Larry Jewell

That's Gene Cotton on kdxu. And you've got me running. And we have Governor Scott Matheson with us. And I think that's an appropriate title. Governor. You've got to be running. You have a busy day today. It's been a very busy day, but a very enjoyable one and I hope a productive one. Now, you've had two or three speeches in St. George already today. Yes, I started out this morning out of the Dixie College, had a chance to speak to the. A number of the students and faculty and I always enjoy going to institutions of higher learning. They're so valuable a resource in the community. And then I had the opportunity to address the convention of the association of counties at 10 o' clock and then later on at noon I met with representatives from the chamber and several. In fact, most of the mayors from the county and. And we had an opportunity to get acquainted and talk about some of their problems. I noticed you didn't bring your snowshoes for the walk down St. George. I was very pleased not to have the snowshoes. Let's talk about some of the issues I know that are of concern to people around the area and of course of concern to you. A lot of people were intrigued about your statement this morning about calling a special task force on tax reform in the state of Utah. Do you have any guidelines you'd like them to follow? Anything they'd like to specifically go into? Basically, I would like to see us put together this task force on review of our state tax policies because we have always addressed problems relating to taxation on a piecemeal basis. We either go in for a piece of legislation which reduces taxes because we happen to have a surplus, or we go in and we raise taxes because we have the pressure of a need and we can't find another solution to it. So this is an effort to address the matter on a prospective basis with solid data upon which we make decisions and recommendations. It will involve between 25 and 30 people, 12 of whom will be legislators. I already have a commitment of support and cooperation from the Revenue and Tax Committee of the legislature. It will be broken up into several subcommittees, one involving local property taxation, which will be of great interest and of value to our local units of government. We will have several representatives from county government and local government on the task force so that we'll have their expertise and ability and experience. All of that will be pulled together by, or as much as we can do. By the end of October, we'll have hearings. The matters will be presented to the legislative committee and to me. And out of that we will distill legislative recommendations for the next general session. I know some people would be interested not only in the state income tax, but also in the sales tax, especially in terms of clothing and food. Whether that would be abolished or whether that would be maintained, that is one of the specific matters which will be addressed by the subcommittee in the task force that will be reviewing income tax, franchise tax and sales and use taxes. And one of the issues to be addressed by that small committee will be whether or not we can devise a way to remove the sales tax from food. And how, if we do so, shall we make up the difference in revenue if the amount involved is so great that we we couldn't absorb it in an expanding tax base because of the tremendous amount of funds involved? If that were a recommendation, there would likely have to be alternatives for other funding for a phase in one other question some people have in connection with the tax revision or taxes as a whole. What about the tax on fuels, specifically those on gasoline, those that apparently go on to help maintain our road system? That must have fallen off in the past while with the energy savings done by many people. Indeed it has. When we had the oil embargo Back in 1973, we had a tremendous and graphic drop off with respect to our consumption of gasoline. And so the number of tax dollars that had been raised from the gasoline tax went down sharply. In addition to that, as that period developed, we ran into a serious inflation problem. And so fewer tax dollars and taking more tax dollars to do the same piece of maintenance caused a serious problem in our state. And so as a consequence, one of the major items in the budget session just passed was the adoption of an increase in the gasoline tax in the sum of two cents per gallon. One and a half cents of that will go to the state Department of Transportation to begin our rehabilitation maintenance program. And incidentally, a 69 million dollar backlog to catch up with. And an equal or even more serious problem for our local units of government, the B and C road systems. And so a half a cent of that tax increase will be allocated to the B and C road systems so that they can begin the construction or the rehabilitation maintenance similar to that of the state and also begin the catch up. We simply had to have that extra revenue because of the situation which I described earlier. We mentioned about the taxes and a little bit about the oil embargo and all. What about energy in the state of Utah? Is it a crucial situation in the state of Utah as far as energy supplies coming in here and development of energy sources, There is no doubt that there will be, at least in my judgment, a serious energy supply problem. Ultimately, regarding energy from oil and natural gas sources, we simply are consuming more than we can produce. And the statistics with respect to imports of oil now from the OPEC countries is staggering. It used to be about a fourth. It is rapidly reaching the point where it is. Nearly one half of our petroleum consumption comes from that source. So we must address alternative sources of energy. Utah is richly endowed with. With resources in the ground. And the major component of a new energy source, of course, is coal. We happen to have a high Btu content, a low sulfur content, and the only difficulty we have is we must normally mine our coal from an underground instead of a surface situation. Utah, because of those reserves and because of that high Btu content, will be competitive and very important, in my judgment, in the future of our region and in and our entire country Regarding the development, mining, and use of that coal for energy. Some people are intrigued about the interrelationship in the intermountain region of states other than Utah, surrounding Utah, and development of power projects in those areas. One thing I know that's been of concern to you and many other people is what about getting coal to other states by way of a water slurry system, using Utah water to get it out? It is a matter of concern primarily because the state of Utah, for example, is a fairly dry state. We are the second most arid state in the United States. We are also a state which, through our appropriation system applying to water, have allocated a very high percentage of the water resources that we have. Therefore, it is a matter of real concern to many people, and including me, about the exportation of water in a slurry basis, or on any other basis, for that matter. What we need to do is examine our priorities in terms of the utilization of our water resources. I would prefer to find means solving our economic and energy growth problems without exporting the water. If in fact, however, that becomes the only viable alternative, then we'd have to address it as that kind of an alternative. The specific interest and concern in Washington county, of course, is related to the proposed coal slurry from the Alton coal fields serving the Warner Valley and then on into Nevada. I would be interested in examining that proposal from all of its aspects, including the possibility of a return pipeline for the water so that it could be reused. You'd lose about 20% on each complete cycle, but you could use the water again without removing the pollutants from it and that would be an advantage. And I would like to see that possibility examined. I don't know all of the details regarding the need for combining the Utah and the Nevada project together, but I would be interested in looking at the Warner Valley project, about which I would be thoroughly supportive and would do everything I could to see that it go. I think we have to study the matter carefully and look upon exportation as a very important public policy issue which will have to be addressed carefully and the alternatives taken into consideration. One power project in the state of Utah that has great concern right now is the Intermountain Power Project. In the proposed side of that. Do you have any particular feelings one way or the other about where that should be? We have supported through our Energy Siting Task Force, which was created several months ago and includes federal land managers as participants. They recommended that we consider the Hanksville site as well as the Lindell site without taking sides as to which one would be primary, but recommending them both. And that position is the state's position. It has been submitted to the Secretary of the Interior for his review and his consideration. He has advised the sponsors of the IPP project and he has also advised me personally several times, the latest being just a week ago, that he is not in support of the Hanksville site or the original Saltwash site, both of those sites being too close to the national park and would require variance permits under the Clean Air Act. He is favorable to the Lindell site. He has not made a final decision. But my judgment is that on the basis of his comments, he will come down on the Lindell site. That being the case, that would become basically the viable site to look at. But if that happens, we would have an obligation at a state level. And I think that we. We would want to work closely with IPP to find a means to develop an industrial base over in the area which was the primary site in terms of IPP is concerned. We have an obligation to give them an opportunity to develop and grow themselves. So if it does end up that way, we'd have to find an alternative means of addressing the need for industry in Wayne County. There's some other. Some other areas I'd like to touch on if you have a couple of minutes. I know that the state legislature has gone on record as opposing the Equal Rights Amendment. And yet most people in the state and in the state legislature say that there is a need for legal reform to prevent discrimination unduly against women. Discrimination against women. Are there any priorities of laws that you would like to see Changed. Now, if the equal Rights amendment is not going to be passed, what needs to be changed in the state of Utah? The equal Rights amendment has been presented to our state legislature on two occasions now and rejected on both occasions. I do not perceive in its present makeup that that would change and therefore further efforts to resolve an end to discrimination using that means does not appear to be productive in the state of Utah. We do have language in our constitution which incidentally was adopted in 1896, which basically provides very strong language bringing about, in essence, equal rights and prohibitions against discrimination on a constitutional basis. But we have over the years developed many discriminatory practices against women and against minorities and in some cases against men which have not been addressed at the legislative level on a thorough basis. And so what we must do, it seems to me, is address the issues candidly and fairly and up front. Wherever we find either a discriminatory process or we find a discriminatory substantive law, we must address it on an individual, case by case basis, move ahead, removing that discrimination. Much has been done in Utah. We are making progress, but it's a matter of certainty that it will take many years to achieve the fairness which all of us agree must be obtained. A couple of other things about the makeup of state government, the organization. There's been proposals that instead of having a every two year regular session of the legislature and then an off year budget session, that there should be a regular full session every year. Are you in favor of that? I am in favor of extending the amount of time that our legislature meets. I believe that they do not not have ample opportunity to address substantive issues and I also am convinced from the last budget session that they do not have an opportunity to adequately meet budget issues. So my personal view is that I would like to see some additional time in the general session and I would suggest an extension of the time from 60 calendar days to 60 work days, which would give them, I think, an ample opportunity to consider important public issues. Regarding the budget session. I would be in support of a budget session of I would say 30 workdays in order to address the budget needs. I'm not in favor of converting the budget session into a general session without restriction. There is much support for that and one of the main proposals has been annual 45 day sessions. But the amendment over in the senate reduced the budget session to a 30 day period, but removing the requirement of a 2/3 vote in each house to consider a non budget item. The matter is very much up in the the air. There is not a consensus and at this point, we'll just have to let the pot simmer and see what comes out. You're in a unique position being a Democratic governor with Republican Secretary of State and a Republican Attorney General. And it's been expressed both by David Monson and yourself, I believe that it would be nice to have the governor and the Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor position run as a duo. President, vice president, set up. How tough is it to function with you being the governor and being actually a minority among the three in terms of a political party that does present some unique and some practical problems. You do the best you can. And I think that it's fair to say that all of the three people in those elected positions are committed to representing the people of the state of Utah as best that can be done under those circumstances. We all three serve on the board of examiners. And when an issue of a political nature comes up, and it doesn't come up very often, then it is expectable that the majority member party members would control that vote. And they do. And that pretty much is a fact of life. Political problems don't come up in that very often. The relationship between the governor and the Lieutenant Governor is a more difficult situation to resolve. And both Mr. Monson and I do believe that running in tandem would be beneficial for the state because you do need to have someone working very closely with, with you to assist in sharing the burden, which is really more than one person can manage in the amount of time allotted. You also need someone from your own political party to work closely with you on the programs and the objectives which you wish to achieve. It's very difficult to do that with a member of the opposite political party. And if something happened to a governor during his term, it makes sense to have someone who is familiar with and would continue the programs of the governor. Bringing someone in cold with the opportunity to begin from square one, you really lose a lot of ground. So I think basically our political and philosophical views are the same simply because the benefits are there on that kind of a basis. Governor Scott Matheson, Congratulations on a first year in term and thank you for being with us and welcome to the sunshine weather of Utah's Dixie. I would like to tell you how pleased I am and Norma is with me today to come down into St. George and bask in this lovely weather and this sunshine. I feel almost loath to get back on the airplane and return to a cold Salt Lake City, but I guess the schedule will be there in the morning and I guess I better be on my way. Well, you're welcome to drop by anytime. Thank you. Governor Scott Matheson. Thank you.