Utah U.S. Representative John Curtis visited Carbon County for a town hall on Thursday afternoon. This town hall was hosted at the Southeastern Regional Development Agency (SERDA) beginning promptly at noon.
Rep. Curtis jumped right into the conversation, taking a moment to highlight the local commissioners. He said that there were few forward-looking county commissioners, other than the ones that are located right in Carbon and Emery counties. They are trying to look to the future, as the future is changing. There is a lot of work at the San Rafael Energy Research Center to bring resources, and there has been discussion with PacifiCorp in bringing a nuclear plant to the area.
Rep. Curtis emphasized that this ongoing work and these lengthy conversations are a combination of protecting what everyone already has while looking ahead. Rep. Curtis wishes to bring ideas and resources to the area, as well as awareness.
He highlighted all of the great resources of the area, such as the airport, e-Fiber, a good freeway, a hospital and higher education. According to Rep. Curtis, the area already features all of the parts and pieces of a wildly successful community. It has been his job to shout to the rest of the world that it is here.
Following that statement, he spoke on a couple of bills that have been put in place to protect public lands. Rep. Curtis has transferred more land from the federal government into state ownership than anyone else in the state’s history. Public lands and the way that they are handled are a big deal to him and he believes that one of the reasons that a lot of people like to reside here is the openness of the public lands.
Rep. Curtis then turned his attention to the border and said that it is worse than what is heard in the news. He said the public hears about the numbers, but what they do not hear about as much is the conditions in which they are coming.
Basically, the cartels are determining who comes across the border, when they do and under what conditions, according to the representative. He stated that the cartels are making tens of millions of dollars per sector on what is basically human trafficking and those that attempt to cross the border without paying are punished.
“We’re feeding the criminal machine,” stated Rep. Curtis before saying that one of the biggest problems with the open border is the drugs that are coming across.
He stated that the worst possible human conditions are happening at the border and, in the name of humanity, Americans are creating these terrible conditions.
Representative Curtis continued the town hall by speaking about the budget that was recently passed, the need to come together to get things accomplished and changes in legislature. One such change was that people will no longer be asked to vote on a bill unless they have viewed it for 72 hours.
When the floor was opened for questions, there was no shortage of topics that were brought to the representative’s attention. They ranged from the war in Ukraine to making the decision in running for U.S. Senate and more.
