"Alaska Is Back on the Map for Investors" – Governor Mike Dunleavy and Secretary Doug Burgum

[MUSIC] >> Seriously, it's what an honor to be with you two guys to talk about the partnership between the federal government and the state government government. Talk about the leadership you're both bringing to American energy. Delighted to have all of you, we will send this out tomorrow as a close business Tuesday. >> Episode, I'm sure it'll be widely watched in many quarters. But maybe I could just jump in with you, Governor, to kick this off. Because in spending time with you, your reign as governor has been seen a lot. Elected in 17. >> We call them terms, not in the name of reigns. >> You've had quite an experience, you've seen a lot. And to Senator Sullivan's point, you saw an era where the federal government was not your partner. And now we have a new era where the federal government is your partner. Would you mind contrast that a little bit for us, with an emphasis on all the positive things that are happening? But it's a dramatic change and you've seen both sides of the coin. So I just thought maybe that'd be a good place to start. >> Well, thanks, Mayor. And I would say night and day and that's maybe understanding it. So I came in office and was elected in 2017, came in in 2018. And I was able to work with President Trump and his administration for those two years. And they did incredible things. King Cove Row, they start the work on taking care of that issue. The lease sales in ANWAR, trying to get the Tongas National Forest back as a working forest. Gave us a presidential permit to build a railroad between Alaska and Canada. When the list went on and on and on. And we were talking earlier night to this day and sometimes I'm going to ask them personally, what is it about Alaska that you have an affinity for? Because we're way up here in the top of the world. We don't have a lot of electoral college votes, et cetera, et cetera. But he really has treated Alaska well. As a matter of fact, I tell people in all honesty that he's been the best president for the state of Alaska ever. So Joe Biden comes in to be president. The place was shut down almost on day one. Dan Sullivan has used to have a sheet of paper that had upwards of 80 quotes sanctions. And we, you know, Dan and I call them sanctions in which the state of Alaska was sanctioned by the federal government. Now, you can't do this. You can't do that. We're not going to do the lease sales. We're going to pull back on this. We're going to shut down the Tongas National Forest. And you got to remember, and for those that are from the state of Alaska, just real quick, Alaska only became a state because we agreed with the federal officials back in 1959 that we would develop our resources to pay our way. Because our population was too small. So here we have a compulsion to develop. And then we have the Biden administration, which is doing the opposite. So it was nothing short of a nightmare because 60 plus percent of Alaska, 222 million acres is federal land. And we have a patchwork of ownership, land ownership, etc. That became problematic if you don't have a federal government that wants to help you flash forward. President Trump is reelected. Day one, I think it was one of his first, if not the first action was an executive order for the state of Alaska. Only state, I think, in history that I've ever had an executive order. All about Alaska, all about opening it up and creating opportunity. And that's the thing about this administration. It's about opportunity. Now, let's flash forward because a lot of presidents have said things. A lot of presidents have made proclamations and pronouncements. I get a call, I get a call on New Year's Day, 2026. And it's Doug Berger. And I know Doug is a governor out of North Dakota. And I'm thinking, wow, okay, he's calling up the wish me happy New Year. Oh, he was working. He said, "Bike, I'm working. I just got off the phone with the president. And I want to talk about this issue and that issue and this issue and that issue." And I said to myself, this is going to be something different. This is not going to be the same old, same old talk about it, then forget about it. And that call has been a series of calls, a series of interactions, a series of them following through. And that's the key. They just didn't talk about it following through. And I know that the secretary will tell you that in his conversations with President Trump, President Trump will ask him, how's that gas line going? How's that kinkover road going? How's that ambler road going? The president is phenomenal. It comes to those sort of things. And it's been such, such an amazing journey. Having that president come back and having a secretary bergam, along with the other administrators that are terrific. But secretary bergam, as he said to me, Mike, your state is 60% of our portfolio at DOI. And as a result of that, we're going to spend some time up here. He's been up here several times. And he's not in and out. It's on the ground talking with all the constituents, stakeholders, and making things work. It's been nothing short of amazing. Secretary bergam, maybe to pull you in here. Maybe talk a little bit about how the administration does see Alaska. How is it part of a bigger vision of American energy? And as part of that, it is interesting. You were an energy governor. So you know what it is like to try to develop resource, to try to attract industry. You were a businessman. So maybe those two forces, as you talk about how you see Alaska. I will. But first of all, I wanted to thank the governor and thank everybody that's here at this conference. Because if you're here and you're spending time here at this conference, you're part of the solution. You're going to make a difference. Because Alaska is part of a global realignment of geopolitics in terms of where the center of economy, the center of prosperity, the center of projecting peace around the world. It's moving towards the Western hemisphere from other parts of the world. And Alaska is part of that. Because age is a key thing. We'll talk about that. I'm sure. But I just want to thank everybody for being here. And I want to thank the governor for doing a fantastic job. Mike and I got to know each other when we were both governors. We both had the same experience. I had four years of President Trump was elected when the same day he was in 2016. I had four years of wind at the back and then we had had four years of headwinds as a resource rich energy state dealing with all of the essentially law breaking or the not following of the law that the federal government was doing. So both Mike and I were running in parallel on that. And I loved everything about Mike's story. Only I think that the call was on January 1 of 2025. I don't think I waited a year into the job. I think the point of the story was we hadn't even started yet. President Trump hadn't been sworn in yet for three weeks away from the inauguration. And he was already like get on the phone with the governor. And so he was President Trump was from the moment he got elected. And it was on day one on January 20 was the unleashing the extraordinary potential of Alaska was one of the first egos that came out. But yeah, it's a it is a remarkable change. And of course, when Alaska is so blessed as our country is with such abundant resources and whether those in a future we'll talk about a minute, but whether it's critical minerals, whether it's the oil and the orslope, the incredible gas that's been re-injected on the North Slope for 50 years. And as Dan Sullivan was saying again, blessed with the people that are here that have the ability to do the amazing work here. And then of course, as Secretary of Interior, I've also got a lot of responsibility relative to the federal leasing of federal land. And again, we're not only following the law, but thanks to the legislature, Congress actually getting these lease sale embedded into the working families tax cut, so that now we're going to have these lease sales. And one example of the interest, global interest in investing in Alaska is this record resale that we had at the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska just this spring. Record number of bids, folks that came in with big checks got outbid, and they recognize that the resource is there, and they also recognize that the demand is there and the demand particularly across the Pacific, including our own states, you know, states like California, Hawaii, our territories, US citizens, all today, in part by necessity in the case of California, because of policy relying on foreign oil. But there's just such a huge opportunity here. I think the future of Alaska is incredibly bright, and I want to thank Governor Dunley, because he's been steadfast both fighting back against the Biden administration, but now taking an opportunity of these tailwinds to get as much done as he can in terms of building out the infrastructure that's going to allow, again, the US to prosper, improve affordability, and improve all of our relationships with our important allies around the Pacific. Before my rain is over, Maynard. Before the rain, yes. Don't stop the rain. Now what? One question for you, Governor, and I should say this is the fourth time you've been very generous with your time with us. It's the fourth time you've appeared on the podcast and talked energy and energy policy. And one of the things you did the very first time we had you is you were talking about traveling in Asia, talking to our allies and companies and leaders in the region about Alaska, why it could be a good partner for them, why the US would be a good partner. You know, what a change over your reign that we've seen, but maybe talk about that. Lee sale it did go great. It did show a lot of new interest. What are you hearing from companies about coming to Alaska? Well, there's a number of those companies here, in which I'm grateful that they're doing business here. And I think if you were to ask them, especially those that just entered into this new lease sale, they would say that Alaska from their perspective is open for business. But it's open for business because there's a partnership because the lease sales are taking place on on federal land for the most part. But nonetheless, there's a partnership there. So when you have alignment with the federal government, you have alignment with the state on philosophy and direction, it makes it easier for an investor to take the risk. And again, in conversations with some of the folks that have embarked on those these sales. And there's going to be more and potentially we can talk about that here in a little while. But there's been certainty. And we talked about that this morning. Investors need certainty to some degree, assurrate to some degree. And with this alignment, you get more of that than you ever had before. And I think when investors look at the track record of Alaska, they, I think they see that the sure they see great investment opportunities were different right with our conventional oil compared to other states in our infrastructure that has the capacity to move that oil, our port and values that is the capacity to ship that oil. And so right now, I think things are an alignment for a lot more investment. And I would encourage as many folks as possible, many companies as possible to look at Alaska. We are, you know, we always say we're the northern most that's obvious, we're the western most, we're the eastern most state. Okay, that's something that Texas, by the way, can't Trump is on. Anyway, but we're very close to our Asian allies. And right now with the disruption of the golf and who knows if that will ever get back to what we would consider normalcy, but last is here to be able to ship oil to our friends in Asia, as we ship oil to our, you know, our fellow states in California and the West Coast. And so with more production, you get more opportunity for that oil to happen. And I think investors see a real good deal here in Alaska. Secretary Bergamieu, you referenced the western hemisphere that was really interesting because if you replay the last six months, we've seen Argentina has come back as a place people want in. We've had a government change in Venezuela, which was a remarkable event Alaska. We've been talking about its experience and this, this, this great comeback. Can you talk a little bit about since you use the expression the western hemisphere people wanting to be on this in this part of the world, how the administration use that as good for the nation. Well, let's just talk about how much has changed in the last five months. And I think expectations of Americans have gone through the roof in terms of what an administration can get done because in 45 minutes, Venezuela went from a sanctioned adversary to a strategic ally in 45 minutes. And that at the moment in time that that occurred, everyone said, oh, here's all the reasons why this is going to fail and not work. And of course, we're four and a half months into it. Venezuela production, which was had dropped to below 800,000 barrels a day is now closing in on 1.2 million, so up 50%. And virtually all of that is then flowing back to refineries in America, which is again, works on providing both affordability and supply for Americans, those golf, those golf culture, refineries were set up to handle that. And but then the flip side of that is that you know, when we take a look at who we might think of as adversaries, the IRGC, which is as in the revolutionary guard in Iran, not the country of Iran, not the enemy of the whole of Iran, support the West. And IRGC, we had a terrorist group that was trying to have a nuclear weapon, they do have an oil field. Now they're disrupting the global economy, they're holding their own people hostage. And then we have Russia, who is, you know, that, you know, when the Iranian conflict began in this reason thing that got pushed to, you know, page 18 or off the pages and people don't even talk about it is that you can't even find an article on the news someday, but, you know, 25,000 people dying a month in World War, were. You know, one style, you know, trench warfare meets autonomous drones, I mean that whole thing is just the definition of insanity. And, you know, and Russia themselves recently announced that a million of their people had died. A million since that conflict started four years ago. So it is in what were they using there so they're using their oil sales to fund a war Iran, the IRGC was using their oil sales to fund 24 carat groups. And, and then it was sanctioned but sanctioned poorly by the Biden administration, not enforced by blockades. And so it was still flowing just flowing into discount and Venezuela the same thing. So the failed sanctions not only did we have policies attacking states like, you know, Texas, Alaska, North Dakota, we also had failed international policy that basically turned the folks that were funding these wars into China's discount gas station. And China loaded up the largest strategic petroleum in the reserve a week before Maduro was arrested. They were buying, they were buying oil from China was buying oil from Venezuela at 15 bucks. And then they were buying a barrel. Okay, and when the world price was 60. So now that changes the delivery in those negotiations as well. It certainly changed the discussion on summit recently. So, so when I say the geopolitical it shifted and shifted generationally. What's going on in the potential that's here, you know, with with pick up the first oil that Dan Soutland, I was up there with him 80,000 barrels of oil going back into this amazing thing called the trans-alax of pipeline built, you know, 50 years ago, technological marvel, you know, every barrel that goes down there has got to buy or in Asia. And our friends and allies are all sitting here and the whole point of energy energy diamonds when President Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council and asked, you know, Chris Wright, our amazing Secretary of energy Lee Zeldin, amazing head of EPA. All of in all the way, I mean, whether it's best or what or or Rubio, all of all of our team, we're all talking to each other all the time at the Secretary of the world to solve these issues, whether it's, you know, sanctions, whether it's Venezuela, whether it's Middle East, whether it's all the same. Together, you know, moving towards this thing where energy dominance is sell energy to our friends and allies so they don't have to buy from adversaries and then have enough so that we can have prosperity at home. And we know that how to get energy prices down the Trump administration, because in 12 months, we did, you know, now we've got this disruption of flow in the molecules, but we know the formula and the formula is more supply and Alaska can play a key role in that supply. And so again, I would just say for people, whatever, whatever the angst is about this moment today or tomorrow or what's going to happen next week, if you pull back and look long term, the US and our allies have never been in a better position to actually free ourselves up from those that want a wage war and tear free ourselves up because of a policy of energy dominance. Remember 16 months ago, there was a ban on LNG exports in this country and now the United States, world's largest LNG exporter, world's largest oil producer, world's largest LNG producer. And and even though again, every article is about, you know, we do have high prices right now and certainly this thing that Dan talked about, we're going to try to fix it for the, the Alaska that we say 274 communities that don't have a road that don't have a road. I mean, this is some unique things up here, but you pull back from that you say, OK, I want to build advanced manufacturing and I want to go where there's cheap electricity, abundant power and secure stable place where my risk, my risk capital is going to be, it's the United States, the capital of the world is moving here. It's not going to Europe, it's not going to Asia, the amount of dollars coming in to re, to reshore manufacturing right now, it's unbelievable. So the long term, the near term and the longer term outlook for the US economy with lower taxes, lower regulations, record amount of capital improvement, the lowest energy prices in the world, you have to look at that and it's just irrefutable. The US is in the best position it has ever had been despite of what you might say what a headline might be on any given day, all the fundamentals underneath that. And again, all of that credit goes back to President Trump, the team that he put together driving a policy of energy abundance, you know, labeled energy dominance, but it's energy abundance is going to be a prosperity and do prosperity the world and peace the world is coming. I was I was morning last year, it was incredible, Governor, this is your fifth conference, I believe, since you started this. And last year, Secretary Bergam was here, Secretary right was here at Secretary Zeldin, we're here. And so we talked about the partnership between the state and the federal government, but having three secretaries, three important parts of the federal government also in sync. Could I ask you to talk about that, Secretary Bergam, because that seems as it shows up in the in the dominance council, but just generally that philosophy, maybe talk about that partnership, because it's pretty unique. It is a three of you live and well, we got senior leaders from Department of Energy sitting right here, we got Audrey, we got Rachel, we got folks that from the EPA here, we got folks from the. the Department of Interior that are here from all the different equities to have here. I've been with US Fish and Wildlife, National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, all these folks that are coming, the teamwork that's happening, I think it's also one credit, the policy is right, but then the teamwork is actually happening and everything we have all the thing in common. It's a sense of urgency. We are, we do have a national energy emergency and we need more energy, the whole, and I think we're all in agreement that this idea, one of the big falsehoods was the discussion globally that we needed to have an energy transition. The energy transition that was foisted on the world, if you were going to shut down base load and add intermittent, unreliable, weather dependent, foreign source kinds of energy, that was energy subtraction. We were little, and just look at the numbers, we were actually decreasing the amount of electricity we had in a country at a time when we were facing massive increase and why was there a massive increase? Hey, the economy was getting stronger, but B, this is the first time in history that you've been able to take a kilowatt of electricity and turn it into intelligence. I mean, it's amazing that, you know, I mean, thank you, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, we can turn electricity into light. I mean, that was a miracle into heat, that's pretty cool. But turning electricity into intelligence and doing it at a cost where it's essentially like free and then we can actually solve all these problems. And one thing that frustrates me, the folks that were running around, you know, you've got the coldest winter on record. And yet, you know, there was all kinds of work done in the last 30 years of stop doing stuff in Alaska 'cause we're about global warming. That turned out, it was oversold, I guess. I mean, when placed like North Dakota in Alaska and you tried to sell global warming, you know, most times people are like, okay, I'm in, but it's cold in Alaska. What are you guys doing? Is it dad jokes? I know, it was pretty good. I didn't see the sign. There's more later coming out. You can't tell dad jokes at this conference. No, it was just a lag, it was a latency. Okay, right. So, but I'm just saying again, the in North Dakota, we built an AI data center my last year in office, $1.2 billion data center in a town of 800 people. And guess what happened to the power rates? They went down. Guess what happened to housing? They built a bunch of housing. Guess what happened to the school, more property taxes for the school? The folks that were trying to say, be afraid, send us a check, horrible things are gonna happen to the global climate. Are now the people that are saying be afraid of AI data centers, 'cause your electricity rates are gonna go up. There are states that have, that there have already been elections that have in our country that have occurred around people being afraid of their rates going up. And I went to one of them, I said, you don't have to worry about your rates going up, 'cause no one's gonna build a data center in your state, 'cause your electric rates are three or four times higher than they are in all the places where people are looking to deploy capital. And when I, and this may just be a passing comment, let's just be clear, the, the, where the dollars are flowing in terms of the new economy is gonna be driven by the fact that there's a more need for electricity. So just take the hyperscalers. This year, their CAPEX budgets were 400 billion, five companies. These are companies that 20 years ago did not have CAPEX expenditure. And you say, well, CAPEX, CAPEX, but what I'm gonna take to build a factory, an AI data center is an AI, you manufacture AI, it's like a manufacturing plant. So that manufacturing investment that they're making is greater than auto manufacturing, manufacturing itself is greater than, you know, it's bigger, it's a bigger number than the oil and gas, you know, numbers. So that's that, that was last, that was the current year we're in. Some of them have already announced their doubling for next year. So it's going from 400 billion to 800 billion. States like Alaska that have policies that were, you know, supported by the governor, which is a pro-energy state are gonna see some of that 800 billion dollars of capital. States that are running around saying, oh, this is gonna rate, this will raise your electric rates. They should say, PS even further, because it was their energy transition policies that actually drove their rates up. Because they were subtracting energy at a time when demand was increasing. That'll cause the price to go up. So there's, we're gonna have a bifurcation of the American economy on where dollars flow and dollars are gonna flow to places like Alaska that have got the right strategy and the right pro-energy and they welcome that energy support and then have an abundance of energy. So, I mean, Alaska is super well positioned and we have other states that traditionally just sat back and got all the capital and they're gonna miss out on the whole thing. We're in this administration, we're trying to help everybody. But if you have states that are blocking energy development, blocking energy infrastructure and then getting winning elections on that, it's just gonna be interesting 'cause they're gonna wake up and find out that the next wave, it's like the industrial revolution happened in someplace else. For the agricultural revolution, happened someplace else. Only this is gonna be the intelligence revolution and this is gonna affect everything. And you say, oh, what's he talking about? You know, it is literally, it's gonna cure cancer. You know, and if you don't like having a data center in your community, then go negotiate with them and say, will you provide a personalized tutor for every school child in our school district and the answer from the hyperscaler will be yes. 'Cause they'll say yes to anything right now because the demand is so high and the solutions are so unlimited. I mean, the solutions are really only limited by our creativity on how we wanna use all this excess intelligence that's coming. So I don't wanna sound like I'm anxious, but I care about a whole country and we've really got a battle going on because some places are embracing affordable, reliable and secure energy and some people are fighting it. And I'm so optimistic when I'm in a state, when I'm in a state led by someone like the governor who's actually embracing it, the potential is unlimited. So that I started with YouTube guys were energy governors. You were pro energy, pro development. You had very good economies. Governor Dunlavy, when you're with other governors, do you get requests like, hey, how did you guys do that? Or what should I be doing? Because there are states in the US that have energy policies which are hurting, their people, it's hurting their industry. Are you getting calls like that? I would say not really only because Alaska's really a one off. It's very different. It's a very different state. I mean, as the secretary was talking, it's very important that you come here. Let me ask you just a real quick question. Raise your hand if this is the first time you've been to the state of Alaska. And you don't have the answer to this, but I know you're gonna have takeaways where you said to yourself, I didn't realize that. In other words, when you're in New Jersey, right? You have to see a sign. It says welcome to Pennsylvania or Delaware. And it really is not much difference. Okay, you're just in different jurisdiction. You know when you're in Alaska. And Alaska is so unique in terms of its energy needs from these rural communities we're talking about. We have communities that are just on hydro. We have more micro grids than just about anywhere else in North America, maybe even parts of the world, other parts of the world. So I would say an answer to your question. The energy discussions because you have inner tight grids and you have a small amount of energy that you have in the South, millions of tons of coal. I mean, it's just a different world. It's a whole different world up here. And so not necessarily, I actually listened to that, I mean, Doug and I had conversations years ago at a conference in which when he was experiencing a rise in gas in the back end, you know, what he was going to do with it. And if you know anything about Doug Berger, he was very successful in the private world as a governor and now as the UI, different conversation on that. But I would say, Alaska is a state of consciousness. Massive amounts of energy, small population, and we have to work through that kind of, in a different manner than other states. Well, maybe I could ask it a different. Do you think, and I hate to pick, but there are states in the country that have real problems, right? Do you think that those governors know what should be done? And, but just politically, don't think they can do it. Or do you think that some states just honestly, because this stuff is pretty straightforward. We need more supply. You can't have too much regulation. You can't over tax. You got to be friendly to your companies. You got to talk to them. I'm just curious as successful energy governors, how do we help those other guys? Because you referenced it, Secretary Berger. It's all part of America and we need to fix these issues. Sounds like you were talking about California, but, well, that would be one, yes. That's policy, right? I mean, we had the same thing under, I'm just being honest, under the Biden administration, America wasn't running out of oil, but running out of gas. It was a attempt at social engineering, the policies, for reasons that I think most of us wouldn't necessarily agree with. And so, I would say in Alaska, what we have going on is an all in approach. There are places where a renewable, solar, wind, work in Alaska because of the distances and the scale of the population. But at the same time, we are a resource giant. We are a gas and oil giant. So you're talking about social engineering and we don't do that here. I hope we never do that here. I hope the market is a big part of what drives policy and so far that's been the case. But Secretary has got to see these other states all over the country and I'm sure he's shaking his head. Well, the administration you guys pushed and now we have an extension of gas infrastructure going into New York. Like there has been progress in some of the states that you don't associate with good energy policy. So well done. Question for for for you, Secretary of freedom. The competition with China is something that's on everybody's mind. It comes up in so many ways, AI, critical minerals, etc. One of the things you always think to yourself is wow, we have got to fix permitting if we're going to compete with China and there's a lot in there. You've done a ton around permitting. Would you mind telling us how you see that? How much better you think it's getting? What type of improvement we might get in the future? Well, absolutely. And permitting extends across all of these forms of energy and whether it's a nuclear or present trump is for executive orders positive, a nuclear bringing tens of billions of capital back in SMRs. You know, that's going to be a great solution for for some even like here in remote remote areas where we don't have to spend a bunch of money on transmission. We have the the load consume near where it's developed. That's great. There's there's much we can do on hydroving a bureau of reclamation, which is part of interior. We manage 400 hydroelectric dams, Army Corps of Engineers, 700 so there's 1100 federally owned hydro dams. Virtually none of them have been re-powered. There could be another, you know, 15 to 25% more power coming out of our existing hydro. There's hydro opportunities here just meeting with one of the tribes this morning. I mean, they're powering their whole community off of a small micro hydro thing, which is just brilliant and great. And of course, they saved a ton of money this winter not having to pay for, you know, elevated diesel prices. So there's there's just big opportunities. Geothermal has got an incredible opportunity in front of us. Again, thank you for the shale revolution because geothermal is about precision drilling and what's what's occurred even like when we're up on the north slope at the pick of the well the the rig we were on. They were drilling a 27,000 foot well. That was total depth of the well, but they're only going down 4000 feet. So you go down 4000 feet. You got 27,000. You have 27,000 feet at total. You're talking like four mile laterals and staying within a seam that entire time. So it is a the precision drilling for geothermal. I mean, we're near a breakthrough on geothermal and there's places in the United States where geothermal could be a fantastic longer term solution. But in the short term, you know, the the way that for the AI arms rates is we've got to get more gas online. That's the fastest way to power up. But permitting was slowing down all of that. It was slowing down timber. It was definitely slowing down mining. I mean, it was almost impossible to get a mining permit in this country. And we used to be the leader in mining. I mean, 30 years ago, the US led in rare earth and critical minerals. Now, we're not in any China controls 85 to 100% of the top 20 most necessary brittle and rare earth minerals on the list, you know, produced by US geologic survey, which is part of interior. It's at 60 critical minerals. And so we and I met with a met with a group of mining groups this morning, the Alaska Mining Association, permitting, going around the room, permitting, permitting, permitting, because a lot of the rules have just the, I'm going to say, the creep, you know, beyond what the original law was. Now is a set of a set of tools that were designed to stop doing mining. And when we stop doing mining in America, guess where it goes? It goes to overseas and to place, you know, whether it's Indonesia, whether it's the Congo, you know, often Chinese funded, no EPA, no reclamation, no child labor laws, no concern about emissions. And so if you actually care about the planet and you care, you know, care about the environment globally, then you should insist on having all the oil and gas, all the critical minerals, you know, all the timber. You can have it all done here because the US is going to do it better, cleaner, smarter, safer than anywhere else in the world. If you really, if you're really, that's the your top thing that you're concerned about. And so again, trying to drive in the Trump administration, we've taken things that would took a year or two years and we've dropped them below two weeks and four weeks for EAS and EISs. We're getting, we've taken on the NEPA thing, 80% of what we discovered at NEPA wasn't in the original law. Now that 80% is in a handbook or an appendix. And if you want to get it permit, you've got to follow the 20% that was originally the law. But that frees up time from from federal team members, you know, who are busy dealing with all this ambiguity. Is this part of the law or was just some rule that someone came up with, you know, word this stuff come from. So, so streamlining all of these efforts. And that's going on. I mean, across DOE, EPA, across the whole of government, everybody under President Trump is is the deregulatory thing, which is it's not get rid of regulations. It's not disregard the important role we have on stewarding the resource that we have. It's following the law. It's don't have a bunch of regulations that if Congress thinks that having that extra 80% is really essential, they can get together and they can pass a law. But right now what we're going to do in this administration is enforce the part that was part of the original law and that alone is going to help speed these things up because these things were designed to stop capital employment, stop building horizontal infrastructure. I mean, if we had the set of rules today that we had then they're never there wouldn't have we wouldn't have an interstate highway system. We wouldn't have a transcontinental railroad and we wouldn't have a country if these rules had existed 150 years ago forward. I mean, these are recent constructs. But what it did is all it did was it hollowed out our economy, shifted overseas to people that did it less clean than we did. So a question for you just let let's just sickly if you will tens of thousands of employees across these departments. How do you take a message of deregulation and permitting speed and pro development and and penetrate that bureaucracy? Well, what has been your how have you done that? It just seems daunting to the rest of us watching what you're trying to do. Well, part of it's there's two things you can do when you're trying to drive organizational transformation or there's more than two, but a couple of things. One is just is transparency and accountability. And in some cases, just putting all of the permitting processes up on a website so that both the the customer, meaning the person that's trying to write a check to the federal government, they're trying to buy a lease from us so they have an opportunity to spend their money so they can invest billions at dollars so they can send us royalties. If someone is in my world, the private sector, someone's trying to send you a check and they're trying to send you a check over a period of time. They're the customer. So we are bringing a customer focus to saying, look, if people want to send us money as opposed to the flip side, like on some of this quote, renewable stuff, we were sending the checks out. We were taking your money and sending it out to people. How about we have them send us a check? Okay, because then we have the capital. Take care of our products. Take care of our wildlife refuge. Take care of that. We've turned interior around where we're actually this year going to have more revenue than expense. And so and we're just and that's just the beginning, but part of that is having this customer service and with a customer, you would never say we don't know when you're going to get your permit. Stop calling us. We would say, check our website because here's the progress. Here's the milestone. So that's one piece of it. The other is just what I've already described is cutting out all this extra, you know, superfluous stuff that was not part of the law. And that we can drive. It doesn't take a lot of people to say, follow this. These are the actual laws that we're doing both of those those things. But then we have we have we have we also have the other thing, which is with President Trump. You're in the oval office with him. And he's like, how's this project coming? You say, we got a we got a permit issue. I mean, he'll be like, if you can't get that permit, I'll come down there and get it myself. I mean, it's like, that's not a conversation you want to have. You want to say, no, the permits are on the way. We're and we're followed all the rules. Check all the boxes. It's going to be durable in the courts. But there's there's a sense of urgency that hasn't existed. A lot of CEOs need to figure out federal government in some cases right now with the groups I'm talking about that are connected with any DC is we're moving faster than than the private sector is. And that's shocks people. But it's the pace that we have to move at because we have an national energy emergency. And we we have to get ourselves out of the spot that we're in because we need to win the AI arms race. We've got to solve this issue of being dependent on our adversaries for critical minerals. There's a number of things that are we have to we have to actually have the pace that reflects the strategic importance of the position that we're in right now. We have to codify what they're doing long term. So I got a call from an individual. I don't know well that said that they applied for a permit for a gas small gas line. They got the permit in 12 days because of these guys and they weren't shocked. What they're doing now needs to be codified. We mentioned this kind of this morning and that is Congress needs to act to ensure that we have a permanent runway long runway for investment investors when they look at America and they look at Alaska. And law fair has to be reformed so it's not used as a tool to stop projects. And then the permitting process needs to be codified and simplified as they're doing now in the administration. But if you can get those two things codified and law by Congress, America is going to be the place for the next 50 to 100 years to invest. And right now I mean Thanks to that, the administration and folks like Secretary We're doing really well. You can see that here in Alaska, but our hope is that Congress codifies before the Trump administration is out, because if we do, it's gonna be very difficult for a Biden-like administration to overturn some of those acts of Congress. - So, Governor, I mean, I could ask since, you'll be going back into the private sector soon. - Let's think about going to work for you, Mayor. - We have your desk ready. We're excited. We don't have any governors at the company. - I'm gonna keep pushing all of these great things for Alaska until my reign is over on December 7th, 2026. And then after that, I'll figure out what we're gonna do, but I'm a huge cheerleader of Dougan Company and the administration. And this is the beginning of the golden age for Alaska. You see it now with the sales on the slope. - But you hit on, I think, the key issue that everybody talks about. Everybody that likes these policies that is excited they're here that appreciates your leadership. Everybody says, how do we keep them past these individuals who've been big proponents of them? How do we put them into law? How do we change the processes? In Alaska, I was talking to a good friend this morning who, again, said, you know, Alaska, it's expensive and they're long-dated projects. You're not quick in and out. These are big, long-lasting projects. Many thoughts as we wrap up, guys, you mentioned codifying, but what can we do? What can the rest of us do to help you two guys leave in place the partnership you've built after you've moved on? - Well, the best thing that Alaska can do, it's even better than codifying in law is just build it. I mean, whatever it happens to be and whether it's opening a mine, develop it, I mean, we heard things this morning when people could bring things on quickly, but I'll take the Alaska LNG project, which is a credible strategic importance to Alaska to the world, to the United States. And I know we've got, I met with them last night, but there's a number of the friends that are here that are potential partners in this thing, I mean, the Alaska LNG, including off-take. And so, and we had this winner in the first time we got inspired by your conference last year. We had, in conjunction with DOE and EPA, we had the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Conference, we had it in Japan. This year we expected a couple of hundred people to come, things started happening in the Middle East, 600, we crammed 650 people into a completely oversubscribed conference and that, you know, and there was 18 different countries there, 18 out of 18, wanted to buy more energy from the US, AK, 18 out of 18, wanted to buy more energy from Alaska. And so the LNG pipe, when you take a look at the demand, the consumption of LNG across AsiaPAC and why end our military bases in places like LOM, you know, and getting California off of the corn foil, you know, it's like, there's not a question, it's not, is the pipe big enough? It's like, literally the question got raised, Howard Lutton and goes, why are we building two pipes at the same time? I mean, the demand is so high for a product that you can use for heat, for life, for electricity, for fertilizer. And it's in an equivalent, I mean, we talk about the price of diesel, but the energy equivalent of LNG right now, US prices, it's like 50 cents or less a gallon, you know, for diesel. That's what we have to think about. It's like, if you could get 50 cent diesel, how much people, how much would people buy? Only LNG, of course, has a lot stronger actually, just energy density. So I want to thank all the people here, because we had groups, you know, we got Taiwan and South Korea. And I know Philippines, Thailand, all of these folks have been lining up to partner things in Japan as well. And as well as our own, you know, our own territories, but all the way down to New Zealand and Australia, they were there as well. Everybody would like to have a secure supply, you know, eight days between here in Tokyo, is supposed to, you know, it's 32 on a good day. If you have one straight closed, multiple straights closed, then your shipments, either never going to arrive, or it's there, you know, in Japan. Most people in Japan didn't know that 92% of their oil was coming through the state of Harmoose. Every person lives in that country knows it now. So again, we have long US territorial waters protected by US fleet, you know, going virtually all the way to some of these customers. That project has to happen, and I would just invite Alaska to not get in your own way. I'm still worrying about how do we divide up the pie, and the pie hasn't even baked yet. I mean, bake the pie, let the world start buying them, and you can decide how you want to divide it up, would be my advice, but I would do it now, do it quickly. This is, sometimes projects are, they're good, they're bad, and sometimes they're good, because the timing is right. The timing for this is like it was 50 years ago with caps. This is a generational, transformational project that's going to affect the state, the communities, the prosperity, the universities, the benefits of this thing are unbelievable. And nobody else can do this. I mean, there's not a place in the world, you know, where you could put a $50 billion project together that would benefit hundreds of millions of people around the world, as customers, but then for the people that are doing the work and building it, I mean, what it's going to do for Alaska? Wow. And so, you know, and we're here, we're here. From the president on down, let's go get the AKL and G built, and let's get it built well, just like Taps was, let's get it built soon. And thank you, Governor, for your, again, steadfast support. Governor, that's what we love, Doug Bergen. Yeah, fantastic. Well, we've got to wrap up. It's hard to. But Governor, you started this conference. You've done so much for energy in the state, not just the projects, but the understanding. And, you know, frankly, I can speak for us. You've helped a lot of people outside of Alaska think about energy. As you were, as we wrap up the discussion, what's a closing thought for us? What would you leave us all with? I'm glad that Alaska is back on the map with the help of a lot of good people. Over the years, Alaska, everyone knew Alaska is a beautiful place. And they knew we had a large oil pipeline, et cetera, et cetera. But Alaska is back on the map for investors. It's not a, it's not a afterthought or a cute place or whatever. There's serious investors looking seriously at Alaska. And you can see that through the lease sales and participation here at this event. Alaska is a green field operation in the United States of America. We are the Western most state. We are the northern most state. We sit at crossroads in the world and we're America. The United States of America with unbelievable amounts of resource across the board that can be monetized and capitalized upon for the benefit of Alaska and America and our allies. And in many cases, for our own residents in state. And so that would be the thought I would leave people is, it comes down to a kilowatt per hour. It comes down to an energy unit. And Alaska can provide that across the board in many different ways. And so I really do see this as the beginning of a golden age for Alaska. The oil rent assistance on the slope. We're going to get this gas line done. It's the, there's no limit as to what Alaska can do. And I would encourage all folks interested in investing in Alaska really take a hard look at this great state. But I think, I think you're going to see some real opportunities for yourselves and for the people of Alaska. So putting Alaska back on the map, having good people like Secretary Bergman others working on Alaska's behalf, which is what the federal government is supposed to do. It's not supposed to shut you down. It's supposed to provide opportunity. And I will say this to the day I die, I've never seen more opportunity to come out of an administration that has come out of this administration and a better partnership than what we have with the federal government. It may not last forever because elections happen. That's why we want to codify this stuff we were talking about. But right now for Alaska, we got some great, great wins in our sales here and I'm optimistic in the future. Thank you to you both. Thanks to all of you. [MUSIC PLAYING]