April 21, 2023

"the question is, do those First Amendment rights mean that you have to have unfettered access to very damaging...but to these experiments that these social media companies are running on our kids with designs that are purposely addictive, that are scientifically addictive, and again, proven to cause extreme damage to our kids." Governor Cox

ANNOUNCER:  PBS Utah presents the Governor's Monthly News Conference, an Exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

GOVERNOR COX: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our annual news conference. We want to give our thanks again to PBS Utah for hosting us today. We have some new digs. I hope our reporters are enjoying their new seats. I hope they're comfortable and we're grateful for the opportunity to be here with you.

I want to just start by talking a little bit about our flood preparations and what's happening. Of course, this past week has presented some challenges as our record-breaking snow pack has started to melt and rain continues to fall. As of this morning, we're experiencing flooding and flood risks in areas across the state, including Spanish Fork Canyon, the Bear River fire burn scar, Scofield Reservoir, and the Town of Alta. Of course, flooding in Oakley City has inundated one home and other homes in the area are also at risk.

We know that rivers and streams are running cold, extremely high and extremely fast, especially the Weber River, the Ogden River, Big Cottonwood Creek and Emigration Creek. We've also seen avalanches that have blocked canyons, mudslides and rockslide that have endangered homes and sink holes that have ruined roads. And this morning, we're seeing groundwater flooding affecting 17 homes in North Ogden. Groundwater flooding can happen when soils are already so saturated that additional rainfall and snow melt can't drain away quickly enough, which causes the water table to rise above the ground surface.

Now, back in October, I asked for $5 million to be included in our budget for flood mitigation. This session, the legislature approved that request, and while I'm grateful for their support, we definitely recognize that we are going to need more. We have now depleted those funds.

So, this week, I issued an executive order declaring a statewide state of emergency due to the flooding and ongoing risk of flooding affecting our state. Over the next 30 days, this state of emergency will allow agencies to tap into the state's literal rainy-day funds to continue our flood response, as well as ask for federal aid. We'll ask the legislature to extend if we need longer than a month. We've already had conversations with the Senate president, with the Speaker of the House, and they are aligned that if we need more time or additional resources, they will meet to make that happen. 

The good news is that our flood plans are working as they were designed to. The Utah Division of Emergency Management has activated the state emergency response team and deployed resources, including, as we mentioned in our last press conference, more than 1 million sandbags to help local communities prepare. UDOT has also activated their emergency coordination center. In addition, crews from the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, UDOT and others are assisting local governments and volunteers to fill sandbags and remove debris from culverts and drainages.

Our cities and towns are doing incredible work, mobilizing their resources and their people to keep residents safe. And thousands of volunteers have rallied to fill sandbags and to take care of each other. We're grateful for all of the volunteerism. This truly is the best of Utah. Now, because flood season is in full swing, I'm asking Utahns to please keep away from rivers and stream banks. The fast, cold and high water is just too dangerous right now, especially for young children and pets. Watch for them as they wander near these fast-moving streams and rivers.

Please do not drive through flooded streets. Stay alert and listen to the news and weather alerts when storms are headed your way and call your local public works or emergency management office if you need help clearing ditches, stream beds, canals, and culverts of leaves, branches, trash or other debris. Often flooding happens due to debris that is blocking these drainage systems. I would also just add, as worried as we are about flooding, I have deep concern about mudslides and rockslides, landslides that we know are happening across the state.

So, if you're driving in canyon areas where there are steep embankments, keep your ice peeled. We've already seen some of those, of course, in Parleys Canyon. We've seen some up Fairview Canyon where I live. And we know that more are likely to follow.

I would also just mention that if you've looked at the latest snow water equivalent table, the chart, even though we've been melting and having some flooding now for two weeks, we're still not down to the 1983 record. We're still above record territory, which means that there is a tremendous amount of water still left to come down and the temperatures do look good over the next two weeks. Of course, they're cooler now. 

We need temperatures in the 60s and low 70s to really get that water moving. We were trying to avoid the 80s and 90s, although, of course, that is certainly out of our control. But the more water we can get down sooner, the better off we will all be. You can find more tips on how to protect your home at beready.utah.gov and also at floodfacts.utah.gov. With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: Will there be a need for a special session to deal with flood funding?

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, good question, Katie. I don't know yet if we will need a special session, but if we do, as we're looking at the resources that are available against state resources that we already have access to and federal resources that may be available. We've had that initial conversation and if it's necessary, the legislature is willing to come back.

SEAN HIGGINS, KUER: Governor, with that $5 million being depleted already, has there been any hiccups in in the flood response or has it been a seamless transition?

GOVERNOR COX: A really seamless transition right now, and again, you know, the highest risk is still ahead of us, so I don't want to speak too soon with that, but it's actually been really impressive considering we haven't had to kind of use the flood muscles for a while, 2011, last time we had major flooding, although we did have some of this type of, kind of low-level flooding in Box Elder County a few years ago. Many of you will remember that. A little different circumstance, snow in the valley, rain on top of that snow and nowhere for it to go.

So just a little different circumstance there, but I've just been incredibly impressed with the coordination at the county level, the city level and the state level. Getting those resources out, getting those sandbags out, getting those sandbags filled, getting heavy equipment into position.

We've seen some great work. I would also just mention some of the flooding that we saw in the Emigration Canyon area was mostly caused by a faulty obstruction that needed to be removed and that has now been removed. So even some of the worst flooding that we've already seen probably should not have happened. And the infrastructure seems to be holding really well right now, but the temperatures are going to play a major role in how much of this we're able to avoid.

WENDY HALLORAN, KUTV: Governor Cox?

GOVERNOR COX: Yes.

WENDY HALLORAN, KUTV:  We're approaching the 40th anniversary of the 1983 floods where State Street turned into State River, essentially. What is the game plan in case City Creek floods?

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, so thank you, Wendy. We're working very closely with the emergency coordinators from Salt Lake City, from Salt Lake County. Again, all of the redesign work was to make sure that that doesn't happen where we have a river of that magnitude running down State Street. And I've actually had personal conversations with the chief and others and they feel very confident that we will not see that type of flooding again.

I will also say that when we're talking about how that works, what happened then was we had reservoirs that were filled to capacity and couldn't handle the water that was coming in and in anticipation and knowing how much water was already there, we've been emptying those reservoirs, which is good news for the Great Salt Lake, because that water is running directly into the Great Salt Lake, preparing for more water coming in.

And that's something that, because there's additional capacity, what a lot of people forget about 1983 is they forget 1982. 1982 set records for snowfall and water and filled all of our reservoirs to capacity. And so, there just wasn't much left. There was nowhere else to put the water. We have additional reservoir capacity now that we didn't have then. And again, last year was one of the driest on record as opposed to 1982, which leaves us in a very different situation.

And so, they recognize that and they've been releasing water and will continue to release water, so that they can then control how much water's coming down, right? When too much is coming into the reservoir, they can let less out to mitigate that flooding as the reservoir rises, and then we can play this game.

During cooler temperatures, like now, we let more out. So, it's always running at near flood-stage capacity, but not over flood-stage capacity, and just the technology and our ability to manage this has improved greatly.

WENDY HALLORAN, KUTV: In hindsight, I know that $5 million was appropriated by the Executive Appropriations Committee for Flood Mitigation. That money has, you know, been burned through already. I spoke with the senate chair of that committee yesterday for an on-camera interview, and he mentioned that there's a lot of reserves, there's a lot of avenues that they can go to take more money, move money around, but in doing so, that could also halt other jobs, other projects if they take from the highway fund. What is your response to that and do you think that lawmakers allocated enough money for flood mitigation to begin with?

GOVERNOR COX: Sure, so I think it's important to note that we have a part-time legislature, right? So very different than some other states. And I think that's a positive thing that we have a part-time legislature, and so, I'm really not worried about it at all. In fact, you know, when I asked for that $5 million, people laughed at me, because I asked for it before we had any snow, and certainly, I don't know that anybody saw us, not just having a record winter, but smashing those past records, right? And so, yeah, we don't get to play hindsight with these things.

We just move forward and we do have plenty of money and reserves. You know, those rainy-day funds aren't just for economic downturns, they're also for major emergencies. We've been very thoughtful and again, I want to give the legislature a tremendous amount of credit. There's a reason that we are continually named the best managed state, and it's because we do manage our funds in such a way that we're prepared for things like this.

So, we've been, more than at any time in our, we have more in our rainy-day funds now than ever before in our state's history. We have more in our emergency funds, the new funds that have been created over the past couple years than we've ever had before. And so, it's not a matter of is the money there or are we going to have to take away from something else? We're not going to have to do that. I will say there will be some other shuffling that needs to happen.

One of the other places where we've used a significant amount more than we had planned on is UDOT and removing snow, right? We've always planned for an average year. We've had a couple below average years, but this one, those guys have just been working themselves ragged, overtime, significant amount of overtime. So, we will have large overages, overspending in the snow removal category as well.

So that's something that we'll adjust with the legislature and again, we have enough cushion that we can get by for a while, but eventually we'll have to fix that one too.

So yes, we are going to eventually need more allocated, but that money's already there. We just need to get the blessing of the legislature, thank you.

EMILY ANDERSON STERN, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Governor, there have been some reports that some insurance companies have declined to approve Utahns for flood insurance this spring. I'm wondering if that's something that your office is hearing as well and what you might be doing to respond to that.

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, so we do have an insurance office, a department that oversees insurance. They take all of those concerns that come in and they will be adjudicating those and, looking at those, so. I haven't personally engaged on those yet. I probably will. So, most people don't know, and I appreciate you bringing this up. I think it's very helpful, Emily, that we can let people know that your regular homeowner's insurance usually does not cover flooding.

That's a separate insurance policy and it usually takes up to 30 days to get that approved and it can be very expensive depending on where you live and what those floodplain maps look like. So, I always encourage people to look out and see, but if you are being denied and you feel like you're being denied unjustly, then you should file a complaint with our Department of Insurance and they will look into that, and, of course, we want to hold insurance companies accountable, thank you.

WENDY HALLORAN, KUTV: Thank you.

GOVERNOR COX: Yep.

REPORTER: Governor, on social media legislation, what does the state's legal defense look like if there is a lawsuit over the new social media bills?

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, so, this is something we've been preparing for a while, as I mentioned, I mean, even before the social media bills were signed that we are planning to file suit against the social media companies themselves. And so, we're definitely planning on being on the offensive here, as well as on the defensive. And so, we're working with the Attorney General's Office. My general counsel works very closely with them. We have the legislative council as well who are always in involved since this is legislation. They will be involved in crafting those defenses. And we'll be looking across the country at others who are doing this as well. There's, I believe, a lawsuit in Indiana, the Seattle, if I remember right, Seattle Public Schools has filed a lawsuit as well.

So, there are a couple of these lawsuits that are a little bit ahead of us, and I think there are things that we can certainly learn from those, but we will also be taking lessons from past litigation. I think the, as I mentioned before, I think the opioid litigation is very instructive on the way that they were able to show that that companies had been harming people and had knowledge that they were harming people, that their products were designed in such a way that they were harming people. I think the tobacco litigation is another one that we will look very closely to. And so, all I can say is that we are preparing for whatever comes that way.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: You said that you think existing case law was wrongly decided. What cases exactly were wrongly-

GOVERNOR COX: Oh, I apologize, I don't have that in front of me, but there were some early internet cases back in the, I want to say, late '90s, some Supreme Court cases that that were decided and I don't know that they were necessarily wrongly decided, but I don't know that they were decided in such a way that they apply the way that that others think they do to social media.

Again, those cases were decided just about the internet more broadly, but that was well before social media and that was well before there were any, not just perceived harms, but proven harms to young people. So, I think it is a balancing act.

I think we can preserve free speech. I think that that's very important, of course.

I think that people do have First Amendment rights and I recognize those First Amendment rights, but the question is, do those First Amendment rights mean that you have to have unfettered access to very damaging, not just content, although content is certainly part of this, but to these experiments that these social media companies are running on our kids with designs that are purposely addictive, that are scientifically addictive, and again, proven to cause extreme damage to our kids. 

I don't think that was ever anticipated by the Supreme Court. And I suspect that if a Supreme Court has an opportunity and they likely will, to review those cases in light of what we know now about social media, that they will find that those cases do not apply to the social media platforms.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: The makeup of the Supreme Court is more conservative now than it was when the existing internet's free speech cases were decided. Does this help or hurt Utah, assuming the suit does go to the Supreme Court?

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, it's a good question. And I don't know, it's something I've thought about and I don't know that it hurts or helps. I do think just from kind of a political philosophy that these fits well in both conservative and liberal camps.

It's one of those strange areas these days where there is some common ground when you have the, you know, I've said this before, but when you have a congressman like ours, Chris Stewart, who I talked to many times about the work that he's doing there, some very conservative members of Congress that are supportive of holding social media companies accountable. And then you have a very progressive liberal president, President Biden, who, in his State of the Union, has called for tighter regulation, holding social media companies accountable and trying to prevent some of this harm that is happening.

I've heard from the administration that they're watching very closely what we're trying to do in here in Utah. And again, talking to Congressman Stewart, he's finding bipartisan support for what they're trying to do. So, if you extrapolate that to the Supreme Court, I guess it's probably good no matter the makeup.

VERONICA SANSUR, TELEMUNDO:  Governor, last week, you signed SB35 into law, which allows nine departments in this state to issue licenses to some immigrants, so they can have access more work here in Utah. In Telemundo, Utah, we have been receiving so many comments from immigrants interested in applying. What is your message to them? And is the administration going to work along the Department of Commerce to make this process easier?

GOVERNOR COX: Yes, yes. Thank you, Veronica. So, for those who are not aware, we actually passed the first piece of legislation last year and then a second piece this year. And the idea behind that, as you mentioned, is to help those who have come here legally, immigrants who are living here in Utah and have amazing skills that they bring from their country.

So, they may be nurses, they may be doctors, they may be veterinarians, estheticians, all kinds of different licensing processes that they've gone through in their own country. And then they come here to the United States and they can't get a license, right? Even though they can do the work, they're very talented. They end up doing things that are well beneath their skill level. And we think that that's a real missed opportunity. We think that's bad for our immigrants and it's bad for our economy.

Right now, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. I think we're at 2.4%, which is the third lowest we've been, we've been the lowest or, you know, top five over the course of the past year. And what we hear that, we have businesses that are desperate for these types of employees and we can't fill these jobs fast enough. And so, it makes sense.

It's very logical and I'm proud that we're one of the first states in the nation to be able to find pathways for those citizens to get licensed here without having to start from scratch, without having to start from kind of ground zero.

Now, it does take time and the bill hasn't even taken effect yet. That will happen in another month in May. And, and so, and they will be working with all of these departments, the Department of Commerce taking the lead to figure out the pathways to help people get licensed or relicensed much more quickly.

So, what I would say is be patient, but know that the work is being done and we are very supportive. We've let the department know that anything that they need to get this moving forward, so that we can rapidly get those pathways done and start taking applications.

Now, from the bill last year, we've already been able to move a few of those immigrants, those citizens now, through the process, and get them working. We've been able to talk to some of those. They're very excited. But we want to expand that significantly and that will be happening over the next year, thank you.

EMILY ANDERSON STERN, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: On that same topic. Earlier this year, you wrote an op-ed for I believe the Washington Post about wanting states to be able to sponsor immigrants to come and work in their states. I'm curious if you've heard whether there's been any movement from Congress on that issue.

GOVERNOR COX: So, we know conversations are happening. That was an op-ed that I wrote with Governor Holcomb from Indiana, another Republican governor. It was very well received. The feedback that we got was overwhelmingly positive. And again, in a bipartisan way. Congressman John Curtis has been really fantastic on this issue. I know it's something that he's very interested in, something that he's been working on with his colleagues.

We're hopeful that we could see something move. I know there is also a bipartisan group of senators that are looking at immigration and how we can make some reform there that that is positive and will help move us in a better direction.

So, I'm cautiously optimistic. I will also tell you that that starting in July, when I get the opportunity to serve as the chair of the National Governors Association, that we will be engaging more governors, again, in a bipartisan manner, to see if we can't find some common ground on immigration reform. What's really interesting about this one, it's the, I don’t know how to say this, the least controversial of the most controversial issues that are out there. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it's the one controversial issue that most Americans agree on. 

Let me state it that way, and I've shared this before, but if you look at polling around immigration, most Americans believe that we need to secure our border, including me, that we need to do much more to secure our border. And I was heartened to hear that the president talking about the fentanyl issue and how dangerous and deadly it has become. It's the first time we've heard a democratic president talking about that issue and understanding how dangerous and damaging that is.

So, there's broad agreement, again, Democrats, democratic voters, agree that we need to secure the border. Republicans, republican voters also agree that we need to fix legal immigration and do more there, and that was the purpose of this op-ed was to say, look, we understand that there's disagreement on this issue, and so, one of the ways to help with that is to let governors decide how many immigrants they want to come into their state or need to come into their state.

Our economy is demanding that we need more workforce and we just can't find more workforce here. So, this isn't about taking jobs away from Americans. It's about helping create new jobs and more jobs and helping our economy to continue to grow.

I would also add that we do this crazy thing where we bring in the best and brightest from other countries and we give them access to the best universities on earth right here in the state of Utah and other states, and we give them an incredible education and education that is desperately needed here.

Engineers are a great example of this. We need so many engineers and we train these engineers and then we refuse to let them stay. We send them back to their countries and they want to stay here and could certainly help us in many ways. That's very frustrating. And so, again, most republicans support fixing legal immigration.

The problem, so you may ask why, with this broad consensus, haven't we been able to do anything? And the problem isn't the people. The problem is the politicians and its politicians who get elected by dividing us on this issue, on both the left and the right. And we've been very close to consensus before. There had been a couple runs.

There was one during the George W. Bush presidency where we got very close to some comprehensive immigration reform. It fell at the last minute. We got very close during the Obama administration. It was almost there. And then at the very last minute, it fell apart.

So, you know, I have my eyes wide open on this one. I recognize that it's been tried before and failed before, but I'm always optimistic and hopeful that we could get something done with this Congress.

REPORTER: Okay, that is all the time we have for our broadcast portion of the Governor's News Conference. Thank you so much for being with us, and we will see you back here next month.

ANNOUNCER:  This has been the Governor's Monthly News Conference. For transcripts, full video and more information, visit pbsutah.org/governor.

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