(light music) - [Announcer] PBS Utah presents The Governor's Monthly News Conference, an exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

(light music) - Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, it is great to be with you again at our monthly news conference.

I appreciate members of the media who are here with us.

As you will notice, I am wearing a mask again.

Not that I love masks, but I am recovering from COVID.

I wanna be very transparent that I am now past seven days, I haven't had a fever since Sunday, and my symptoms are improving significantly, and so wearing the mask to protect our reporters who are here in the room with us in case I am still contagious for any reason.

I should also mention that COVID brain is real, and so I may not be quite as sharp today.

And I hope you'll give me a little grace as we power through this news conference.

Today is a very special day for our administration.

It marks 500 days since Lieutenant Governor Henderson and I were sworn into office.

In some ways, it feels like five days.

And in other ways, it feels like 5,000 days.

It's been a really interesting time to be governor of an incredible state, but more than anything, I'm honored to have been able to serve the people of Utah for this past year and a half.

And I'm very proud of what our team has accomplished so far.

A couple weeks after I took the oath of office, we released the One Utah Roadmap, a set of principles and goals that have guided our administration.

And I'm pleased to report that we've hit nearly all of the milestones that we set.

On day 500, Utah's economy is stronger than ever by just about any metric.

We've had record low unemployment since December, strong GDP growth, strong job growth, and we're the number one state for economic outlook and recovery.

We've delivered on returning hard-earned money to Utah taxpayers, cutting 300 million in income taxes, social security taxes, and the new earned income tax credit.

We've overhauled business incentives and licenses.

We've pushed funding for at-risk students, optional all-day kindergarten, and teacher pay raises.

We've launched an adopt-a-school program, inviting the private sector to partner with and support our schools around the state.

We've expanded programs for apprenticeships, entrepreneurship, and certification programs for workers.

And we created the Return Utah program to help those reentering the workforce.

We've delivered more than five million vaccines in record time to protect Utahans against COVID-19.

And we've created the One Utah Health Collaborative, an effort with hundreds of stakeholders working together to lower healthcare costs and improve health outcomes.

As promised, we've created more opportunity for all Utahans, with more women serving in our cabinet and senior staff positions than ever before, and more diverse candidates recruited for state jobs, boards, commissions, and judicial appointments to better reflect our population.

And we've combined several state departments to be more responsive and more efficient.

Importantly, our efforts have not been focused solely on today.

We've also mapped out a secure future with our Economic 2030 plan, our coordinated action plan for water, and our state energy plan, all of this in the midst of a global pandemic and a devastating drought.

Certainly there is so much more to do.

We certainly have to continue to tackle the high cost of housing, the ongoing drought, and wildfire danger in our state.

We have to ensure our children are physically and mentally healthy.

And we must help students who are experiencing learning gaps due to the pandemic.

And we must work harder together to create a community of respect, especially when we disagree.

But on day 500, I'm very proud of our track record of accountability and transparency, and I'm more committed than ever to finding solutions, building bridges, and creating one Utah.

With that I'm happy to take any questions.

- Governor, the latest drought report suggests that more reservoirs may run dry this year.

What is your administration going to do about it to ensure that people have water, you don't have a bad situation getting worse?

- Sure, so the reservoirs that you're talking about are reservoirs that are used primarily for farmers and irrigation.

And so we've known and they've known for a long time that those reservoirs are at the tipping point and likely to run dry.

And we'll be working with them to mitigate those costs.

Our department of agriculture has been working very closely with our farmers.

In fact, we've already started to distribute and will continue with our significantly increased, the money that was given to us from the legislature to help farmers who are working through integrating new technologies and that use much less water.

And so that's a very robust program.

We're excited about that.

We've got tens of millions of dollars that are being allocated there.

And that's going to make a huge difference.

In fact, I think we have $100 million total that will be allocated over the course of the summer.

We've got dozens of projects underway that have been proposed and that we'll move forward.

So that's going to make a huge difference across the state.

We'll continue to work with our water districts.

Right now, the short term answers are all about conservation.

I'm proud of the legislature.

When we talk about what we've accomplished in these 500 days, honestly, I thought it would take three or four years, just knowing what I know about how these things work, to get the bills passed that we got last legislative session.

The legislature deserves a ton of credit for that.

It's important to note that those bills are just now going into effect.

And so the effect of all the work that we've done over the past year we'll start to see now moving forward.

But more than anything, as I've said before, we know we can do this.

We know we can do it, because we did it last year.

And we're starting with that knowledge already, that as we move into the watering season, that people are already cutting back on their lawns, farmers are cutting back significantly on irrigation when it comes to their crops.

And that's going to help us get through what could potentially be a very dry summer.

- Governor we saw, or I saw on your Twitter where you retweeted a "Forbes" article about what they called international food crisis.

What do you think could be done better on a national level and here in Utah to help that, especially the grain situation in Ukraine, and with baby formula, especially everywhere, being what you could call a crisis, at least for the next several weeks until we get ample supply of that?

- For sure, so this is something our administration has been talking about.

We're very concerned about the food crisis that is coming.

So I was pleased to see that it's starting to get more media attention.

When you look globally, I believe Russia and Ukraine account for about 25% of the wheat production worldwide.

And because of the conflict that's happening there, and even if the crops are being harvested and planted and harvested, the ability to export those, because of blockades and mines in the water, it's just impossible to get that food out of there.

Now, that's not going to impact the United States as much as other countries, especially countries in Africa where I believe that there are many countries that are about 50% dependent on wheat production there.

Certainly what that means is we need more wheat production, not just in the United States, but in other places.

China is a huge wheat exporter, but they've also had a bad crop.

And so that's going to hurt prices across the globe.

I've said for many years that I think it's a mistake that we use corn for gasoline.

And that's a good way of me saying I'm never running for president.

It's just completely foolish that we've been doing that, that the government requires us to do that.

This isn't just economics working.

This is government mandates.

So I think that that's a big mistake.

And what we will see is I think we will see more farmers substituting wheat this year for other crops as prices continue to rise there.

But it's important to point that out, that we are a global society.

And when something happens in Europe, when something happens in China, it has impacts all over the globe, and it's going to have impacts here.

At a time when inflation is already raging out of control, we're going to see food prices increase because that basic commodity is in short supply.

- Governor, what do you see is the state's role in easing the baby formula shortage, and specifically what's your role?

- Yeah, well, this is where I wish I had a bigger role.

So we've met as a team.

Our team met with the USDA and the FDA earlier this week, a couple of days ago, to talk about what we can do at the state level.

And, sadly, there's very little that we can do at the state level because we don't have any baby formula production facilities.

The problems around baby formula production have nothing to do with state government or at the state level.

So the best that we can do is to reach out to our partners across the state, find out where there is formula and where there isn't formula and try to move formula around to places where it doesn't exist right now.

That's very difficult, but that's something that we're working on.

So we've reached out to all of our retail partners.

There's a collaboration happening there trying to figure out who has it and who doesn't and how we can get that to other places.

The other piece of this is messaging, and our partners put out some messaging yesterday to parents.

I have some of that with me.

And since we're on the topic, and I know you've all covered it very well, I think it's important that I share some of those talking points that I think are so important.

So again, I wanna thank the mothers out there who are volunteering their time to help connect mothers that don't have formula and those in need.

Just some advice from the experts, they're saying please do not make your own formula, do not water down formula, and do not use expired formula.

Those three things can be very dangerous for babies.

We're also encouraging people to talk with their pediatricians about switching brands.

This works for some babies, but not for others because of nutritional needs, so please talk to your doctor.

One of the big problems with the formula crisis isn't just a lack of formula, but a lack of specific formulas that certain babies need.

So we encourage people to look for formula in smaller stores, big box stores, and online.

What we are seeing, unfortunately, is this situation is being exacerbated, as we saw with bottled water and toilet paper in the early days of the pandemic.

Because people know it's harder to find, when they do find it, they're buying more of it than they need and that's making it harder for other families.

And so we would encourage people to please only buy what you need.

We are being told that production is coming back online and that, in the next week or two, we should see an increase in supply in the stores.

So if you can, again, please just buy what you need.

And if you have extra, considered donating to a food bank or a formula exchange.

We do expect the shortage to ease up in coming weeks, and we're certainly hopeful that that will happen.

- How is that program working thus far, trying to discern where there isn't formula, where there are formula supplies and where there's a shortage?

- Yeah, so it's not a program, per se.

It's a group of people just talking together and saying, "Hey, you have it.

Can we get this somewhere else?"

So even amongst stores themselves, so if chains have it in large supply in Northern Utah, but the same stores don't have it in other places, can you move that there?

So this is a discussion that just started a couple days ago.

And we're working with our partners hoping that they can help us get supplies where it's needed.

- To go off Brian's question, I think the big argument is, this is the United States of America, h!ow did we get to this point?

- Yeah, that's exactly right.

And that's where, again, this is a colossal failure of government, of different government agencies.

It's a colossal failure of our federal government's trade barriers and tariffs, policies that have been misguided for a long time.

And now it's rearing its head in the worst of ways.

This was a very foreseeable crisis.

And, sadly, again, shutting down a plant because of what were real concerns, for sure, but not having a plan in place to replace the problems that that would cause is not only misguided, it's bordering on criminal.

And I just can't believe we got to this place.

- Governor, we do have a question from Chris Reed with the "St. George News."

Chris, go ahead with your question.

- Go ahead, Chris.

- Hey, governor, good to see you.

I'm out in Ivins, actually, in the field covering a story.

And it happens to be not too far away from where you were inaugurated almost 500 days ago.

And one of the big things that you mentioned during your inauguration, and even in the lead up to it, was your commitment to rural areas of Utah and the areas that aren't necessarily Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City.

How have you lived up to that commitment?

And what more can you do, would you say?

- Yeah, thank you, Chris.

It's great to see you out standing in a field of your own.

Sorry, that's the COVID talking.

Look, we are really proud of what's happening in rural Utah.

We have seen tremendous economic growth.

And our administration is committed to that.

I promised that we would work on moving jobs, state government jobs to rural Utah.

And I'm pleased to say that we've been able to do that now.

We're closing in on 200 jobs that we've been able to move.

That may not seem like a huge number, but in small areas, every one of those jobs is a really big deal.

We've also been working with the private sector to move more jobs into rural Utah.

And I'm pleased to say that that is happening as well.

Had an opportunity to have a conversation with Steve Neeleman last night, a prominent businessman here in the state of Utah.

And his business has been very successful in expanding jobs and taking that challenge, moving them, especially in Carbon County and Price, places where the economies have been shrinking over the past several years, and moving more, even high-level jobs into those areas and finding that the work being done there is every bit is good, if not better than the work that they've seen in other locations.

And so we're proud of those partnerships that are happening and the increased jobs that are occurring all across the state.

In every county, we're seeing increased employment, increased job numbers, and decreased unemployment.

We also have made significant changes to our Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity around the rural programs.

We used to have almost a dozen or more rural programs to try to incentivize job creation, bring jobs there, help people get better employed.

It was so confusing that nobody knew how to do it, and it really wasn't making it different.

So what we've done is we've consolidated those programs, pared them back significantly, and increased significantly the ability of the Office of Economic Opportunity, or Go Utah, to incentivize jobs in rural places.

We don't need to incentivize every job along the Wasatch Front anymore.

We have 2% unemployment, that doesn't make sense.

But this does give us an opportunity for those businesses that are looking to expand in rural Utah in big ways.

And we're very proud of that.

And it is working.

We've done more rural job deals in the past couple of years than probably the past 10 years combined.

So it's a really great program and we're headed in a much better direction.

Now, our commitment is that we will continue that progress.

And I visit at least one rural county every month.

I still have my office in southern Utah, and we're down there every month as well.

And we're making connections with business leaders and education leaders and public officials in those rural counties, and with my rural advisor, my rural senior advisor, who is working every day on these issues as well.

So we've kept our promises and there's still more to come.

Thank you, Chris.

- [Man In Gray Jacket] Chris, go ahead with your follow up.

- As a very quick follow up, one thing that's also being looked at by local communities, certainly in southern Utah, is curtailing permits, curtailing zoning, until the drought situation has been, I guess addressed, or until there is basically the water to supply these new developments.

Are you in favor of such curtailing?

- So what we did, one of the bills that we passed this year, Chris, was a requirement that, as part of city planning, they have to include water resources.

So I think that that's important to note, in that that hasn't always been the case.

Now, some cities have done that in the past, but it's very important.

We are certainly encouraging more building.

To lower the price of housing, we need more building, but we have to do that responsibly.

And we have to make sure that the water resources are available for the housing that is coming into that area.

And so, yes, I think every community has a duty, a responsibility.

Any good mayor or any good city council would always look at the water resources that they have available and the building permits that they're looking at and make sure that they're not overextending in a way that would hurt everyone in that community.

So on a temporary basis, as we work through these issues, yes, not only should they do it, not only do I support it, it's now the law that they have to do that.

- Governor, do you think the Fed is on the right path with interest rates?

And do you believe a recession can still be avoided?

- (sighs) Yes, the Fed is on the right path.

Sadly, they took too long to get there.

And it's been exacerbated by other federal policies that shouldn't have gotten us this far.

And we've pushed back on some of, what I believe, again, is reckless spending and unnecessary spending by the Biden administration that has added at least two or three points, and this is according to the Fed, to inflation.

And so, because of the misguided policies and other things, again, what's happening in China and the China policy, the zero COVID policy in China, has made inflation worse, which was a mistake.

The war in Ukraine has definitely made inflation worse.

The Biden administration's poor policies around energy development have made inflation worse.

And so, now, the Fed has no choice but to increase rates.

And the sad part of that is, what they're doing it's demand destruction.

That's all it is.

They wanna make it harder for people to borrow money, to buy houses and other things.

And that will help to curtail inflation if you have less demand.

You can either increase supply or reduce demand.

And so that's one thing they're trying to do is reduce demand.

Can we avoid a recession?

I certainly hope so.

And any good economist would tell you, though, that that's very difficult to do.

The tools that they have at their disposal are very blunt tools.

And, historically, they've never been able to quite get that right, to where you increase it enough to decrease demand but not to send us into a recession.

And so I think it's very possible, with all of those other things that I just mentioned on the table, in addition to the significant increases in interest rates that a recession is possible.

The good news for the people of the state of Utah is that we've been planning for a recession.

We budget for recessions.

We have more rainy-day funds now than we have ever had in the history of our state.

We have more working-day rainy-day funds.

These are working rainy day funds.

These are funds that we are treating as one-time money, even though it would normally be ongoing, so that we could shift it in case there is a recession, to protect education, especially.

And so we have been paying down debt as a state in the good times, which I think is just smart policy.

Very proud of the decisions that we've made, together with the legislature, to pay down significant amount of debts, and then to fund new buildings with cash instead of bonding for them as we would've done in the past.

And so we feel very good about our ability to weather a recession.

We are also still the most diverse economy in the country, which means that we are immune to some of the inflationary pressures, or the recession pressures that would happen across the United States.

All of that being said, we are still part of the U.S. economy.

And when there's a recession in the United States, there's a recession in Utah.

So I'm hopeful that the Fed can thread this needle, but it would be one of the first times they were ever able to thread this needle.

- One month ago, you said that you were discussing with legislative leaders plans by the state to try to reduce the burden of inflation.

After your comments here at this setting, legislative leaders put out a statement, acknowledged those talks were going on, but really were non-committal about what would happen.

So are those talks dead?

And if so, why?

If they are still going on, what's the plan?

- Yeah, they're not dead.

They're still going on.

You're right that they've been non-committal.

And so we continue to have those talks.

We're trying to find anything where there's some agreement.

What we don't want to do is exacerbate and make things worse.

And so much of what we're seeing with kind of inflation response from governments across the country is just to put more money into the system, which doesn't decrease inflation, it makes inflation worse.

And so we're really kind of focusing on two areas right now and trying to see if we can find some common ground.

The first is one that I'm a big proponent of, and that is mass transit, making mass transit less expensive for people who have access to transit, making it free like we did in February.

We saw the ridership results that happened there.

That would give the most, and this is where my focus is, my focus is on the most vulnerable, those who are really struggling right now.

Look, there are a lot of people in the state like me that don't like $4.30 gasoline.

But it's not gonna end our budgets.

We can get by.

There are a lot of people who just can't do that.

They then have to make a terrible decision, and those are the people I'm focused on.

And so free ridership on transit would allow them an opportunity.

Even if it take some longer to get to work, at least it's an option.

So they could do that.

It would save them money.

They could use that money for groceries and other things and it would not exacerbate inflation.

It would be good for the environment, too.

So that's one area that we're really pushing on.

There's been a tepid response to that, I would say, but they are discussing it amongst their members.

The second area that we're focusing on is really on resources for those in need and focusing on food pantries, building those up.

We know that there is a strain that's happening with our food pantries as more and more people are relying on those resources.

And that seems to be less controversial.

There seems to be more support around that.

And so, right now, we've asked our team to look at resources that we have available.

So we wouldn't have to potentially call them back into session to do that.

Do we have the resources available within the budget currently where we can reallocate something to get more food, more necessities out to those food banks for people that are struggling?

- Governor- - Governor- - Here- - You first.

- Governor, how do you think that your administration has been dealing with immigration in these past 500 days?

And also, your thoughts regarding Title 42?

- Yeah.

Thank you, Veronica.

So we've been very clear on immigration from day one, and that is that we think there is support for two things.

And it's crazy to me that this is one of the areas where there's support amongst both Republicans and Democrats, and yet, the politicians don't seem to want to solve this because they get elected running on these issues, unfortunately, but that is that we should secure the border, that we should make illegal immigration more difficult, that the drug trade and the fentanyl that we're seeing coming across the borders is very damaging, and that there has to be more done there.

And then, secondly, that we fix legal immigration, that we make legal immigration easier.

Again, broad support for both of those amongst Republicans and Democrats.

And, certainly, I believe it's something that we can do.

I did just take a trade mission to Mexico.

We had a great opportunity down there.

I know we're running out of time here shortly.

What I would say is we had very productive talks with the Mexican government, and we think that there is a path forward working together, increasing their economic opportunities, bringing jobs from China to Mexico, expanding our opportunities for our businesses here in Utah to expand into Mexico, which will help the job market there and significantly reduce the problems at the border.

- So, governor, do you support the CDC revoking Title 42?

- I do not.

I think we need to wrap.

- Yeah, that's all the time we have for the broadcast portion of our program.

Thank you for watching the PBS Utah Governor's Monthly News Conference, and we'll see you back here next month.

- [Announcer] This has been The Governor's Monthly News Conference.

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

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