Biden to arrive in Utah Wednesday, deliver speech Thursday
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President Joe Biden will arrive in Salt Lake City on Wednesday evening and deliver a speech Thursday, the White House announced Sunday.
While in Salt Lake City, Biden will speak about the PACT Act, a bill that expands health care coverage to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits. Thursday marks one year since Biden signed the bill into law.
After the speech, Biden will participate in a campaign fundraiser in Park City, hosted by Kristi and John Cumming, founder of ski resort company Powdr, and Nancy and Mark Gilbert, former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. The White House has not released any further details, including the time or location of the president’s speech.
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Biden will come to Utah after traveling to Arizona and New Mexico on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he will deliver remarks on the Inflation Reduction Act and participate in a campaign event. After the Utah events Thursday, Biden will return to Washington.
The Deseret News covered Biden’s arrival to the Phoenix area Monday.
The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022, known as the PACT Act, was signed into law by Biden on Aug. 10, 2022. Until 2010, U.S. military instillations in Afghanistan and Iraq frequently burned waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials in large pits, emitting fumes that service members often inhaled. The PACT Act expands medical services to veterans who may have been exposed.
Biden’s late son, Beau, was a veteran of the Iraq War. He died in 2015 of brain cancer at age 46. The president has said he believes Beau’s cancer may have been linked to exposure to burn pits.
“We owe you,” Biden told veterans during the signing ceremony. “You’re the backbone. You’re the steel. You’re the sinew. You’re the very fiber that makes this country what it is.”
The PACT Act gained an unlikely cohort of celebrity supporters, led by comedian Jon Stewart, who made frequent visits to the Capitol to meet with legislators. “The bottom line is this: Our country exposed our veterans to poison for years, and we knew about it, and we didn’t act with urgency and appropriateness,” Stewart said in 2022.
The bill faced a fight in the Senate in July 2022, when 41 Republicans blocked its passage over financial concerns. Senate Republicans pointed to the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that the bill would tack $278 billion onto the deficit over the next decade. A week later, after cross-aisle negotiations, the bill reached Biden’s desk, after an 86-11 vote in its favor. The 11 Republican senators who voted against it include Utah Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, raising concerns about its cost to taxpayers and the possibility of a more narrowly tailored solution.
“We should absolutely help veterans who have contracted illnesses as a direct result of toxic exposure during their service,” Romney said. “However, the scope and cost of this bill is astronomical and unjustified.
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Biden’s visit to Utah will be the first by a sitting U.S. president since Donald Trump in 2017, when he announced reductions to Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. Former President Barack Obama visited the state in 2015, speaking at Hill Air Force Base.
