August 18, 2022

"If you are suffering from depression or anxiety, if you're struggling or having thoughts of suicide, I would beg you, first of all, please stay. We need you; we need you here in our state. You are so important. I've been where you are." 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, everyone. Welcome back, it's great to see you. Hope you had a wonderful summer. It's hard to believe that summer is mostly over, I guess. My daughter started school today. We have school kids going back to school all across the State of Utah this week and next week. And I just want to take this moment to thank our students and our parents for the important work that they do, but especially our teachers as they're headed back. Because, as some of you know, I had an opportunity to spend time as a substitute teacher last year in middle school. And it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. It just gave me a deeper appreciation for our teachers. I was planning to use this as my opening statement, spend a little more time on teachers and students, but I'm going to take a little prerogative, maybe, and talk about something else.

We lost a friend yesterday, someone who died by suicide unexpectedly and tragically. And sadly, we have far too much of that in our state, in our country, and in our society today. It's no secret that Utah has a high suicide rate as compared to the rest of the nation. I think we have the sixth highest rate in the nation right now. It's something that's always on my mind, but specifically, because of yesterday. And because I'm thinking of my own kids as we're heading back to school.

These are very difficult times in our country, and we know that mental health problems have been exacerbated over the past several years, even before COVID, but especially coming out of the pandemic. And so, if I might, just use this as an opportunity to ask people in the State of Utah, first of all, if you are suffering from depression or anxiety, if you're struggling or having thoughts of suicide, I would beg you, first of all, please stay. We need you; we need you here in our state. You are so important. I've been where you are.

I've shared this before, but as a youth growing up, I struggled with suicide ideation. And it's not uncommon, you are certainly not alone if you are feeling those things and you are not broken. There's nothing unfixable about you. You are, we need you, and we need you here. So please, please reach out and get help. We have more resources than ever before.

We have a new suicide prevention hotline, like 911, only for mental health, it's 988. And at the push of three buttons, you can immediately be connected with a professional who can help you through that crisis. Please talk to a friend, a family member, a counselor, a coworker, anyone, just talking about it, we know, has the ability to reduce the chances of an attempted suicide. And then to those who aren't feeling that way right now, I would ask you all to reach out to your family members and your friends and do something very simple, just ask a simple question.

Ask, have you thought about suicide, and if so, have you thought about it recently. Now I know that's kind of a scary question to ask, because sometimes we think that if we talk about it, it may put ideas in someone's head. The research is very clear that that is not true, that is not a thing. In fact, the opposite it true, that just by bringing it up, just by talking about it, even if the person has been thinking about it, and they're not willing to talk right now, knowing that you're the type of person that is open and willing to have that conversation with them is sometimes enough to keep them here, and when they're ready, they will talk to you. 

And I know the second part of this is even more scary. What if the person says, "Yes," what do I do then? Well, you don't have to have all the answers, and we don't expect you to have all the answers. But I think of there's some great training out there called QPR training. Think about CPR for saving a physical life, QPR is how we save someone who's in crisis. So, the first is question, that's the Q. And you just ask that question.

The second part of that is just persuade, and that is we persuade the person to get some help, professional help. And again, we have lots, we have lots of institutions that can help with that, 988 being the easiest, but there are many others, and easy to find in the state. 

The Safe Utah app is another one that we recommend, especially for our young people, it's in about 90% of our schools now, I'm including higher education. Every child and every parent should have access to the Safe Utah app. At the push of a button on your smartphone or device, you can immediately be in contact with one of our professionals at the University of Utah who could help. And then the R is for refer, so we persuade them to get help and then we refer them to one of these lifelines to help protect lives. 

If we will all do that today, tomorrow, this week, throughout this year, I know we can save more lives, and we can do better in the State of Utah. 

So, on that somber note, I'll open it up to any questions you might have. Please. 

ANGEL GAAVIS, TELEMUNDO UTAH: Good morning.

GOVERNOR COX: Good morning.

ANGEL GAAVIS, TELEMUNDO UTAH: Like everybody know, most of the kids are back to school at this point, any concerns about safety in school measures? What would you tell to parents and teachers in general, especially when Uvalde shooting is still feels so close? 

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, yeah, thank you for bringing that up. So, one of the resources that I just mentioned is the Safe Utah app. And while it's mostly used for mental health, there is another piece to that app that has been so helpful here in the State of Utah, and that is that it gives kids and parents the ability anonymously to connect with law enforcement to report any type of suspicious activity that may be out there, any type of bullying. It's been very successful for that.

We've gotten, over the past year, close to 300 tips that have come in, and some of those tips have involved the potential for violence. And so, an opportunity to intervene early and do everything possible to prevent that from happening. 

Over the course of the summer, our Department of Safety has been working very closely with school districts and the State Superintendent, the State School Board, all across the state to make sure that they're continuing to implement safety measures in every one of our schools, making sure that there is proper training, that we have the ingress and egress figured out in a way that will add additional safety. And so, we're working very closely to do everything we can to keep students safe.

We have resource officers in many of our schools, not all of our schools, but many of our schools have resource officers that are there and available. These are law enforcement officers that are there every day to help with any issues that come up in the school. And so, we're certainly hoping that we will have a safe school year and doing everything we can to make that possible. 

BEN WINSLOW, FOX !3 NEWS: Governor, the legislature this year may be poised to repeal the ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy. You're a supporter of the ban when you were Lieutenant Governor. Your thoughts on whether they go this route, if they'll go this route, whether you'll oppose it.

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, well, I don't know what'd going to happen there. I believe there's a hearing on it today. Again, I've been in meetings, and so I'm not sure if that's already happened or is happening now or will happen later today. We're obviously watching it very closely. If you'll remember, Governor Herbert, who was the governor at the time, there was some proposed legislation that ended up not going anywhere.

At the encouragement of many legislators, Governor Herbert asked the Department of Commerce that oversees the regulation of certain practices and businesses in the state through DOPL, and they went through a process, a very public process. They developed a rule, there were public hearings on that rule, and then put that rule into place. And so, of course, we've been supportive and continue to be supportive of that rule.

There has been some litigation over the past couple years since that happened, in other jurisdictions, not here. And we are watching that litigation closely to see how that turns out. We will engage with the legislature if this is something that they decide that they want to, they've always had the ability to deal with this. This is certainly nothing new. And it’s certainly within their prerogative. I think we again as I've admonished many times, we have to be incredibly careful for some of the reasons that I just mentioned.

We know that historic practices around conversion therapy have been incredibly damaging. And there is plenty of research on that issue. And obviously we have free speech issues as well as that are important, and the ability of people to get the type of help that they deem necessary for them and their families, but in a way that doesn't harm our kids. And so, I think it's always appropriate to go back and review the rules that we have in place to see if they're working as intended. That probably hasn't happened yet, and probably needs to happen. But I don't know that anything has changed as far as the concerns that I've expressed earlier. 

So, again, we haven't seen any legislation, I have no idea if they're actually going to take something on like that. But rule review is something very important. In fact, we've set up structures to review all of our rules routinely to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do, and I have no problem with reviewing this rule as well.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: Governor, after their daughter were be, daughters were beat by a girl in sports, some Utah parents triggered an investigation into whether she was transgender, and the school opened the girl's enrollment records dating back to kindergarten to confirm she was female. Do you have any concerns about this situation, and do you think fair play concerns justify parents lodging these types of complaints? 

GOVERNOR COX:  Well, certainly I have a concern about that. You know, I learned about that yesterday. I was not aware of that, I think everybody kind of learned about that yesterday in a hearing where that was proposed. You know, my goodness, we're living in this world where we become sore losers and we're looking for any reason to figure out why our kid lost.

I have a real problem with that story. I don't know all the details other than what was shared there, but I just wish we could be a little more thoughtful in life and a little less critical of other people. I appreciate that there has to be fairness in the way that we administer the rules, and everyone has to follow the rules, but making up allegations like that are pretty disturbing to me, and I would certainly hope that we don't have any of that in the future.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: Anything more that should be done as, you know, that conversation about HB 11 continues?

GOVERNOR COX: Yeah, and I don't know if there's anything that can be done there. Again, there are unreasonable parents everywhere, always. From Little League to college sports and professional sports. I've been guilty of it myself where I've yelled at refs in the past. And I've been a ref who parents have yelled at. We get really involved in our kids as we should.

But sometimes that can go a little too far, where we've had threats of violence against referees in soccer leagues across the nation, football, baseball, softball. We've seen some very poor sportsmanship. Usually, it's the parents and not the kids. We've seen some great examples of sportsmanship in the Little League World Series this year and in other places.

So, I just think we would all be a little better off if we would take a step back and give a little more grace in these options. But I don't know that there's anything legally we could do to change that, so. Sean, welcome.

SEAN HIGGINS, KUER: Governor, I'd like to ask you about the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act. You said earlier this year that we need to innovate our way out of the climate crisis by looking toward to clean energy technologies like wind, solar, and nuclear, while also bolstering domestic oil and gas production here. The Inflation Reduction Act contains items that address both of those things. What is your take on the energy provisions in the IRA and what could it mean for Utah's energy sector? 

GOVERNOR COX: Sure, thank you. Yeah, I do believe that it's closer to a better approach. There are lots of things in the IRA that I disagree with, including the name. But as far as energy goes, and this is really important, we have an opportunity here in the State of Utah for that kind of all of the above approach that will ultimately lead to much better outcomes. And I'm just a firm believer in that. And so, I appreciate that there is an emphasis, and I think this is mostly because of Senator Manchin, that we do have an emphasis on kind of both sides of that ledger. And those can be, and we expect will be, very positive for the State of Utah.

We're a place that has tremendous potential around solar, a tremendous potential around wind, we have potential with geothermal, and we're working with other states including Colorado on that. We've got a big hydrogen project that we're working on with multiple states. And so that will benefit us as well. 

Perhaps the most important thing, though, I think that can come out of that legislation is something that wasn't in the legislation, but we were told it was part of the deal to get that legislation done, and that is permitting reform that was promised to Senator Manchin.

Now, whether or not that promise will be fulfilled, we don't know, but I'm certainly hopeful. And when I talk about permitting reform, I'm referring to mostly NEPA, which is a law that requires, it's an environment protection law theoretically that requires a whole bunch of hoops that you have to jump through before you can do, build a project on public land.

And unfortunately, what it has done is it has prevented or greatly slowed down, or greatly increased the cost of big projects that even projects that we know will be good for the environment, like solar and wind and, the one major area that we're really running into right now and the Biden administration is aware of this, and I will tell you that as I met with my fellow governors, both Republicans and Democrats, they're very concerned about this, it's the ability to get transmission lines where they need to go, so transmit electricity, as we're trying to electrify so much of what we do, especially vehicles to lower emissions, we have got to be able to get that electricity being produced by wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, gas, natural gas, even coal, be able to get that to where it needs to go, so we can do this. And we're having a really hard time in the West because of NEPA and that permitting process. It could take seven to ten years.

But we're just now building a transmission in Utah that I was working on as a county commissioner in 2006, 2007. And it's just now getting built. So, if you really care about the climate and you care about reducing emissions, we have to find ways to greatly increase the speed at which we're able to build these transmission lines. 

In the East, it's a little less about NEPA and more about right of ways. They don't have as much public land, but so they're going through private land and really struggling to be able to make that happen as well. And it's often the same environmentalists that are pushing for these new technologies that are holding back these projects that are so necessary. And so that's one area where I do think Republicans and Democrats can come together and make a big difference.

SEAN HIGGINS, KUER: Given those opportunities and hurdles, do you think Utah could someday kick fossil fuels all together?

GOVERNOR COX: Well, I suspect that as a nation, as a world, that eventually we will, yeah, I think that's very possible. But the mistake that this administration is making and we're seeing that with some of the other rules that they promulgated that are going to, that are going to shut down some of those fossil fuels prematurely before we have both the amount of energy that we need from other sources and before we have sources that are sustainable in that.

The problem with wind and solar, and everybody knows this, is that it's not great for a base load, because if the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, then you don't have that sustainable load. And so that's when coal and natural gas are so, so very important. And if you shut that down prematurely until these other technologies are ready, then all you're going to do is increase inflation, you're going to hurt those that are struggling the most, and you're going to get a backlash, as we've seen in other places, to these new energies.

So, there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. And again, by supporting all of these, we're doing it the right way, and then when those energies are more sustainable, when we have battery capacity that can handle a base load that is now being carried by coal and natural gas, then we can start to significantly reduce our reliance on those other energy sources. Please.

DANIEL WOODRUFF, KUTV: Governor, yesterday, the director of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands called the Utah Lake Islands proposal unconstitutional and not legally sound. Your thoughts on that declaration and should that put a stop to this proposal? What are your thoughts on where we go from here on that?

GOVERNOR COX: Sure, well, as I've said before, I am a huge proponent in working to improve and preserve Utah Lake. I think it is one of the best assets and most underutilized assets we have in this from just a natural beauty, recreation standpoint, ability to enjoy that incredible lake front. It's every year, it's getting, it's been worse. 

Now, there have been some improvements, slight improvements, as we've seen, but the pollution levels in that lake, the algal blooms that happen routinely every year, in fact, we're having one right now, that make it so you can't go into the lake and can't boat on the lake. Those are big issues. I'm a big believer in dredging. Dredging is happening all over the world and has for generations. It's a great opportunity to deepen that lake and improve the wildlife habitat, the fishery in the lake. And again, just improve the overall ecosystem and health of that lake.

Now as far as that specific project, I've never given it a full-throated endorsement, I've said, we have to look at everything, every opportunity, it's going to be very expensive. And if we can find private partners that will help carry the load, so taxpayers don't have to carry all of that burden, we should certainly be open to that and look at it. Now, I have not seen the legal analysis around that report that came out yesterday yet.

But certainly, I will take time to look at that. We have great teams in the Attorney General's office who's been working with that division on this particular issue, and so I certainly trust their legal analysis. I suspect that there may be some litigation around this, so I have to be careful weighing in in any way.

But so let me just say this. We have to do more for Utah Lake, we have a bill, a piece of legislation that I signed that created this Utah Lake Commission that will be working specifically on that issue. There is nothing in that legislation that pointed them towards this particular idea or this particular project. So, their job is to look at all available resources, look at all available ideas, and then come back with some proposals for me and for the legislature, and we'll look forward to those proposals.

BEN WINSLOW, FOX !3 NEWS: Is Utah going to be forced to make more cuts, or have to take less water out of the Colorado River, regardless of whether you want to negotiate for fair shares or not, is the reality there's just not going to be water there?

GOVERNOR COX: Oh, sure, yeah, I think that's, I think kind of is, kind of goes without saying. I'll say it anyway, Ben, I think it's important. I think the chair of our Utah Colorado River Commission said as much as, this week. Gene said that look, we're all, every state is going to have to cut back. We know that we're never going to get what was our fair share, what we had been promised, because the hydrology of the river is just not there.

We certainly hope that it will be some day, but it is not right now. And so, we have these agreements in place, we know the reality is that the lower basin states have used more than their allocation. We've used less than our allocation. But there's not enough for all of our allocations. And so, we're all going to have to cut back. The question will be is how do we fairly distribute that cutback among the states, and those are the conversations that are ongoing. 

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: Governor, Time magazine has a story out about you today with the headline, "The Red State Governor Who's Not Afraid To Be Woke." Your thoughts about that story-

GOVERNOR COX: Oh, it's a stupid headline.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: And have you received any reaction?

GOVERNOR COX: That's ridiculous. Look, that headline is doing the exact same thing that I rail against. Being kind and trying to bring people together is very different than being woke. And I think it's, I just completely disagree with it, I think it's a trash headline, it's not accurate. And yet, I did get a chance, just before I came in, I kind of skimmed the article. There are some things in there that I think are fair.

Certainly, I have been outspoken in trying to bring people together in a positive way. I stated in there that I'm not trying to own the Libs, I'm trying to convince the Libs that there's a better way. That's not being woke, that is very different. I think we have a problem with cancel culture and wokeness. And I think it's deeply problematic, and I think it's adding to the divide in our nation. I have no idea where that word came from, certainly wasn't used in any of the interviews, and I have no idea why they would choose that headlines.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: What's the message you would want to get out about that story?

GOVERNOR COX: Well, the message is this. Look, if you care about our country, and you care about the future of our country and these freedoms that we hold so dear, we are going to have to learn to work with people who are different than us. We've done that in the past, and by the way, we do that here in Utah very, very well. We're not perfect, and you can all point to lots of examples where we are not, and those get the headlines. And I suspect this was a clickbait headline as well.

I think it's very interesting and telling to me that there's an entire article pushing against clickbait, but then uses clickbait to try to get people to read the article. And so, that's where I think we have to do better. I'm a conservative, and I hold certain principles very dear, and I thought, I grew up thinking that the whole idea was that I try to convince, as a conservative, I try to convince other people that what I believe is a better way to live and to govern.

Now we've gotten to a place were both conservatives and liberals have decided that you are, that this is some sort of quality that no one can change and that we need to kick everyone out that isn't exactly like us, and we need to surround ourselves with people that are only exactly like us. And when I say exactly like us, I mean 100% like us.

That is so anti-American. And it's incredibly damaging, its social media has made that much easier, and so I'm going to continue to work across the aisle to find solutions and to try to help people see that there's a different way and hopefully a better way. I'm going to continue to work within my own party to do more of that as well, to try to bring people together and help us be a little less strident in kicking people out who agree with us 95% of the time, and seeing if we can't build some bridges there. And that's what I was trying to get across when I was interviewed, and hopefully that comes through in the article. I would always encourage people, and I think everyone in this room would support me in this.

Most of you, I don't think any of you write your own headlines, maybe I'm wrong. I think that's something that should change in your industry. I think that's a huge mistake. If I can give you just a piece of advice, I think it would be much better if the people who wrote the articles got to choose the headlines. But I would also say, don't look at headlines, actually read what's in there. I think you would appreciate me saying this. Far too often people just look at the headline, form an opinion and move on, and I would encourage you not to do that.

KATIE MCKELLAR, DESERET NEWS: Have you received any reaction from your constituents about that, that headline into your -

GOVERNOR COX: Well, not yet, because I don't think anybody's read it yet, so we'll see. I only saw it about a half hour before this started. So, I'm, there's always political consequences. We live in a really stupid age.

REPORTER: Okay, on that note, we're going to end our television portion of the broadcast. Thank you so much for joining us for the PBS Monthly News Conference with the Governor. And we'll see you back here next month. Okay, we're going to get to.

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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