Gov. Herbert answers tough questions from Emery High students during visit

By ALICE WADLEY staff writer

Gov. Gary Herbert visited Emery High School as part of his tour of rural Utah. Gov. Herbert was part of a formal question and answer session with questions from Mr. Tom Hansen’s students. Mr. Neal Peacock was the moderator.
Gov. Herbert told the students, you are the leaders of tomorrow and you need to ask yourselves are you ready. It is an important time in history. We need good people, men and women in leadership. Utah is leading the nation in many ways. He said, get a good education, there are many opportunities, do something beyond high school, education gives you options. Mr. Peacock said this is a governor who cares about our small towns in Utah.
The question and answer session began with the question, there has been a lot of flooding lately in Carbon and Emery County, what is the states role in helping us deal with flooding in these areas? Gov. Herbert answered, the states role is assisting and helping local governments. The state does not like to micromanage the local governments. The first responders are all local. We want to be of assistance not a hindrance. The state Department of Transportation has looked to see if the roads are repaired and in good shape. FEMA is assessing the flooding areas. The federal government has the biggest role to help pay for some of the damages. The state is a facilitator. We have many opportunities to help the local governments to clean up the mess.
The next question was in light of the 14th Amendment, equal protection clause and the majority of court decisions that have been coming up through the federal courts since Windsor vs. U.S. how does the state justify the cost of defending the marriage law of one man and one woman? Gov. Herbert said, this issue has a lot of emotion behind it. People on all sides of this issue tend to be emotional and I understand. I recognize the challenge we face in the definition of marriage in today’s society. As governor of the state of Utah, I make no moral announcements on any legal issues we talk about. There is a process in our Constitution that says we the people have the ability through our elected representatives and also through the initiative process to create law. In 2004, we the people of Utah created a law and amended our constitution to give a specific definition of what marriage is. Some of the irony of this is when we became a state in 1896, because of the church and plural marriage in order to become a state we had to define marriage as one man and one woman. The challenge is there is not a rational reason for Utah to make this definition. The people have spoken and my job is to listen to the people and enforce the laws of the land. I’m the executive branch. I don’t create laws. We execute on the laws that have been created by the people through a democratic process and it’s not a matter of having a choice. It’s a matter of defending the laws that you, me and our families have put on the books, even though there is disagreement. It certainly didn’t pass unanimously. We have many disagreements about laws put on the books. My job is defend them. We don’t know the answer to the question. The question really is does the state of Utah have the right to define marriage as one man and one woman and the second question being, is there a constitution right under the federal constitution? It’s never been discovered before but now it is suddenly emerging. Is in fact there a right under a civil right aspect of a right to same sex marriage. There is two different issues that are under question here, which will be determined unless we change laws in the state of Utah which is the process we have on the books. We the people can change the law or in this case, the people say we can’t get the law changed but we will challenge it in court under this theory. We won’t know the answer on these questions until the process is played out and that means going all the way to the supreme court. It is in fact a slippery slope and dangerous precedent if you are a governor or attorney general that simply says I will determine which laws to enforce and which laws not to enforce. I will decide as the dictator in chief of the state which laws are good and which laws are bad. That is a dangerous precedent and something I think is wrong and anybody that advocates that I need to run away from. They may like one law and think that’s great but there maybe another law that comes out and they don’t like it and say I’m not going to enforce it. You say that’s not right, we the people have spoken. We hope to bring certainty, predictability and clarify the confusion by going from beginning to end which is a supreme court decision. We’re not going to stop in the middle of the game and declare victory one way or the other. We are going to complete the process and then we will all know the answer to those two questions.
With the economy of Emery County greatly impacted by coal and coal fired power, new federal regulation are hitting us very hard what can the state do to promote new uses as coal such as conversion of coal to gas or diesel or other uses of coal that can benefit us? I am a supporter of coal. Coal is a big part of Utahs history and it is a big part of our energy portfolio. Eighty percent of our electrical generation in Utah come from coal. It has actually given us an advantage in the market place economically because we have more energy in the state of Utah. We’ve been named three times by Forbes Magazine as the best place in America to do business and one of the reasons is we have low cost energy. I recognize people want sustainable, affordable energy. We also want clean. We understand the environmental impact, as communities we need to be good stewards of the earth. As I look around at the Sufco mine at extraction we are doing more with less and doing it in a cleaner way. I’ve been to the Huntington and Hunter plant and seen the cleanliness of how we generate power. We are finding better and new technologies in how to better utilize coal. We continue to find advancements. The federal government has put some impositions on the coal industry. It’s not only coal, it’s other extraction industries. We will find a way to get through it. I suspect coal will be a big part of our energy portfolio in Utah. The challenge to some of you here is to find better technologies and better ways to utilize coal. The good news for America is we have more coal than they have oil. We are doing everything we can to help the private sector to be successful with all forms of energy.
With the new math core, it seems it was implemented from the top down, why did the state implement this over a more integrated time and start and bring it up through the elementaries, junior highs and high schools. Gov. Herbert jokingly said Tammy Piper (who accompanied the governor,) education director did it to bring back prayer to school. In hind sight we probably could have done a better job at implementing it. There could have been better messaging. Parents student should have been more involved in understanding the challenges. Our goal is to compete in a global market place. In china there are 1.3 billion people. The Chinese minister of economic development said, we know Utah is leading America out the great recession. We want to be like you guys. He said, it will take us a while to catch you but make no mistake about it, we will catch you. They want your jobs. In order to compete in the market place you got to have the skills that help you compete in the global market place. I would suggest to compete and win. We are not doing well in math this country. Our goal is to compete in the global market place. The math standards have been reviewed by experts. I think the rollout was probably less than efficient and effective. There should have been a starting place and a purging of the old math as the new math was enrolled. We are moving forward and making sure we do a better a job with our local school boards to have a better sensitivity on the math subject.
The state of Utah is second in unemployment behind North Dakota. Utah is taking a broader approach and is very diversified. Every sector is very healthy. Utah is the fourth most diverse economy. There is a lot of options out there a lot of things you can do. You (students) will be looking for jobs and that’s good news.
In 2002, the winter Olympics were held in Utah, would you be in favor of making another bid of trying to bring the Olympics back to Utah? Absolutely, I would be. I was involved in the process in 2002. We appreciate Mr. Romney’s help in bringing the Olympics here. We have a sports commission, so we are involved in sports and outdoor recreation. We have 14 resorts. We are putting money into our resorts. We commissioned a study to see if we are capable of hosting another Olympics another question was do we want to. After a year of study the board came back and said we are extremely capable, probably more capable than any other place in the world; one because we have the venues and two we have plenty of room. We are ideally suited for the winter Olympics and we already have the venues. Let’s do it again was the general consensus. It probably wouldn’t happen until approximately 2026 there is a lot of politics involved.
What is the purpose of the six month driving permit in Utah? In rural Utah some of you have grown up driving farm equipment. The reason is it is designed to give young drivers the chance to become more proficient in driving. Young people have more accidents. It is really needed in the city area. Experience and training brings wisdom and understanding.
What is the possibility of a nuclear plant in Green River and are you optimistic about it, will it become a realty? What can we do to diversify energy? We have a 10 year energy plan and nuclear power fits the need of cleaner, sustainable and affordable. Rather it is carbon based or nuclear power, there is no way to produce the energy we need as a society without them. If the nuclear power plant people follow and do all of the requirements for permitting and financing and safety requirements, it will go through. Nuclear power is a power I support I’m not opposed to nuclear power. We have wasted over 30 years by not building nuclear plants. I am optimistic about nuclear power.
With the technology boom coming to Utah what can Utah do to expand it to rural Utah? We have better telecommunications and broadband. In Grouse Creek there is a western wear company that does all of their business online. The technology boom is real. Technology is out there and it will permeate to all areas of our state.
During the federal government shut down the national parks what did Utah do to keep them running? During this time a person from the Division of Natural Resources found a group of tourists waiting to see Arches. This person told them let’s go to Dead Horse Point. There is a lesson to be learned. It is unfortunate we have such dysfunction in D.C. We understand the importance of balancing your budget and not living beyond your means. The recent shutdown was silly in many ways, The WWII monument was shut down. At Zions Park the National Park Service tried to stop people from taking pictures by putting cones up. I did what you would do, I said this is silly let’s call someone and see if we can reason with them. It was just me making a phone call and saying this is hurting peoples lives. Sally Jewel was understanding and it was taken care of in a couple of days. As a governor, I’m a problem solver. The benefit we have is 43 state parks in Utah, we took advantage of that. Most of the tourist are international and it was a great boom to our economy. Our state parks visits are up.
Sixty percent of Utah is federally owned and Emery County is about 90 percent federally owned. Those lands are not available to help our schools and children to get a better education. What can we do to gain control of access to money to help take the tax burden off the state that has a lot of kids? Close to 68 percent is publicly owned. We have many users that use the public lands. Ranchers use it, industry uses it and others use it. The Bureau of Land Management is suppose to make it multi-use and find a balanced use. As a state we can’t tax the land. We are inhibited to generate revenue we could forward the money to education. The public lands states spend less money for education than states on the east coast. There is a cause and effect relationship. We are trying to negotiate better opportunities for the state of Utah, solve some of these issues and have better utilization for more optimal use. We created legislation on public lands which will resolve many of the issues. We are doing a lot and we are making headway to make sure we the federal government understands we have a major part when it comes to managing those public lands.
When you have a day off what do you like to do? Being governor is a 24/7 responsibility. I like to spend time with my family, play golf and play tennis. I live for Sundays where I spend time with my family at my home in Orem.
Gov. Herbert then presented Emery High with a bobble head of himself.