is your office going to be involved?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: You know, we have not been approached. Again, this is really a legislative issue, and again, our principles that I would be concerned about is making sure that we give more parental choice, not less. I think parents do have the best idea of what is in the best interests of their children, and government does not. And so I would be interested to hear what they have to say and what they're doing, and I expect that if they have an inclination to bring parties together, that's probably a good thing. That's kind of how the legislative process works. Sometimes you try something that doesn't work, but you come back repeatedly and build some consensus until you finally find the proverbial win win.

MAX ROTH, FOX-13: Help us understand why you feel like it's a legislative issue. You know, you're the CEO, which means ultimately you're over the Department of Health, and you have a very strong interest in education. So why isn't it your issue as well?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: That's why they call it the executive branch. Now, we manage in response to the legislation that's passed by the legislative branch. Now, there's 104 legislators out there that all have different ideas, some good, some not so good. That's part of the legislative process. We will work with them closely as issues come up, but the legislature themselves are the ones that create the legislation that we then manage by. I think in many, or as we review this, we look and see that this was kind of an issue that, a solution in search of a problem. I didn't have a lot of public clamoring to me and saying, "Hey, we've got this real problem with sex education in our schools." So if there's an issue out there, the legislature will have to bring it forward and we'll see what happens.

DAN BAMMES, KUER: Governor, you have something called the Rocky Mountain Roundtable coming up in a few weeks, but it looks like Utah will be the only state in the mountain west that has a bill demanding that the federal government turn over sovereignty of public lands. Arizona's bill failed in their legislature. So with Utah kind of standing alone, here, what will you be talking about with the other governors?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, there's a lot of issues to talk about that have, I think, common need here in the intermountain west. It's not just public lands. That certainly is a part of it, and whether other states want to follow our lead in addressing the public lands remains to be seen. But certainly public lands is an issue for us, as public lands states, and those in the rocky mountain region. But also it's natural resource development, it's access to our energy supplies, it's endangered species, it's timber, those things which are common concern for people in the Rocky Mountain region. Economic development, immigration. I mean there's a lot of issues that we will share in common. And we'll see what happens. It's never been done before where the Rocky Mountain group gets together. I'm excited about what will come out of that conversation, and my attempt, really, is to find out what are the issues here that are common to all of us, and see if we can't unite in a bipartisan way to have a stronger voice and hopefully impact what happens in Washington, D.C.

DAN BAMMES, KUER: Speaking of endangered species, you have an advisory panel looking at the status of the sage grouse in Utah. Are you looking toward a solution similar to what's been done in Wyoming, with the governor issuing an executive order defining how grouse populations are to be managed in that state?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I think Wyoming certainly gives us a template of what is a way to go forward in having, in needing to address the sage grouse population. I think all of us want to make sure we have good sage grouse habitat and protect the sage grouse, but we want to do it in a way that does not inhibit, also, our ability, in fact, to develop our natural resources, particularly our energy supplies, and as we are having growing opportunity for natural gas. So it really is, again, finding the balance, which is what we've tried to do in our administration, to make sure we find balance, where we protect the natural resources and the environment, and yet have access to the natural resources through industry and private enterprise.

DAN BAMMES, KUER: That panel has been accused of being biased, people saying that there are too many industry representatives on there, not enough environmentalists. Do you feel it's looking at the issue fairly?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Absolutely, I do. And again, this is just a recommendation body. This is not going to make policy, there's going to be plenty of opportunity for public input from all stakeholders, no matter who they are, and they'll have a chance to come and give input, and their input will be considered as we, in fact, develop policy to protect the sage grouse, and yet not inhibit unnecessarily our natural resource development and our energy companies out there.

ROD DECKER, KUTV: The bill you signed to take the public lands says unless they turn over title, Article 3, I think, of the state Constitution says the state will not claim title. Are you violating the Constitution by claiming title?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, I think there's a misunderstanding as far as what we're trying to accomplish with our public land bill. We're trying to make sure that, one, there's some kind of fairness brought to the equation, and as we, as partners with the federal government, we kind of need to reset that, I think, that balance point. Because we've become a little more subservient than what was originally envisioned when we became a state. In the enabling act, the promise and the responsibility given to the federal government, as we outlined the responsibilities for us as a state, was for them to take land that was not privately owned and dispose of it. That's never happened. They've not disposed of it. And if you look to us as an example of what has happened, compared to, say, what other states have had happen, from the east coast westward, you could go to North Dakota, for example. Almost the same exact language, almost the same exact time that they became a state, and yet in their particular instance the federal government disposed of the property, and now they have 8 or 9 percent public land and the rest private land. And unfortunately for us in Utah, we're losing a lot of investment capital that's leaving Utah because of all the additional hoops and red tape you have to jump through, and going to North Dakota to develop their natural gas.

ROD DECKER, KUTV What you said first was that we aren't, as I understood, was we aren't necessarily after title, but the bill says "title."

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I think what we're saying to the federal government is, look, we've tried negotiation, we've tried legislation, and we want to make sure that you get our attention, because if needs be we're going to court and we have the potential for litigation. We are just saying, "If you're not going to fulfill your obligation and dispose of the property, then let us manage the property." We are doing a pretty good job of managing our resources and our affairs, much better, I would say, than what's happening in Washington, D.C., and so, in fact, yes, let us take over the management responsibility. But that doesn't mean that we're going to turn around and sell it. Yeah, I think there's a lot of mischaracterization as far as what the state wants to do. We're not going to destroy our national monuments, we're not going to take away the national parks, we're not going to start drilling at Arches or Canyonlands. In fact we will manage those areas appropriately and protect the wilderness areas and the pristine areas that need protection.

ROD DECKER, KUTV It sounds like the bill is a considerable overstatement. We want, we demand title to this land. And it turns out what we want is maybe more voice in its management and some of it disposed of, a very different thing from title to all the land. Are we making threatening noises hoping to reach a middle ground?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I think this is putting the federal government on notice that we're serious about this issue.

REPORTER: Governor

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Let me just complete that, if I could. And that is, as we've become a fast growing state, this issue of having limited access to private land, I mean think about it in Utah, we have less than 25 percent of our land mass that's privately owned property. Other than Nevada it's the smallest amount in the continental United States. And as our population continues to grow we are inhibited on our ability to develop economically. And so it's becoming more and more an issue. As we don't grow economically, it reduces our capability of creating income tax, and as you know, in our Constitution all income tax is earmarked for education. So the end result of this thing is that we are inhibiting the ability for us to fund education. So we're just saying we need to reset the balance point, here. We need to have a respectful, civil dialogue on what is the appropriate, fair point for us, in fact, as a state, to be treated by the federal government? You didn't dispose of the property, you ought to do it now. If you're not going to, then let us take over the management so we can, in fact, open up better opportunities for those areas that we all know need to be developed. Better multiple use of the BLM land. Doesn't mean we're going to go out there and develop everything. In fact, in the bill it also says if we sell anything, 95 percent of the proceeds goes to the federal government. So there's not going to be a great desire to sell off stuff. It's going to be a desire for us to manage better, and in a more appropriate way and in a balanced approach, the federal lands which are within our borders.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, whose name is on the envelope that you send this message to? Is it Interior Secretary Salazar? And for the average Utahn, what comes next? You send the letter saying please give back the land, Salazar doesn't respond, what comes next?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, I think it's a multi stepped approach. Again, this is going to, I think, reset the opportunity for us to have heightened negotiation and dialogue. But our congressional delegation has said to us, "Give us something to show a spotlight on what's taking place here." Most people on the east coast do not recognize I wish we had a map here, I should have brought one that shows how little public land there is from the east coast until you get to the rocky mountains. You know, 90 percent of all federal public lands are in the west. There's a reason why they changed the paradigm, they quit disposing of the property. Seven western states comprise 50 percent of the public land, and our state 70 percent is public land, BLM. And so we're just saying, you know, we are at a disadvantage economically because of that. Let's see what we can do to find a better balance point. Our congressional delegation are making overtures and trying to introduce legislation and have dialogue. We'll be doing it from the governors, hopefully with the Western Governors Association, which I am going to be chairing, here, coming this July. Our Rocky Mountain Roundup, opportunities to unite voices, and say, "Hey, we are disadvantaged here in the west. You ought to rethink. What we're doing now is not working, but we can probably reset the balance point and make it a win win situation for everybody."

ROBERT GEHRKE, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: This week the Supreme Court heard arguments on the health care, federal health care legislation. Justice Kagan pointed to Utah as an example of a state that's taken the lead and done its own health exchange and it's working, but it looks to me like only about 1,000 uninsured people have been moved on to the health exchange. Is that a system that's working without a mandate? Or do there need to be reforms there, and if so, what do you propose?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well the interesting thing about Justice Kagan's comments are that she proves the point that you don't have to have a mandate to have a state find opportunities to improve health care, and actually engage in health care reform. We've been talking about health care for a number of years, way before the current administration brought it forward as the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act.

Now, part of the challenge we've got here is, one, we want to make sure we build on a solid foundation and footing, and make sure that what we've done is appropriate going forward. But right now, because of the Affordable Care Act, there's a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. We have people that are reluctant to get engaged because they don't know what the rules are going to be tomorrow. We know what they may be today, if anybody can define them, but we don't know what they're going to be tomorrow. So it inhibits our ability to be creative and innovative, and to expand. We've got 6,000 people on our health exchange today. We could have a lot more. We have not even tried to market the program yet because of the uncertainty with the Affordable Care Act. But I can tell you, compare that to the high risk pool created by the federal government as part of the Affordable Care Act, and we have a heck of a lot more people being insured under our approach of an exchange, as opposed to the subsidized government program called the High risk Pool.

ROD DECKER, KUTV: Fourteen percent of Utahns, last I heard, were uninsured. Is that acceptable? Your predecessor, Governor Huntsman, said by now it would be down to 4 percent. The economy intervened. Is it acceptable to have 10, 14 something percent, a big percentage of Utahns without health insurance?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I think we always strive for the perfect. You know, it's probably not attainable, and perfection would be that everybody has access to affordable health care. And how you pay for it is kind of the debate. You know, we have not defined health care reform very well in this country, in spite of this 2500 page bill that the Supreme Court says is cruel and unusual punishment if they're forced to have to read it. Well guess what, most of congress hasn't read it either. The Department of Health doesn't understand even the answers to the questions we are still, two years later, offering them. So certainly we should try to get everybody to have affordable health care, but is it about lowering the costs? Is it about improving quality? Is it improving access? Is it we're targeting insurance companies, which seems to be what this bill does more than anything else? Our 14 percent that are uninsured, how many of them are uninsured by choice? We have people out there that take can afford health care but choose for whatever reason not to purchase it.

ROD DECKER, KUTV: What I'm hearing, I think, is the current regime in Utah, we're probably looking at indefinite pretty high percentage of uninsured. There will be no plan for government to say, "This is too high a number and we're going to force it down."

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I am much more confident in trusting in the marketplace to find solutions to our problem than I do have in government pick winners and losers. Look at what we've done so far in Utah. Again, President Obama has used Utah as an example of good health care. We have the lowest cost health care in Utah of any of the 50 states. We have the highest quality in comparison. We're about the fourth or fifth best quality, as again, identified by the Department of Health itself, and their own research. So what we're doing now is working pretty well. Is it perfect? No. Do we have people that we need to take care of? I believe as a Reagan Republican, that there is a safety net aspect of government. We need to help those people who are most vulnerable amongst us. But I think the private sector and introducing private sector competition and free market principles will get us closer to perfection than a government mandate.

MAX ROTH, FOX-13: So then, Governor, if you believe in that safety net aspect, does that mean that you believe no one should be turned away? And if so, how do we pay for that? If someone decides not to, they can afford it but they don't get health insurance, what should happen to that person when they have a catastrophic problem and they come to the hospital?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well that's a great question, and the current situation and current law that we have right now is you go to an emergency room and you cannot be turned down. People will give you health care. And we have to pay through that cost, as all of us our costs for health care in hospitals and doctors' costs go up because of that. It's a back door approach to paying for it, and the question is, is there a more efficient way to do it? That's why last year I convened for the first time in our state's history a health care summit. There's a lot of questions out there. We don't have all the answers. But by golly we ought to get together and ought to be led by states rather than one size fits all approach out of Washington, D.C. Think of the benefit, the creativity, innovation that could happen if all 50 states, as laboratories of democracy and innovation, were out there trying to find solutions to whatever we think the health care question is? So we have over 500, nearly 600 people show up to our health care summit. We've got subcommittees working now. They're going to be coming back with recommendations, as we have our second health care summit this year. And we'll find out what recommendations they come to us, as far as us helping improve health care accessibility and affordability for the people of Utah. That's the way it ought to be addressed, state by state.

ROD DECKER, KUTV: I'm sorry, I'm going to go back to sex ed. I've got a question.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: You're just obsessed with it, Rod.

ROD DECKER, KUTV: You said you favor more parental choice. My understanding now is a parent can say, "I don't want my kid to have any sex ed," and that's his choice. But a parent can't say, "I want the schools to teach my kid more about specific use of condoms," or more about gay sex, or things like that. There are things that a parent cannot choose. If you want more parental choice, might you favor something that broadened the choice so that they could get more sex ed than they can now?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, you certainly could approach it that way. I'm approaching it from the current law that we have in place right now, which seems to be working pretty well. Again, we're not getting this big complaint from the public at large. I've been crossing the state since 2004, probably the most travelled elected official in our state's history in that regard, and have had nobody ever come up to me and say, "Hey, you know what, we've got a real problem with our school sex education, change it." 95 percent of our parents are opting into it, they have to proactively choose it. They have opportunities with their local school boards to modify the curriculum as far as what their child will have. This really, I do believe in, that we need to focus on abstinence only, and it ought to be a parental responsibility. What we do in school ought not to be to supplant the parents and the guardian responsibility, but to augment what they're doing. A little or a lot in home will have to be augmented with our schools. And again it can be just a strictly science, biology class. Those other values ought to be taught in the home, and I think our system works pretty well. Can it be improved? Maybe. We'll find out if the legislature's got some ideas and we'll see what happens.

LISA RILEY ROCHE, DESERET NEWS: Well, it sounds, Governor, like your veto was a message to the legislature, "Move on. There's no need to be addressing this issue now, the system we have works well, we're not hearing a clamor to change it, there's plenty of other issues in the state to deal with, I'm vetoing this, move on and do something else."

GOVERNOR HERBERT: That's right. Again, every session we have bills that come up that people come with ideas and we think there's some problem out there, we'll have a solution, and that will happen next year too. Again, that doesn't mean that everything that I see out there in the world is exactly how legislators see it in the world. Again, I have a responsibility, I can say yes or no. I can't improve the bills, necessarily, that's the legislative process. They've heard the voice of the people, they've certainly saw what I've done with this piece of legislation. We'll see what they do next year, if anything.

LISA RILEY ROCHE, DESERET NEWS: But you don't want them to take this up further at this point?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: I don't care whether they take it up or not. I just know that the bill we had brought before us was an overreach. It was not good policy when it came to limiting parental choice, and government stepping up and saying, "We know better." I don't think that's good policy, and as a conservative I want to give parents more choice and more options, which they had and was being taken away, and I don't like the government saying, "I know better than you do." ROBERT GEHRKE, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Governor, if I could go back to health care real quick. As Rod mentioned, there's about 14 percent uninsured in Utah. You said you prefer to take the private sector over mandates, but in Massachusetts, where there is a mandate, they're under 2 percent uninsured there. I mean is there a reason to reassess that issue?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: That's one of the beauties of having state led health care reform. Because we can look at Massachusetts and say, "Gee, there's some parts of this that we like. Maybe the fact that they only have 2 percent uninsured," and I think the people of Massachusetts, as I understand it, are fairly complimentary about their own health care. But their costs are rising dramatically. And so maybe there's an offset there. You say well, the cost to benefit, that ought to be something we all ought to look at. Here's the cost and here's the benefit. Does it offset? Does it make sense? And we learn from each other. We'll learn from successes, but we're going to learn from failures too. And if you have 50 different states out there leading the charge in health care reform, we'll gradually and eventually find the right process, and probably the right product to give us the best thing we can do to get to perfection, having everybody have access to affordable health care.

ROBERT GEHRKE, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: This week there was a lawsuit filed by the Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah over the water rights for the Blue Castle nuclear power plant. Do you have any reservations at all about the process that went on in granting those water rights, and in light of some of the financial difficulties that the company's had?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: You know, I don't. And again, just so everybody understands, our water engineer is insulated against politics. That's by design. Water's always been a very volatile issue, and emotionally packed, and so our water engineer is insulated, he cannot be removed, he has a 6 year term, and he's there just to, in fact, adjudicate based on the law. And the request that he got from Blue Castle was to define whether, in fact, they had a water right. And he's done that. Now, people can contest that and say that there was a cursory review, and that's why we have courts, and the process will move forward. He made a determination, I'm sure it's based on the law and based on the facts. At the end of the day, whether we have a nuclear power plant is going to be determined by the federal government, and they'll review and say whether they had adequate water, is this a good enough water right? All the water engineer said is, "You know what, they've got a water right here and I'm saying that, in fact, it is a water right."

MAX ROTH, FOX-13: Governor, I'm going to bring us back to sex education. And the one question that I still have is that, on the day that you made the decision, you made that veto, a critique from Senator Dayton that I heard was that you had, that we understand that you had spoken to Gale Ruzicka, who's president of the Utah Eagle Forum about your decision, but not to Senator Dayton, who was the senate sponsor of that bill. And I wonder if you can take us through what you did after you made that decision, and why not talk to the legislative sponsor?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, she was the secondary sponsor, Bill Wright was the sponsor of the bill, and I did talk to Representative Wright as a courtesy. There's no obligation for me to talk to the legislature. They don't necessarily talk to me when they create legislation. We have different roles to play. But I talked with Representative Wright, I talked with a lot of people, pro and con, on that through the week. And I eventually came to the point, I said to everybody, when I go through the due diligence and look at the, so I understand the consequences of this bill and ascertain what is intended and what maybe would be unintended and then decide whether it's good policy, I'm going to say yes or no. And after doing that throughout the week and finished up I said, "You know what, this is not good policy, I'm going to veto it." I called Representative Wright and talked to him about that. We had contact with the speaker of the house and the president of the senate and we moved ahead. That's how the process works.

ROD DECKER, KUTV: Governor, Your political opponents within the Republican party have accused you of waiting until after the caucuses, putting your finger in the wind, and making a political decision. Would you reply to that?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Well, it's the silly season, you know. Politics are out there so people can make any kind of accusation for their own political agenda that they would like to. Again, you were there. I said I'm going to go through this process, it was delivered to me just a few days before the caucuses. We had opportunities to talk to people on all sides of the issue, understand it, to look at the legal ramifications, all those things that you would do as Governor to make a decision. Again, I can say yes or no. We went through that process, we had appointments through Friday, and so when that was done and I completed that due diligence then I made a decision. And I said rather than wait and drag it out, you know what, I know where I want to go and I think what is the right thing for Utah to do, and that was to veto this bill. And I did it. It happened to be Friday evening.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, we have about one minute left in our assigned time. I just wanted to ask you this question. When you gather the other governors together in these western voices together for the summit meeting, are you going to ask perhaps some adjoining states what their intention is with those long straws that are aimed at water resources, such as Las Vegas, such as the front range of Denver, looking at tapping the Green River? Are you going to take up that subject?

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Absolutely. In fact it's on our agenda to talk about water. It's one of those things in the west that really is an acute issue. And for a lot of us, the more arid states, it's the only limiting factor to growth. So how we, in fact, utilize to the best extent we can our natural resources, including water, is really a big issue. The federal government is getting involved in that and making it more difficult for some of our farmers and ranchers, and again, as states we're concerned about that encroachment, that overreach. So that will be part of the discussion. Again, I think we have an opportunity here in the intermountain west, which is a fast growing part of our nation, to unite our voices and actually impact national policy as we, in fact, do come together here in the intermountain west.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: And on that note we're out of time. A reminder that transcripts of this and every Governor's News Conference are available on line at KUED.org. Thanks for joining us.

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