Utah will not sue the federal government over President Clinton's designation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Gov. Mike Leavitt said Thursday at his monthly press conference.
Leavitt used the taped KUED event to reinforce his outlook for Utah's wilderness and to tell how he expects to pay for an enormous transportation project that will take place during the next several years.State highway improvements scheduled in the next decade will cost more than $3.5 billion, and gasoline taxes must increase by 1 cent per gallon each year during the next 10 years to help pay the bill, Leavitt said.
The state has 20 years of road and highway improvements ahead, and people are going to disagree over how to pay the costs.
"Is this going to be without pain legislatively? No. Will we get it done? Yes," he said.The $3.5 billion price tag is much more than the roughly $2 billion figure Leavitt has used in recent months.
Gas-tax hikes will provide $500 million toward the project during the next 10 years. Utahns now pay a 19-cent tax on each gallon of gas they buy.
Although Leavitt said he endorses a long-term approach in which gas-tax increases are aligned with inflation, some lawmakers don't want to phase-in the gas tax over several years. There may be a move to implement it all at once when lawmakers convene in January, he said.
As he outlined sources of the $3.5 billion, Leavitt defended accusations by Democratic gubernatorial opponent Jim Bradley and other candidates who say he's done little to plan for or deal with the insufficient infrastructure along the Wasatch Front.
A billboard purchased by the Utah Democratic Party alongside I-15 about 3900 South tells southbound drivers their traffic jam is brought to them by 20 years of Republican leadership.
But Leavitt points out that lawmakers last year set aside nearly $100 million in general-fund cash - on top of normal highway funding. Similar amounts are built into the base of future budgets for the next 10 years.
"That money, about $1 billion over the course of 10 years, will be added to another $1 billion already dedicated to transportation needs over the next 10 years. Much of that money comes from the federal government.
The remainder of the money comes from the gasoline tax, $500 million in anticipated additional federal money, $300 million to $500 million culled from reduced administration and waste and roughly $500 million in bonds.
But Leavitt acknowledges that none of the $1 billion in resources is guaranteed. "I'm probably being optimistic about the amount of new federal money," he said.
Federal funds will make up a substantially lower amount than previously believed. "It's a new world," Leavitt said. The federal funds just aren't available.
Leavitt said his "Growth Summit" last December helped lay groundwork for deliberations about transportation projects. For example, all parties were able to agree on changes that allowed a nine-year transportation plan to be streamlined to 41/2 years, he said.
He hopes the same kind of cooperation can be applied to the wilderness issue.
The process by which President Clinton dedicated 1.7 million acres to the monument was inadequate and political, Leavitt told reporters. "But it's time to turn our attention away from what happened in the past and toward what happens in the future."
Instead, Leavitt wants Utah to help create a vision for the monument. "This is not entirely negative," he told reporters.
Those who govern Utah's land - county officials, residents, environmentalists and state leaders - all must come together to decide which parts and how much of the state's land will stay wild.
Leavitt supports a mixed use for the monument: some protected wilderness, where visitors stations and roads aren't allowed; some traditional national monument areas and some land designated for multiple use.
During the news conference, he also hammered a plan by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to reinventory Utah's lands. Officials say the reinventory is based on a new criteria for what constitutes wilderness, which doesn't conform to existing federal law. The criteria only applies to Utah lands.
It is "illogical" that Babbitt is using special criteria for Utah, he said. "There is a disturbing pattern of executive branch using unique means of distributing power in Utah," he said.