- [Narrator] PBS Utah presents the "Governor's Monthly News Conference," an exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

(bright music) - Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

It's great to be with you again.

Thank you for joining us for this monthly news conference.

I want to start with just an update on wildfires and drought in our state.

We are in the thick of wildfire season right now, and unfortunately, we're seeing exactly the kind of extreme fire behavior we hoped that we would not but warned was very likely.

As of this morning, multiple large fires are burning across Utah, each one fueled by hot, dry, and windy conditions.

The most dramatic example is the Deer Creek Fire south of Moab, which erupted last week and has already burned over 15,000 acres.

Over the weekend, this fire even produced a rare and dangerous firenado, a fire whirl strong enough to flip heavy equipment, rip roofs off, and spread flames unpredictably.

As of today, that fire is just 7% contained and remains active.

On Sunday, the Monroe Canyon Fire in Sevier County started and has quickly grown to 8,646 acres.

Evacuations remain in effect for the area, along with Fishlake National Forest issuing closures.

It was human-caused and is currently 0% contained.

In the south, the Forsyth Fire near St. George began with a lightning strike on June 19th and quickly exploded in size, destroying 13 homes in Pine Valley and burning almost 16,000 acres.

It is now 83% contained.

Near Bryce Canyon, the France Canyon Fire has burned nearly 35,000 acres and is now 90% contained.

Like Forsyth, it was sparked by lightning.

We are heartbroken for those who have lost homes and livelihoods, and we're grateful, profoundly grateful, that no lives have been lost.

To our firefighters, our first responders, and community leaders, thank you for your incredible efforts under very difficult conditions.

The fire season is already shaping up to be one of the most active in recent memory.

While the number of wildfires this year is similar to last year, 571 versus 576, the conditions on the ground are worse, and fires are behaving very differently.

Last year, we had more moisture on the landscape, which helped moderate fire behavior, despite a similar number of statistics.

This year, we don't have that same buffer.

Two consecutive years of healthy snowpack have triggered the growth of grasses and brush that have now dried out and are fueling these wildfires.

The tinder-dry landscape means every spark has a greater chance of becoming a large and fast-moving wildfire.

Even more troubling, 72% of these wildfires were human-caused.

That's something that we can prevent.

Lightning is out of control, but dragging trailer chains, abandoned campfires, and target shooting in dry brush are not.

So once again, please, please, please be vigilant.

Use your fire sense, which is really just common sense, and stay clear of active fire zones so our teams can do their jobs.

I wanna give a quick update on drought conditions.

Well, we're definitely focused on fire, sadly, we are seeing an uptick in water use.

Reservoir levels have dropped 10% between June 1st and July 1st.

That's about five times more than normal for this same period.

Overall, our reservoirs are at 77% of capacity.

That's still slightly above average for this time of year, but they're being depleted at an above-average rate, so we expect that rate to drop.

It's 12% lower than at this time last year, and 100% of the state is now in moderate to severe drought.

I will just also note that a couple things have happened that are really interesting here.

We had a better winter in Northern Utah than we had in Southern Utah, but we've had more rain in Southern Utah than we've had in Northern Utah.

For example, Box Elder just reported the lowest precipitation on record from April to June.

So Northern Utah is seeing less of the monsoonal moisture than anywhere else, which means that it's bad all across the state.

Fortunately, because of our past good winters, we've been able to build up some storage.

But that buffer's quickly eroding, and we just encourage people to, please, please, please, use less water.

It's okay to have yellow lawns this year.

We give you permission not to keep them up and keep them green.

At the end of June, I issued proclamation declaring a statewide day of prayer and fasting for rain.

We need more than just good policy.

We need hope from every corner of our state.

Whether you share that belief or not, the message is clear.

We all have a role to play in conserving water, and so while we need faith and prayers, we also need people to cut back on their usage.

We're matching faith with action.

There are water-saving incentives and rebates available, and a weekly county-specific lawn and watering guide at slowtheflow.org.

I would encourage everyone to visit slowtheflow.org to learn more about how you too can cut back on water usage.

Please take advantage of these water-saving tools.

Every gallon saved really does make a difference, and I would also just, back on wildfires, encourage everyone to visit utahfireinfo.gov for more information on how to prevent wildfires.

With that, I'm happy to open up for any questions.

- Will you be making any more drought-related emergency declarations for agriculture or for any other sectors of our industry?

- So everything that we've done so far is what is what is needed.

We don't see any need for additional emergency declarations right now.

Again, we'll continue to monitor, continue to work with the legislature on any issues that that do come up.

For agriculture producers who have been impacted by fire, there are some federal grants available being administered through the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

So we'll be working with our ag producers in that sense as well.

Right now, agriculture is cutting back significantly, and they'll have the biggest cuts because of the dire water situation.

- Governor, how- - Is it more the state- - Go, Lindsay, and then we'll go back there.

- Oh, just how much of our wildfire issues right now would you blame on mismanagement of forest lands?

- Yeah, so a significant part of it comes from mismanagement and just lack of management of those lands.

Those on, again, on these mountainsides, like, well, I'll give you an example.

So Forsyth, in one area, you could tell where we had treated lands.

There was a major reduction in fuels in those areas where fuels had been treated over the past 10 years versus the places where they had not been treated.

A very stark difference, both in the ability, in the damage that was done and the ability to protect home and property and lives from the fire damage.

The good news is that we are doing more, and I want to give credit to both the Trump administration and the Biden administration, who realized years ago that we needed to do more.

Ending the Roadless Rule will have a huge impact in a positive way in allowing us to get to those areas where we've had the most undergrowth.

The beetle kill that we haven't been able to do anything with that are causing these extreme fire behaviors.

And so it it absolutely plays a role.

Bad decisions over the past 30 or 40 years have led to these catastrophic wildfires.

It's not the only reason, there are others as well, and climate change is part of that for sure.

But with, you know, whether you believe the climate is changing because it's human-caused or not, it is changing, and we've got to adapt to that.

And so one of the ways we adapt to that is by treating more of our forest, and Utah's really leading the nation.

It's fun to see states like California and Oregon following Utah's lead, and we're here to help.

So, we'll get more of that done in the future.

Please.

- Governor, is there more the state or local governments need to do to protect homes or other structures from being destroyed in the fires we've seen?

- Yeah, there's more that homeowners need to do, for sure.

And this is always the debate.

For the past about 12, 13 years, we've had a program we call the WUI, the Wildland Urban Interface.

And it's a program to help homeowners add protected space around their cabins, around their homes, around their properties.

In places where they've done that, where they've cut back the brush, where they've added defensible space, we can get in there, and we can save their properties.

Our incredible firefighters will do anything possible except put themselves in the type of danger that would take their lives to save property.

And the problem is everybody wants their home or their cabin in the, you know, in the mountains, and they want trees right around it because that's cool, right?

It looks great, it feels great, and it's the worst possible thing that can happen.

And so I can go out and show you countless examples of private property where you have two identical homes.

One where they'd cut back the trees around the home, and one where they let the trees grow up right next to the home, and we can save one and not save the other.

- Governor, different topic.

With the pending execution of Ralph Menzies, you have reportedly in the past had some reflection on the death penalty.

Where are you on the death penalty now?

Should the death penalty be repealed and why or why not?

- Yeah, so these are very, very hard situations.

This will be the second during my term as governor.

We hadn't had one for, you know, for about 12, well, I guess it was 2010 maybe was the last one before I was governor.

And they're very difficult.

I'll just be perfectly honest.

This is one I struggle with.

I'm very cautious about the power of the state, especially the power of the state to put people to death, the ultimate penalty.

And I don't believe that governments are infallible.

I think governments make mistake.

And I think the worst mistake we could ever make is to put someone to death who was perhaps innocent.

In this case and the case before this one, it's very clear that they were not innocent.

There's no real debate over that.

And as you talk to those who suffered and the heinous nature of these crimes, I believe that there are, that there probably are circumstances where it is still warranted.

And so it's a close call for me, but I'm supportive of the decisions that were made that have led in these these two cases.

- So you do not favor repeal?

You still think it has a place in law.

- I think it does, but it again, I think it should be very, very, very, very rare.

Yeah, yeah.

- Do you have more options or do you have more legal options on staying or commuting death sentences?

- Yeah, it's interesting.

We're one of the only states where, one of a very few states, where the governor does not have any ability to pardon or commute sentences at all.

I can tell you it's a relief.

Selfishly, it's a relief to not have that power.

It's nice not to have people, you know, coming and begging for me to be able to make those decisions.

But there is a reason that most states do have that power.

There's a reason the president of the United States, although I believe it's been abused by every president in recent memory.

And so I think it's a mistake to allow unfettered discretion, and it can lead to abuse and favors being done.

And I don't like that either, but there probably are some circumstances where it would've been nice to have the ability to do something like that.

Please.

- In another topic there, what's your reaction to Mayor Mendenhall's comments yesterday about the public safety plan where she said, "We cannot keep doing this alone.

This crisis demands sustainable long-term funding from the state to meet the scale of this challenge."

- Yeah, well, I want to commend Mayor Mendenhall and her team, Chief Redd, for the incredible work that they've put forward over the past few months.

We are seeing a difference.

We're seeing crime rates declining.

We are seeing a greater enforcement and protection in places like the Jordan River Trail, where they've spent an enormous amount of time.

We're seeing in some of our parks, it's still a little hit and miss.

It is getting better.

We're seeing families start to come back to some of those parks.

Still a lot of work to be done.

I would only say that they are not doing it alone.

The state is spending more now than ever before in the history of the state.

More than, you know, the first a hundred years combined in our state, in helping cities and counties with homelessness, with addiction, with housing.

And yet she's also right that we need to do more.

There's no question about that.

We've been very clear with that.

We continue to work with our legislative partners to make that happen, to try to prioritize those funds.

I do think there will be more of a willingness to prioritize funds as they see real action happening in the city, where we see changes being made in the city, where we see enforcement actually happening.

And so it does take all of us working together.

I'm more optimistic now than I've been in a long time that we'll get there over the next couple years, working with the homelessness board, again, working with the city, with the DA, really prioritizing those who are causing the most harm and the most damage, and taking back our streets and parks.

And so with an ability to do that, we'll be, I believe, I hope, the legislature will be more willing to invest in treatment and jail beds and the types of things that we need to make this happen.

- Shelter options.

- Shelter options as well.

Absolutely shelter options.

Yeah, we're still working on a plan to expand shelter beds in the county and across the state.

Again, looking at a campus model and what that might look like so that we can help get the resources in one spot and get people the help they need.

And those who don't want help will have to go somewhere else or go to jail.

They'll have that choice to make.

- What sort of courts are in place to ensure that the 287g program doesn't lead to, you know, racial profiling or discrimination against Latinos in Utah?

- Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

We have a good working relationship with our 287g partners.

We've always made it clear that we have to follow the law and the Constitution, and racially profiling is not acceptable in our state, never will be, and we preach that and we enforce that and we will continue to do so.

This really is about, again, enforcing the law and doing it in a way that protects, that protects citizens here in the state, trying to get the worst offenders off the streets.

We're working with our sheriffs to do that.

I know there was a lot of discussion in Utah County yesterday.

I appreciate the Utah County Sheriff for his words about what this means and what it doesn't mean.

I know there's a lot of fear out there and a lot of misinformation, and we want to do everything we can to help people understand that we will do this the right way.

Lindsay.

- What does it mean, though?

What does the 287g Agreement mean?

Can you explain it to Utahns, because everyone who spoke yesterday was against the agreement.

- Sure, yeah.

- And there really is a fear out there that increased raids could happen.

Now, we heard the sheriff say, "That's not going to happen in Utah County," but what assurances can you give people?

Because people largely were saying, "Well, we may be hearing you and trusting you, but we don't necessarily trust ICE."

- Sure.

Well, we don't control ICE.

We don't.

I have no control over ICE.

And these agreements don't give us any control over ICE.

What these agreements do allow us to do is to help with processing, to help when asked, and again, under the discretion of the local sheriffs.

And so that's, I think, people can rest assured hearing from the sheriff that that's the direction that those are going to go.

Look, we have so much law enforcement work to do in this state.

And I can tell you, our connection with ICE and the state connection, we signed an agreement, a very similar agreement, a couple months ago.

I think it was, with corrections, to be able to process.

What happens is we arrest people who commit crimes, we put them into our jails and into our prison, and then when their sentence is up, they're going to be released when they should be deported.

What this agreement for the state allows us to do is to go through that process within the jail system to make sure that they're not released back onto the street where they can commit more crimes, but they actually are deported, and- - [Lindsay] The sheriff says this is happening already.

- [Governor Cox] It has been happening already.

- So why is the agreement needed?

- Well, we didn't have a formal agreement to make it happen.

We were doing pieces of it, but we should have had an agreement long ago to make this happen.

Most states have done that.

Not just red states.

There were blue states who have had these agreements in the past as well, going back to other administrations.

And so this is something that we should have done.

We just wanted to formalize it to make sure that we were doing it the right way.

- [Lindsay] Governor Cox- - Is the state planning to do something similar to Florida, like building maybe like Alligator Alcatraz?

- Yeah, we haven't had any requests to do so, and we don't have any plans to do that right now, no.

- A question for you about the president's budget bill.

Under the changes to the Medicaid and the ACA programs, there's an estimate that 188,000 Utahns could lose access to their health coverage.

Is there anything that you think the state can or should do to step in and address those losses?

- Yeah, we'll be working with the legislature to look very closely at what that means.

Again, many of those cuts are going to be implemented later under the terms of the bill.

And so I think everybody's trying to figure out what that means and what the impact is ultimately going to be.

We'll be implementing a work requirement, something that we had petitioned back years and years ago, something that President Obama actually told us he supported at one point.

And so we keep, we keep working through those types of, those types of issues.

I don't know what the actual number is going to be right now.

We're working with our Department of Health and Human Services to try to figure out what that looks like.

And, of course, helping people get on to private insurance is going to be really important, making sure that we're implementing the law faithfully and that we have the funding necessary to impact people.

We end up paying for this one way or another.

If people end up going to, if they don't have healthcare coverage and they end up going to the emergency room, which is where you get the most expensive care, all that does is raise rates for everybody else in the state.

And so we'll look at programs.

We've done some interesting things in the past to help people who are struggling with their healthcare.

And we'll look back at those programs to see if there's a way to implement more in the future.

- What about SNAP as well?

- Yeah, SNAP, again, another one that we'll be looking very closely at and what those impacts will be.

It may mean we end up funding more from the state level as our budgets allow us to do that.

- But do you have a sense of the fiscal impact of that to the state?

- Not yet.

We don't have those numbers yet, but we're continuing to look through them.

And I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be really blunt.

Look, these pay-fors in some of these bills, we've seen this before.

We saw this under President Obama, where they pass a bill and they're gonna pay for it with cuts in the future.

And then those cuts never happen because the congress ends up feeling the heat, and then they change the law a year later to prevent them from happening.

So I'm a little dubious that those pay-fors will all come through, but we'll see.

- I know you had also pushed back against the AI provision that ultimately came out of the bill.

What are your thoughts on the state's ability to continue regulating AI?

What would you like to see?

And what are your thoughts on data centers coming to the state?

- Yeah, so the AI infrastructure set right now is very fascinating.

I'm a big believer in that there, well, there is an AI arms race happening right now between China, Russia, the United States, and we have to win that.

It's imperative that we win that.

And so we do have to make sure we're investing in infrastructure.

It's means we need to significantly increase our energy production in this country so that we can keep up in that arms race.

And so we're doing that.

So I believe in that.

I believe that we should not be regulating the innovation that is happening around AI.

I also believe that we should be regulating the implementation of the tools that come out of AI to protect our citizens.

So I know it may sound a little counterintuitive, but I don't think it is.

I think you can support both things.

You can support the development of AI and also be very cautious about the way that AI impacts people in their daily lives.

And so it's one thing to support it for national security purposes.

And another thing to say that I'm extremely worried.

I will tell you, I used to be a tech optimist.

I can tell you that in the early 2000s, I felt that the advent of the internet was going to help us globally to get to know each other better.

I thought it would.

We saw in the Arab Spring how the internet was used to help countries get rid of authoritarian regimes and to help the spread of democracy across the globe.

I was very excited about the advent of social media that would allow us to connect with people and friends and get to know people who are different than us and bring us all together.

Didn't work out the way I thought it was gonna work out.

In fact, I think social media has been a scourge to our, while there are some good parts of it, it's certainly had a debilitating impact on our young people.

I believe it's the major cause of anxiety, depression, and suicide rates.

And it's been incredibly divisive for our country.

I think it's certainly led to the polarization that we're seeing now.

It's led directly to assassination attempts, and not just attempts now, as we saw sadly in Minnesota.

I believe AI is gonna make that a thousand times worse.

And so that's why we pushed so hard in that bill to allow the states to maintain the ability.

And Utah is being recognized worldwide for our AI regulation.

It's unique.

There's nothing else like it.

It's being a model.

We just a couple months ago met with some AI thought leaders in Canada that are looking at our model and how to implement that in other countries across the world.

But this idea that we allow companies to work very closely with the regulators to figure out how the, again, the most dangerous uses of AI.

So we started with AI in the mental health and therapy space, working closely with companies to put some guardrails around that.

We think it could be a huge addition.

It could be really helpful.

We don't have enough therapists available for people who need help.

And so if AI can be a substitute there to help people with their mental health, that's great.

But it could also do the exact opposite, right?

It could exacerbate the problems.

And we've seen AI do that, encourage people to take their own lives.

And so that's where it's just so critical that we are allowed to help put some guardrails around it so it can give us the best of a world where we're solving the world's greatest problems using artificial intelligence but not causing more problems.

- So if social media is a scourge, I want to know then, how do you handle it with your own?

You tweet frequently.

- I do, yeah.

- You post on social media.

So how do you strike this balance if it's so bad?

- Yeah, it's because, again, it's not all bad.

There are good parts of social media that do allow us to connect, that do allow us to share information.

And so I try very hard, Ben, to do it in the right way.

You'll see I actually post less than I used to.

You know, I'll share some things that I think are valuable or things that impacted me.

I stay outta the comments for the most part because it's, again, it's just so toxic out there.

And some of those aren't real people.

Some of those are adversaries for sure.

Adversarial nations like Russia and China, who've learned that the easiest way to destroy the United States is to help us destroy ourselves.

And so they're adding to that toxicity that is out there.

And then I try to set a good example.

I try not to be bombastic.

I try not to be a bomb thrower.

I try not to attack other people and tear other people down even when I disagree with them.

And I don't always get it right.

Everybody can point to examples where I've gotten it wrong, but because it has such a hold on us, I don't think, I mean, I wish we could all just log off and be done, but I think we can continue to work together, and we hopefully need some good examples on there.

And some of you are those good examples, and I wanna thank you for that.

- That's all the time we have for the television portion of our broadcast.

We wanna thank you for joining us for the "Governor's Monthly News Conference."

- [Narrator] This has been the "Governor's Monthly News Conference."

For video and more information, visit PBS utah.org/governor.

(uplifting music)