March 22, 2007

"...let's hope we have another good economy. If we do, and I'm planning on our having another good economy, then the first priority for me is going to be teacher compensation and the WPU." -Gov Huntsman

Reporters (in order of appearance):

KEN VERDOIA, KUED
JOHN DALEY, KSL
LISA RILEY ROCHE, DESERET MORNING NEWS
RICHARD PIATT, KSL-TV
JULIE ROSE, KCPW
TOM JORDAN, METRO NETWORKS
GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
DAN BAMMES, KUER

Transcript:

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, thanks for joining us today. On and off, the fortunes of Utah's fourth House of Representatives seat seem to be off now. Is that your understanding at this point? Where do we stand in this process?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Well, I think we stand in much better shape than we did six months ago. I mean six months ago nobody would have ever predicted that today there would be a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives on the fourth district, and it would be sent over to probably the homeland security committee, Joe Lieberman's committee, in the senate. And who knows what that portends.

But I suspect it will clear the house, which nobody would have predicted six months ago. I think it will clear the senate. The only interruption might be the threat of a veto out of the White House. But if I try to read between the lines and interpret the tea leaves, as it were, I'm hearing from lower level functionaries in the White House that they're recommending a veto. I haven't heard yet from the president, or from Tony Snow that they are, in fact, going to veto it. Which leads me to believe that perhaps they're using it as some sort of negotiating chip with everything else that's swirling around in Washington.

I remain optimistic. I think it stands tall on its merits, I think it has a lot of bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and the senate. I've been back to testify, obviously, and have spoken out consistently in favor of it. We're a state, by dint of population, that deserves a fourth seat, and soon a fifth, as one of the fastest growing states in America, and I think we're going to see over the next week or two where this goes politically.

I think the White House will have to say whether or not they're going to recommend a veto to the president, and make a higher profile statement than what we've heard last few days. But I think we're sitting in a pretty strong position right now.

JOHN DALY, KSL: Governor, on the ReAL Salt Lake soccer stadium, when did you hear about that, and do you know who the other investor is?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: When did I hear about that? You're talking about?

JOHN DALY, KSL: About Goldman Sachs no longer being one of the investors, or the primary big investor?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I think I heard about that in a phone call with Dave Checketts at some point. I can't remember if it was a week or two ago. I've had one phone call with him in the last month, since the legislative session ended. And I think there was some mention that there was another group that will be taking Goldman Sachs' place.

JOHN DALY, KSL: Do you know who it is?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I don't recall. It might have been mentioned, but I don't recall who it would be.

JOHN DALY, KSL: Are you concerned about the long term prospects for the stadium, given Goldman pulling out and this other investor coming in, and also should they make that investor's name public?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I suspect they'll make it public as soon as they're ready to make it public. Again, they're taking the business risk on the stadium, and they have to decide if their level of financial support, financial investment makes it worth their while. We're investing in a parking lot and we're investing in land, and beyond that ReAL has to determine if all of the capital strips, all of the financial strips make it worth their while. And I suspect that they've reached that conclusion or they wouldn't be proceeding as they are.

But you have to leave it to ReAL to make the announcement on who their investors might be.

LISA RILEY ROCHE, DESERET MORNING NEWS: Would the fact that a major investor pulled out after the state made a commitment to do what you and others said was necessary to keep ReAL Salt Lake in Utah, the fact that this major investor pulled out, apparently determining it wasn't a good financial risk, shouldn't it give taxpayers concern, and shouldn't taxpayers understand more about how this process is going, rather than waiting for ReAL and this new investment company to come forward? Shouldn't they already know what's going on?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I think you're looking at the transient room tax again. When you're talking about taxpayers, you're talking about people who are staying in our hotels and paying a percent on top of whatever the hotel tariff is. That's the transient room tax. That's what's going to pay for the parking and paying for the land. So let's be very clear about who the taxpayers are in this case.

You know, ReAL has to make business decisions based upon what is viable for them. Goldman Sachs was involved, and whoever the investor is, whoever steps into Goldman Sachs' place is assuming whatever the business plan was before. So I'm not sure any of the numbers change a bit.

But the longer term plan, there, in and around the stadium is for there to be more than just a stadium. They have infrastructure, they have businesses, they have retail and commercial. And I think that is the part that the investors are more interested in than the stadium itself. There's a bigger picture, in other words, than the stadium. So when you're talking about somebody participating with ReAL, I think you have to look at the business plan beyond the stadium. Because there's much more to it than just the stadium in this case.

RICHARD PIATT, KSL: Governor, the legislation that enabled, or that empowered this stadium project to go forward, as well as the voucher, the voucher issue, one of the first bills that you signed, are now the subject of petitions to recall the legislation. Does that bother you that something that you signed is now the subject of citizen petitions?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: No. It makes me want to champion our form of government even more. Because the people have every right to make use of whatever processes are available to them. So it makes our system great. Every person, every citizen has a voice. And we're watching our political system play out, manifest itself, as it was designed. I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

As it relates to vouchers, I think the only question there is, you know, we need a little clarification on whether we're talking about 148 or 174. 148 being the original voucher bill, and 174 being the Brad Last cleanup bill that basically provided support and an FTE to the state office to administer the vouchers. Now I think the attorney general ought to provide some clarity, and I would- - I'm inclined to want to ask him, soon, to make some sort of legal, provide a legal interpretation on exactly what bill would be the overriding bill in this case. The operative language, the operative legislation would be tied to 148, or would it be 174? Because then there are longer term implications in terms of what you end up with. And that would probably be very helpful clarity on vouchers.

But the process led by the people is playing out, and it looks to me like they might have 90,000 signatures by April 9th, and if they do, I then become a facilitator. I become someone who's interested in the process, and that is respecting the will of the people. And I then have to choose between three dates for a special election, if it, in fact, gets that far. You get to April 9th and the numbers are then validated, we then have to determine if there will be a special election beyond that. I think you have three dates from which to choose, I think you've got July, and September, and the regularly scheduled election in November, and then the people turn out to vote.

And that's kind of where we are right now. But it looks to me like it's building up a head of steam, and they could very well reach that 90,000 signatory mark.

JULIE ROSE, KCPW: Governor, you talk about this confusion, there is some confusion about the two bills that were, that implemented the voucher program. If it does happen to be the case, as some of the voucher proponents are saying, that this referendum would only apply to one of those bills, but that essentially through a loophole the voucher system would remain on the books regardless of the outcome of that vote, how would you feel about that? And would you be willing to allow vouchers it continue in the state of Utah if, during a vote of the people, you know, the outcome were different?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Well that's why there needs to be clarity on whether it's 148 or 174. Because 148 basically is a fully funded voucher. 174 is the voucher minus the funding. It is the subsequent piece of legislation of 148, that basically made it easier for vouchers to be administered through the state office. So therein you have, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars in funding, you've got an FTE. Without, I think, the $12 million that are tied to 148. So if you're left, so if it's 174 you're left with a voucher without funding. And so that's why clarity is needed. Is it going to be 148, is it 174 that people are talking about at the end of the day? And that, then, I think, will result in the level of momentum going forward that is tied to this whole voucher movement.

JULIE ROSE, KCPW: But would you allow a voucher program to go forward even if the public had voted against the voucher program?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Well let's be clear on exactly which voucher we're talking about, here. If the people speak out, if you have 90,000 signatories, and if we call a special election, and if the people vote it down, obviously that's the answer. I mean the people have spoken. And that, then, is the answer and I would obviously respect that.

TOM JORDAN, METRO NETWORKS: A couple of days ago, still on the subject of education but a different tack, you were signing the bills on education funding, giving the teachers a raise and such, and that same day the task force on the teacher shortage came out with their conclusions and recommendations, and of course part of what they were pointing out was that we are on the verge of a crisis, I think as they said, the likes of which we have never seen before. We graduated 2300 teachers, we had to hire 3500, and within the next year or two that's serious. And they're hoping that you will take that report and try to do something substantive with it by the next session. Is that something you're going to be very much behind?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: We're going to take a very good look at it. In the last two days I've been north in Logan, I was south yesterday in St. George, and I hear about this issue. I mean here I was up in Logan, you know, talking to people who were involved with institution I went to visit the school board in Logan, the Cache school board. And as I do when I meet all school boards, school districts, you have parents, you have teachers, you have administrators, you have the superintendent, and I want to hear all the things that aren't working and the things that we need to basically pay more attention to. And when they're right next to a school that is turning out teachers, yet not turning out enough to fill their needs, that's a concern.

And so when you have recommendations like are being released by the K 16 Alliance, I'm going to sit down with the group tomorrow and we're going to get a serious download of the content. And when they're talking about making better use of our facilities, making better use of our teachers, and doing it in ways that perhaps defy our long standing traditions of kind of the agrarian school year and doing it the old fashioned way, I'm going to pay close attention to that. And we're going to try to get as smart as we possibly can on some fixes going forward, and then make some recommendations by way of our budgets that we present, later on this year, which then will manifest itself, as you saw this last year, in the legislative process.

But we have to tie it, as well, to compensation. And that's why I was very happy to see the bump up in compensation this last year. We're going to have to do that again, because part of attracting teachers to the profession of education is having competitive compensation. And if you're still lagging behind where your neighbor states are, Wyoming and Nevada just to name two that seem to do it, you know, better than we do, then you're going to have a problem.

And you can try to fix it any which way you can, but you're always going to be left with the compensation issue. And I think we've got about a $5,000 deficit, a shortfall, if you will, on average, that we need to make up over the next few years so that we are basically in harmony with what our neighboring and peer states are offering.

So that's going to be part of what I'm interested in as we go forward. Compensation, continuing exactly what we're doing on compensation. But also to look at some of these new ideas that have been put forward by the K 16 Alliance that I think are very meritorious and need to be looked at and analyzed.

GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Governor, with what you're saying in mind about making up this $5,000 shortfall, could an argument be made that the tax cut that was done this year should have, again, been funneled into education, to have made this step in one year, rather than falling, remaining behind for additional years?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: You know, I think whenever you have a $1.75 billion surplus you're going to have to balance a lot of different needs. And whenever you can come out of a year with a 23 percent increase for public education and stepped up support for compensation the likes of which we've never seen in the history of our state, I think you call that a pretty good year. And I think you realize that public policy is very much an iterative process. You're never going to be able to accomplish everything in one year, but rather allow it to play out over several years.

But undergirding a lot of this is our economy's performance. And if we don't have a strong economic performance going forward, as we've had the last couple of years, all bets are off in terms of being able to do all these things that we very much need to do. So I'm going to leave here and I'm going to go off to an economic development summit with 1,000 people who are going to be gathered there, and we're going to talk about ways in which we can keep this economy of ours alive and well. Because that, for me, is the bottom line determinant of how much we're able to do then for transportation, education, human services, and many other things.

So let's hope that we have another good economy. If we do, and I'm planning on our having another good economy, then the first priority for me is going to be teacher compensation and the WPU.

GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Are you concerned that I mean a bad economy is almost inevitable.

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Says who?

GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Just the cycles of life.

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Of course.

GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: But could the state have missed an opportunity to have taken care of its education problems once and for all in the last two years, when the surpluses were just so big, and now it's a gamble for the next two years?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: A 23 percent increase on top of an 18 percent increase, two years running record spending for education, I would say, in a legislative body where you have 104 different opinions and views of the world, what had to be considered a home run, any way you look at it. I mean in a perfect world, you know, you want to come up with a fix in the course of one year. I guess if you're a dictator or an autocrat you can make that happen. If you're dealing in a deliberative process like ours, with 104 different points of view, to come out with 18 percent one year, 23 percent the next, who knows next year, I'd have to consider that to be a home run for the state. Record, record amounts in 111 years of state history.

GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: And yet we're still behind

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Less so than before.

GLEN WARCHOL, SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Our neighbors.

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Yeah. The question is, are we making progress? And of course we're making progress. I don't think you can find another state in America, in fact I challenge you to try to find another state in America that put forth anywhere near 23 percent this year, on top of 18 percent the year before. Those are pretty phenomenal numbers.

And what we're doing here is we're creating a trend that I think will sustain us going forward. We're creating a very high hurdle, a high benchmark for support for public education. And every year we're going to be evaluated now by what we did the previous year. Which I think is good. Because we're setting a very high bar for support for public ed. And going forward, I think that if you're a public educator and interested in your public schools, as I am with my kids in public schools, that's an important culture to be establishing in the political system.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor, for all the emphasis on public education in these two past legislative sessions, there's some disturbing statistics that have come out from the census bureau about higher education's role in the adult population in Utah. That we may be slipping, losing some ground in high school graduates where we lead the nation not entering four year colleges, not pursuing degrees, not completing degrees, and we slipped a little bit. We've fallen into the middle ranks. Are we losing an emphasis, then, on higher ed for the support of public ed?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I think higher ed has always been a strong focus in this state, and I think very much encouraged in people's families, and households. Go on to get a higher education. Now, one mitigating factor might be an economy that's just pulling people away temporarily. If you can leave for a year or two, and if you can enter the work force and be compensated at a level that becomes very attractive to an individual, some people are going to choose to do that temporarily.

I think the longer term trend will always be strong support for higher education. But what we need more of is exactly what we got support for in the last legislative session, and that's more four year degree opportunities in many of our rural areas. So you saw that as part of the record spending for higher education this last year, part of it was programmatic outreach support through Utah state in places like Ephraim and places like Price, and two or three other areas of the state, where heretofore you couldn't access a four year degree. And now you can, at least increasingly you can.

And so, you know, providing more opportunities for people where they live I think is going to also have an impact on the numbers longer term and the people you see take advantage of higher educational opportunities.

DAM BAMMES, KUER: Governor, last week you announced an agreement with Energy Solutions to stop work on expanding their landfill and stop their application process. When they turned in the letter to state regulators, they apparently reserved the right to apply to do this again in the future. Does that provision violate your agreement with them, and do you see it as a problem?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Well that's news to me. If you read the agreement that was signed, there was no such language in the agreement. I think I read this morning that if they were to reapply for something, it basically starts the process with the state all over again, in which case I send a letter to the Northwest Compact, which takes care of it right there.

So the agreement that we have, that has the two signatures on it, pretty much defines the operating guidelines going forward, and that is the volumetric measurement that I think we all need to understand, which basically brings an end to low level radioactive waste, that is the only operating number that has been approved. If you want to bump up that number, which they said they wouldn't do, then you have to go back and reapply. And if you reapply, that certainly goes against what we agreed to in our contract.

Moreover, if that were to happen, I would forthwith sign a letter to the Northwest Compact and basically make it null and void. I don't worry about that happening. We have a defined number going forward, which is about 6 million metric yards, cubic yards, that will take care of the existing agreed to volume. There's nothing I can do about that volume, it was agreed to before I came to office.

My interest was in ensuring that our state doesn't become a dumping ground. That's what I've said from the beginning. And to me that means more volumes in the future, and I want to make sure we don't have more volumes coming in the future. So you put a period at the end of that sentence, and I don't know how many years that means in terms of operating capacity. But you kind of know what the operating capacity is, you can quantify it. And that's that.

LISA RILEY ROCHE, DESERET MORNING NEWS: Governor, doesn't this agreement just stay in effect as long as you're in office? They've reserved the right to go forward at some point in the future. You've made it clear you'll try to stop that, but that's you in office, that's not the office of governor, that's not the state of Utah.

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I have a few more years in office. We'll have to see how that plays out. I don't That would be a cynic's view of it, not that I'd ever consider you a cynic. I think what we're doing here that I hope isn't lost on people is we're changing the culture in this state in terms of the way people view the products that are dumped in our state. It will, in the future, be totally unacceptable to bring radioactive waste of any variety into this state.

And for an elected official to try to stand up and reopen that, I think, would create revolution in the state. I really do. And so the most important thing we can do, I mean you can't tie the hands of future legislatures, but you can create a new ethic in the state going forward, which I think we've tried to do, and I hope successfully, with B and C, hotter levels of waste, with Divine Strake, with Moab mill tailings, with PFS, all of these things were on my list of things that were the greatest concerns to the state when I took office two and a half years ago. And every one of them has been dealt with, and now low level waste, and I think through it all we're creating a new ethic in terms of how we respect our land.

JOHN DALEY, KSL: Speaking of energy, you've got a climate council that you formed in the last year or so. You've got an energy summit coming up.

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Right.

JOHN DALEY, KSL: We've got increasingly alarming studies and reports coming out about the dangers of climate change, putting all this carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Where do we go as a state? We get 95 percent of our electric power from coal, so what does the future hold? There's a push to, in California, to move to renewables, and that's influencing our market here. There's a push on behalf of IPP to get some of these towns to sign these long range contracts. What's the way forward from your perspective?

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: Well we have an energy summit coming up very soon, and I hope you all kind of pay attention to that. We have to be part of the solution, and we have to be part of ensuring that we have standards going forward that improve the situation.

But all the while, as we improve the situation domestically, we have to remember that China and India are going to be the greatest emitters of CO2 going forward. And the rate at which China is putting up dirty plants, so to speak, that ought to be a huge concern to the international community.

Because we're going to do lots domestically to clean up our act. And I think part of that is, you know, working as governors, which we're doing, on innovative solutions, expediting the implementation of clean coal, for example, if coal's going to be part of the solution, let's look seriously at sequestration technologies that sequesters carbon. It's part of Fischer Tropes technology that's been around since the 1930's. It's the cost. You know, at some point the department of energy and the federal government is going to have to step up and support an expedited approach to getting this done.

Renewables will have to be part of it, and we've got renewable tax credits that we made available, we're making available as a result of the last session. I think things like caps in trade are probably going to be a part of our future, as we look realistically at where the industry is going. We as a state are emitting about 70 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, about 35 million metric tons of which are dealt with, or held back by forestation, which is not uncommon in a state like ours. We're basically at the national average, a little bit above the national average, probably by virtue of our economic growth is why we'd be a little bit higher than the national average.

We all have to be aware of what we're doing and programs going forward. I think the governors, you're going to see, are a lot farther ahead in terms of finding a solution and dealing with it realistically and pragmatically and progressively than the federal government.

TOM JORDAN, METRO NETWORKS: Governor, I have sort of a short happy one. I've just come from a meeting with the U.S. Speed Skating. And they've just announced that the short track program is moving from the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs to Utah, which now consolidatES our U.S. speed skating program here. And I would imagine that this is part of the kind of thing you see as image of the state, in a very significant way, because it indicates our growing role as the center of winter sports, and this has to play positively into your economic development image, as well as just good for the state.

GOVERNOR HUNTSMAN: I think it's important. I'm not sure that Colorado Springs is terribly thrilled about it. We're not only building the industrial base that supports winter sports, but we're also bringing in the best athletes in the world, and the training facilities to support that. So we're fully integrated, we're vertically integrated as you would say, in terms of production of product, all the way through to the people who basically showcase those products on the world stage. And with all the great venues in the world, I think it's a pretty cool thing for Utah.

KEN VERDOIA, KUED: Governor Huntsman, with that we are out time, or out of our allotted time. We'll continue talking here in the studio, but for now thank you for joining us for the Governor’s News Conference, we'll see you next month.

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