AOGA 2026.08.27 Panel Sullivan, Secretary of Energy, Nick Begich, Mike Dunleavy

Alaska's economy, ensuring our state's resources remain a national priority, and I don't know how well known it is, but Senator Sullivan was instrumental in Hilcorp coming to Alaska 15 years ago when he was DNR Commissioner. So thank you, that's been great. And finally, Congressman Nick Begich.

Congressman Begich is an entrepreneur and businessman. He brings both a new generation and distinctly private sector perspective to Alaska's congressional delegation. You know, the thing that I hear most commonly about Congressman Begich is how incredibly hardworking he is and how he is never satisfied to sit back and watch things happen, but pushes tirelessly as he is quick to say he is the congressman for all Alaskans. So join me in welcoming one more time this esteemed panel. Thank you.

And Kara Moriarty. Kara Moriarty is former president of AOGA, and so obviously a good friend to the Alaska oil and gas industry. And she is going to moderate our discussion. Thank you, Kara.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Luke, and thank you, everyone. It is just an honor to be here. I—.

We'll all have hot mics here, so we'll do our best. I do bring greetings from my boss back in D.C., Secretary Burgum. Like Secretary Wright, he loves Alaska. Uh, there is no doubt about that, and, um, his leadership and his vision and his passion makes it very easy to serve the country and Alaska right now in the position that I have. So it's, um, it's just an honor.

But it is a, a great pleasure to be back, um, at an organization that, uh, might be a little near and dear to my heart. Um, but, uh, and to moderate this panel. And today, we have a member of the cabinet, we have a governor, we have a senator, we have a congressman. It almost sounds like the lead-in for a good Irish joke, doesn't it? But what we're gonna talk about today is really no joking matter.

Energy policy matters, as the Secretary said. And these four leaders approach energy issues obviously from different perspectives. We have federal energy policymakers, we have members of Congress, and of course we have the state's leader in our governor. Since President Trump took office 584 days ago— my boss loves to use numbers, so about 584 days ago— expanding American energy production Reducing regulatory barriers and unlocking access to federal lands and resources has been the priority, and we are producing results. For Alaska, the Trump administration has truly been a game changer.

As the senator said earlier today, we are the only state with our own executive order to unleash our extraordinary potential And there has been a significant shift in federal policy and the role our state can play in American energy dominance. But today's conversation isn't just about what has changed in Washington. It's about what we as Alaskans, as Americans, are going to do in this moment. We have tremendous resources, but the resources aren't enough. Alaska's always had good rocks, but companies making investment decisions here need infrastructure, workforce, access to capital, competitive economics, and confidence that the rules of the road will remain reasonably predictable and durable over the life of the investment.

As an old friend of mine named Paul, who some of you know, Policy matters. So as we talk about this discussion over the next 45 minutes here now, I want us to be thinking about this question, all of us, in the back of your mind. How do we turn this opportunity, the shift in policy, the focus on the things that matter, how do we sustain that, this era, for years to come? So, Secretary Wright, let me start with you. Again, thank you for coming back to Alaska.

I know it's not a hard sell. And I really appreciate Mrs. Wright joining you, as she did last May. But, you know, your keynote talked about your passion, the president's passion, the incredible work and drive that you're leading the Department of Energy and the president's leading all of us right now. To make American energy dominance and American energy dominant again. But why was it so important to you personally to join the Trump administration, to lead the Department of Energy, and to join my boss, Secretary Burgum, to lead the National Energy Dominance Council?

Well, I think everyone's tired of hearing from me.

But look, I've been passionate about energy since I was in high school. You know, as he said, not just because I love the technology and it's fascinating, but it is the infrastructure of society. What's possible in your town, your state, your country is just how good is your energy system and what you can do. So I've always been passionate about it. I had long ago given up any aspirations or plans to be in government, but Secretary Bergam has been a friend of mine for 20 years, and he invited me to a dinner with President Trump.

And of course, we got talking about energy, and President Trump said, "You should be energy secretary." That's basically how I got here. But other people told me, like, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life, they're, why did you agree to do— you left your life that was kind of neat and moved to D.C. and got in this, you know, rough and tumble business. But it's because I care so much about energy. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror the next morning and say, wow, I was really going to crimp my lifestyle, you know, so I'm not going to do it. So I'm honored and thrilled to be here.

Thrilled to be partners with Doug Burgum. Obviously, Interior is incredibly important for energy development across our whole country. In Alaska, of course, even more so. But to have a leader like Doug, who's just focused on humans and not on, we're supposed to help this industry and not help that industry. That's the other thing I've hated about politics.

It's like, well, who's in your coalition for this and that? President Trump and Secretary Burgum, none of us, we don't think that way. We have one constituency, 340 million Americans. People are like, "Why are you in California or Maine?" We go wherever, because we want to lower energy prices for everyone. President Trump doesn't mind offending this industry or that industry.

He doesn't care. It's just like, is that going to help the American people? Is that going to grow our production, lower costs, and make America stronger, more secure? Then do it. That's his only test.

As a lifelong entrepreneur, to be narrowly constrained to only do these things, and you can You can't say this, you can't say— there's been none of that. None of that. So to be— and of course, Alaska is absolutely the poster child of a place where these just horrible federal government policies have just strangled the potential, not just the geopolitical potential. As I said, everybody wants Alaskan oil, Alaskan resources in Asia for security reasons, for alignment with the United States, for their betterment of their lives, but for Alaskans itself, this strangulation of the federal government. I mean, it's just horrible.

And when I again engage in that, I'm always given this, well, we're fighting climate change. Just complete and total nonsense. You produce less oil in Alaska, which means more oil is coming from somewhere else. Like, is the greenhouse gas emissions going to be higher or lower? I can guarantee you they are higher.

And the people who argue that, they know that. Like, this— the climate change thing Climate change is a real thing. I speak about that all the time. We've increased greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide 50% in the atmosphere. It's real, but it's a slow-moving, not remotely close to the world's biggest problem.

You feel it more, the impacts more in Alaska. It's not nothing. But nothing we do with energy policy in Alaska or the US does anything to impact global greenhouse gas emissions, except nudge them up if you stop energy production in the United States. So that isn't really why they're doing it. So then I think, well, if you're not doing it for that reason, you're just reducing job opportunities and tax revenues in Alaska and making energy expensive for everyone else.

I'm like, where is the win? Honestly, I cannot find a social win anywhere in those policies. But unfortunately, for some people, that's a political win. There are very wealthy people who will give a lot of money if you push a stand-in-the-way of energy. I mentioned US gets 74% of our energy from oil and gas.

California, 75%. The United Kingdom, 75%. Italy, 76%. So all these countries that say they're transitioning, they're getting away, they aren't actually. They're just shrinking their electricity sectors and pushing their industry overseas.

The mix of their energy system isn't even changing. It's just more expensive and less jobs. Like, who's for more expensive and less jobs? Anybody here?

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Governor Dunleavy, it must be refreshing to work with partners, and I might argue friends, in the federal administration who make Alaska energy development a priority. But now that we're getting the federal policy moving in the right direction and we are charging ahead and making great changes, what do you think the state needs to continue to do to sustain sustain these changes that we're making? That's a great question. Before I answer that, though, Chris, I wasn't really thinking about energy when I was in high school like you were.

I was thinking about other things. But I was the guy that had to take out the ashes from the coal stoker we had downstairs, because Scranton, Pennsylvania was an anthracite coal capital of the world, and that's how we heated. That's— my parents were not the richest people in the world, and that's how a lot of our neighbors survived, was on coal. And so mining, oil, gas. It's, it's everything you said just makes perfect sense.

And that's the problem today. There's not a lot of sense going on. So with regard to the state, and I don't know if everyone knows this in this, this audience, but the state of Alaska is the only state in the country that was forced by the federal government to collectivize all of its resources under the sovereign, the state, in order to develop those resources to pay for state services. No other state. So we came in as a territory.

We were allotted about 105 million acres from the federal government. 222 Million acres, as Doug would say, 60% of his portfolio is federal. So depending upon the administration in Washington, it's a real impact on Alaska. Who is driving the bus? We're incredibly fortunate to have folks like Chris Wright, Doug Burgum, Lee Zeldin, and President Trump at the helm for this state, for this country.

But with regard to the state, we have tremendous opportunity. 60% Of Alaska is federal, so getting a lot of help from the federal guys has been great. And the senator and the congressman will talk about their work on NPRA, their work on ANWR, et cetera, what Lee's doing in EPA to help us as well. A couple court cases like the Chevron deference as well as Sackett has helped Alaska. But policy is absolutely key.

And I think that's the theme that people need to think about. We're going into an election season now. We're going to be getting new officials both in the, in the governorship here in Alaska, legislators. These two gentlemen on the stage are also up for election. And depending upon who gets in the driver's seat, the policy is going to be absolutely critical.

You can have all the help you can possibly think of at the federal level with President Trump, Chris Wright, and others, but here at the state level, if we don't have policymakers that have the same vision as being discussed on the stage, it becomes problematic. And so the state of Alaska is facing a policy change potentially, a tax regime change potentially, an urgency on gas in the state of Alaska is already a discussion that's happening right now. Huge, big implications staring at Alaska at the state level. And these will have to be handled by the new governor. They'll have to be handled by the legislature.

And it's my hope that the legislature and the new governor navigate Alaska to a future of cheap, abundant energy, because Alaska is an energy giant. You guys know this. The Department of Natural Resources has been critical in permitting a lot of these projects. We're anticipated to grow our oil production on the slope up to 640,000 barrels. Possibly as high as 900,000 barrels by 2035, 2036, if everything works out well.

That's phenomenal. Under our administration, as a result of Pika, Pika and others that will come online, we're turning around the whole production concept on oil in Alaska. Alaska is not dead. It's actually got a renaissance. And so policy is going to be important.

Policy from the legislature is going to be important. Will the legislature in Alaska put energy, put resource development, put timber development, put all of our resources, critical minerals, at the forefront so that we can get back to doing what Alaska does best? That's going to be a question that only the legislature is going to be able to answer, and these elections will be able to answer. And will the future governor continue to work very closely with the Trump administration and people like Chris Wright? Will the future governor also put energy, critical minerals, critical minerals, timber, you name it, the resources that really underwrite Alaska at the forefront in developing them.

Currently, our Department of Natural Resources, I think most people would say, doing a pretty good job in permitting both in the oil and gas arena as well as critical minerals and even timber. We're going to have a renaissance in timber due again in the Tongass, due again to the Trump administration. We have all the resources in the world in Alaska. We have more resources than— it would take us hours to talk about all the resources Alaska has. The critical point is policy.

The Trump administration is doing everything you can possibly hope for. We all know that. But at the state level, we have to decide what we want to be going into the future. Are we going to be a state that capitalizes on its resources to not only energize Alaska and turn us into an energy giant internally, to produce more oil and gas to export, or are we going to fall victim to some of the stuff that Secretary Wright said? And that's the politics of wind, solar, batteries.

And you're talking to probably the only governor in the country that has 50 solar panels on my property. I mean, today I look out at the sun, I'm saying I'm going to get to produce about, I don't know, 124 kilowatts of power, which is great. Great, but I understand the shortcomings of that as well. And so policy is going to be absolutely important. You should have discussions right now with your candidates that are running for office in state.

What are you going to do to get us cheap energy? Legislature or governor, what are the policies that you're going to implement to ensure that we capitalize on a massive gas line project that Secretary Wright and the the president and others back. What are you going to do to ensure that we don't get hooked on imports? The irony of imports— there should be a book written about that, which is Alaska staring at right now. We could potentially be importing gas, not just short-term but long-term, because of policy decisions.

And so taxation— what are we going to do with imports? What are we going to do with the gas pipeline? What are we going to do with oil on the slope? Alaska should not just say they're open for business in the future, they should do everything they possibly can to do that. And that's going to fall into the realm of the legislature and the future governor.

I think when we look back in history, my hope is that our 8 years is viewed as a renaissance in oil, a renaissance in gas, a renaissance in timber, a renaissance in minerals. Just hope that the next group that gets to get in the driver's seat does the same thing and continues closely working with the Trump administration. Thank you, Governor. Senator Sullivan, it's good to see you, and Julie is here as well. It's always great to see you both.

You know firsthand how Alaska has experienced these dramatic swings in federal resource policy from one administration to the next, and you know companies need an environment that they can count on to make long-term durable investments. So I have a question for you. How do we turn this lockup into the energy locked in? Like, how are we going to lock in policies to make energy an important and secure for Alaska and America? Great, Kara.

Thank you. Great question. By the way, uh, how about another, uh, Alaskan round of applause for the Secretary of Energy? This guy is amazing. Right?

He is doing a fantastic job.

I love watching Secretary Wright talk about energy because he's so knowledgeable, he's so passionate. He is just a great advocate and communicator on all these issues, and he's unafraid, right? He'll take on anyone because he has the facts, he has the numbers, and it's great having him as an advocate Alaska. And he, as you can see, is a huge, huge advocate for Alaska. The whole administration is.

And, you know, he asked the question, who wants higher energy prices and lesser jobs? I would say Lower 48 liberals. But did I use that phrase in the last— that's a joke. Look, what Kara's mentioning right now is absolutely been the heart and soul of the work that we have been doing in the Congress with the administration. And I think it's— in many ways, we're making historic progress because the one word that I think is most important to all of you, to our economy, to jobs in Alaska is certainty.

It's certainty. And when you have that whipsaw and Kara just showed that, that's the chart my team put together a number of years ago, the last frontier lockup. That was the Biden administration's 70 executive orders and actions exclusively and singularly focused on Alaska. 70. The federal government has never used its awesome power in the history of America to go after one state.

For 4 years to try to crush us. And they did that. And it was not good. And it certainly wasn't good for certainty. So what we did is we worked with the administration, worked directly with the president, and we got the day one executive order from the Trump administration saying, no, no, no, no, we're not going to do that.

We're not going to lock down Alaska. We're not going to lock up Alaska. We're not going to kill thousands of jobs. We are gonna unleash Alaska, okay? But that's also regulations, right?

So it's one regulation going back. Here's the really good news, and I think it's the most important thing we've done, one of the most important things we've done in the Congress, is we've said no. For our state, we need certainty. And I wanna thank Nick, I wanna thank Lisa. Last year when we were working on this, In the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, we got these mandatory lease sales, and you guys know how important that is.

For 10 years, the federal government, regardless of who's president, has to bring lease sales for our state, and that's certainty, and that's so important. Now look, if it's Kamala Harris, as I mentioned in my debate, uh, with my opponent here, I guarantee you they'll try to do what Biden did, which is kill the lease sales. Okay? We know Biden did that. We got lease sales for ANWR.

They tried to make sure that lease failed. Okay? But the other thing we did, kind of like I said, belt and suspenders approach to certainty, is that we went in and we used this very powerful rule that the Congress has at its disposal. We don't trot it out much. Called a Congressional Review Act.

It's a law, but it says you can go and rescind a reg, rip it out by the roots, okay? And then not only does that go away, but the federal agencies are not allowed to re-regulate in that area. That's why these CRAs are so powerful. So we've done that. We ripped out the Biden CRA for NPRA.

I led that effort. And we got that signed into law. They cannot reregulate the NPRA. That is certainty for all of you looking at the NPRA. And I am convinced that the mandatory lease sales and the ripping out of the Biden CRA to not allow them to reregulate is why we had this dramatic historic NPRA lease sale, because all of you and our workers saw we have certainty.

Even if, even if the, as I mentioned, lower 48 liberals gain power again. So that's hugely, hugely important for NPRA. We did the exact same thing for ANWR, a CRA, mandatory lease sales. That is certainty. That's certainty like we've never had before.

And I think it's going to lead to a strong ANWR lease sale. And we've done it even for Cook Inlet, where we're challenged. And then I want to give Nick a shout out on the 70/30 revenue split. You know, we all worked on that. He worked on that really hard.

That's historic for us. That's historic for us. It's not just saying we have certainty, but for Alaskans, we're going to get a much bigger share of the revenues that come from federal lands. 70-30. We've never had that.

We've never had anything close to that. We're going to get that. That's in the law. What does that do? That makes our legislature in Juneau, our— when they're having the debates on funding for schools and roads and teachers, if we have a giant increase in oil production and we're getting back to 1 million barrels a day, which Governor is mentioning, I think we'll get there.

And we have a 70-30 split from the federal lands that we're getting the oil from, we are going to be able to have more resources for all of us. And again, this is such a win-win-win, and I'm so proud to have worked with all of you and with our delegation and the governor and the secretary and the president and his team, because we are experiencing a great comeback. But elections have consequences. We know what will happen. The other side gets back in control because they always do it.

It's been going on for decades and they'll do it again. So that's the certainty we got in the law. And it's really, really exciting for all of us. Thank you, Senator. Congressman, I was going to ask you about that 70/30, but the senator stole your show.

You know, just a— but it is very important. So you've been pretty busy putting laws into statute to benefit Alaska and the American public on the House side. You know, you want to talk more about the 70/30 provision, or is there another piece of legislation that you think helps bolster the policies and makes them durable? You know, one of the things that's unique about Alaska is that we just have one member of the United States House. There are only a couple states like that.

Right? So whatever happens in the Senate has to, has to be done in the House too in order to become law. And this is where the teamwork really comes in. You know, Senator Sullivan and I and Senator Murkowski and I, we work together not on a weekly basis, not on a daily basis, on an intraday basis. Our teams are talking to each other, strategizing, discussing how we can move the ball forward for the entire state of Alaska.

So many of the provisions that you've heard talked about today have been objectives of the federal delegation for 50-plus years. 50-Plus years. It's very seldom that you get an opportunity, a window like we had in the Working Families Tax Cut Act. But we had this window. We had unified government.

We had a House and a Senate and a President supporting Alaska. And we took advantage of that window. And so we looked at what had been done in the past. We looked at what our objectives were. We talked to people who had been involved in the federal delegation as staff, industry, and we said, what could we do?

We have this opportunity. What could we do to maximize the benefit for the people of our state? And we got a list, and we went through that list, and we combed through that list, and we worked very hard on a daily basis with committees with leadership in the House and the Senate and made sure that the people who were going to make the decisions about what actually went into the one big, beautiful bill knew how important it was for us to have these provisions for the state of Alaska. We were promised when we became a state a certain set of things from the federal government. One of those was an outsized share of those federal royalties and revenues for the people of Alaska.

And so we voted based on that set of promises, but the federal government had not delivered on those promises, and this was a chance for us to hold the federal government accountable. And we were able to deliver an outsized share with that 70-30. We were able to deliver the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska lease sales, 30 million acres of land mandated for lease sale over the next 10 years in the NPRA in the 1002 area of ANWR. And I'll say it again, for 50 years we've been chasing these dreams, and this team in D.C. delivered. Thank you, Congressman.

Secretary Wright, you mentioned this earlier that they yanked you out of the private sector, and so one could say you've kind of been on both sides of the table. You've been the energy executive, maybe pounding on federal regulators, and now you're the federal regulator. And, you know, and your experience, you know, I think it— what I think government sometimes doesn't understand, that competition for capital is real and that it doesn't just fall from the sky. You know, I've had legislators tell me, Oh, the— these energy companies, they're going to invest. Doesn't matter.

The rocks are there. You know, the money's always going to be there. We don't have to worry. But what's your view of that? Like, as you look at Alaska and all these massive resource potential we have, if you were back on your energy side hat, your CEO hat, would you invest in Alaska?

Why or why not? Wow, great, great question. So a couple things on that. One, from my other words, I've always been— I'm a free market capitalist. I know freedom wins.

So I've been very critical of government regulation of energy, of all sorts of things for many time. But I should be clear, I don't think there should be no regulation. Regulation is important. In the oil and gas industry, it's what— because you're defined by the worst actor in your industry. If there is no regulations, believe me, there are corner cutters and, you know, they won't cement the wells right and you will have environmental impacts.

So there is an important role, more at the local level, at the state and local level. But I am— and I'm very proud of all of you in the oil and gas industry that's dramatically reduced flaring, you know, shrunk the land footprint we have and do things cleaner and better. So I don't want to ever sound like I'm against those things. It's just those are common sense environmental regulation. That's a piece.

We've just layered on top of that piece this stuff that's in the name of fighting climate change or particulate matter in the air, but it isn't really about those things. I'm against the disingenuous regulation. I think there is an important role for state and some level at the federal level for investment, for regulations as well. But what you go to, Kara, talks about not just regulation, but also sort of the fiscal terms. And this is, I may be having frequent dialogues about this with certain leaders in another nation in our hemisphere that I won't mention, that if you want to get the largest piece of a pie, well, we should have a bigger chunk of that pie My answer always is, you can have a large percent of a very small pie, or you can have a smaller percent of a really big pie, and in the second case, you're going to have a lot more total pie.

And so, you— which is to your point of competition for capital. Look, there is oil and gas all over the place. That's the other thing I didn't know when I went to college to work on fusion energy. I was told we're about to run out. For sure we were going to run out.

The more you learn, like, there is a gobsmackingly immense amount. Oil is the rarest of the 3 hydrocarbons, but there's a crazy amount of oil out there, an insane amount of coal, and oh my God, if you include methane hydrates, you know, there's so, so much natural gas. So the question is not, do we have it? It's where is it going to be produced? And so if you make it so hard to do business in your state, the fiscal terms are hard, the tax cuts too high.

Like, yeah, it's there and you could do that project, but you're going to get X return and I could go somewhere else and get, you know, 5 percentage point higher return. You know, you run a company, you're responsible to your employees, to your owners. You know, that's a responsibility thing. So yes, just having great resources and allowing people to do stuff in Alaska is not enough. You've got to make it so that people say, No, no, I'm not going to invest in that new project in Suriname.

I'm going to Alaska instead. You know, it's more beautiful, the people are better, and the resources are there, and I can get a commercial economic return. And most importantly, this point about stability and trust, that it's governed by common sense people, and when circumstances change, I know I can trust them to work with us productively. So this bashing business, they should pay more, it's another one of these things. I understand the psychology, believe me, I know, I get that, that's human psychology.

But when you bash business, what usually ends out is you get less from that business because they can invest elsewhere. You know, where if you welcome in and treat businesses fairly, you want the state to win, you want meaningful tax revenues. But if you get more capital invested, you get a bigger pie, and then therefore that that slice you get of that pie, you'll get more total pie. Yes, there are many places to invest. I think this fear of federal uncertainty, this fear of— Somehow, it was like producing oil in the Arctic was evil, but producing oil anywhere else wasn't.

That's just crazy. You go up to the Arctic, the local people there, their whole culture is developing their own resources to better their lives. Why does the rules get changed on this? And the Arctic production is amazingly, amazingly small impact, probably smallest footprint per unit of energy produced I've ever seen anywhere on the planet. And so, yes, the state should be common sense.

You should—. Of course, your primary interest is your citizens and how you can better your state, but you can only do that if people create jobs and invest and generate profits so they can pay your taxes. Taxes. And so, yes, you need to— common sense fiscal terms matter. And this is all often a backdoor way that if you hate oil and gas, you know, it's either climate regulation or it's environmental, you can use other covers for a way to kill it.

But again, you're not getting more flesh out of them. They're just going somewhere else. That's not a win. Thank you. So, you know, thinking about the need for an environment for capital and to attract capital, and the senator and I may have worked on a piece of legislation now over a dozen years ago to make sure that we had a strong fiscal environment here in Alaska.

But we also need infrastructure. We need workforce. We heard about that yesterday. We need reasonable permitting timelines. We've heard about that.

So, Congressman, of all those pieces that the industry needs, where, where do you think Alaska has the most work to do? Well, I'll tell you, I think, I think we've, we've done very well over the last several years in keeping our tax code consistent. I think we need to continue to do that. I think that is— that consistency, yeah, that consistency actually lowers our cost of capital, lowers the hurdle rate that companies have when they're making those portfolio investment decisions. You know, when you have uncertainty, what happens is people have to price for that.

They have to price for their— in their capital. They have to say, well, we've got variability in the tax code in this jurisdiction, but this one's been steady for 30 years. Therefore, we've got to price in the risk that we're going to have a change in the rules of the game. And when the cost of capital goes up, investment goes down, and you see decline. And there's a direct relationship between those two factors.

I also think it's important for us to invest in infrastructure, particularly in some of the more remote areas of the state happen to be where the oil and gas is predominantly. But making sure that when we have the opportunity to have a record-setting lease sale, that people have the chance to go out and actually get to the properties that they bid on. Right. We need more road infrastructure on Alaska's North Slope. And it's good for those local communities as well.

You know, when you talk about Utqiagvik, right, Barrow, When you talk about that community, it costs a dollar a pound to fly groceries from Anchorage to that community. A dollar a pound. It's no wonder it costs so much in rural Alaska to live. We need more infrastructure. You've got to be able to deliver those goods in a more cost-efficient way.

This is going to help the communities, it's going to help the industry, and it's going to help unlock more revenue for the state of Alaska. Senator, you were a former DNR commissioner and attorney general, so I think you may have a unique view on one of the pieces that are really critical, and that's permitting. So, you know, you've done a lot of specific permitting reform, both as a state leader and now as our U.S. senator. But as you think about the next piece of permitting reform, what do you think would have the biggest impact to create the durability that we Well, permitting reform is critical. So is workforce development.

I know that so many here are working on that, and I appreciate that element of what we need, especially if we're gonna have, you know, a lot more jobs, which I think we're getting with our building trades and others doing that as a cooperative endeavor. I think it's very important. But, Kara, you're right, 100% on permitting reform. The one thing that I was— I tried to emphasize in the candidate forum today is we're doing permitting reform in a huge way already. When you do a CRA and you get it passed, a Congressional Review Act, that's legislation that goes and says, hey, we're not going to stand for that Biden-era regulation on ANWR or on NPRA or on the Central Yukon or on WOTUS, um, then, and you get that taken out through law, that's permitting reform.

That's the best kind of permitting reform because you're saying the bad regulatory framework that the previous administration put in to really hurt Alaska, there's no doubt about that. The Biden NEPA rule that I discussed in the candidate forum, that was meant to harm the oil and gas industry, purposefully meant to hurt this industry and the workers in it. So we were trying to Get rid of all of those. And we've gotten rid of a lot of them. So that is permitting reform right there.

And we are making important successes because, as I mentioned, under the law— and we'll see if people abide by the law— the regulatory agencies aren't allowed to go back there and reregulate. So that, to me, is really, really important permitting reform that we've gotten done. It's already done. Look, I think the other one is a really important— the waters of the U.S. with The Sackett decision, as I mentioned in the candidate forum, that is a giant issue for Alaska. Giant.

60% Of the wetlands of the United States are located here under certain definitions. And of course, that is used to slow down development. We want to make sure we have clean water. Nobody cares more about clean water than we do. But some of these groups that weaponize the WOTUS rule to try to slow development is a really big issue.

And right now we are working with the EPA administrator, with the North Slope Borough, and with so many of you and our trades to fix that rule. And if we can get that rule to exclude permafrost, which is what the people on the North Slope want, what I think so many in our state want, That's a giant, giant opportunity for all of us. And then finally, Kara, more broadly, I've been focused on permitting reform writ large, NEPA reform, since the minute I walked into the United States Senate. It's been difficult. I will tell you, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle aren't always for that.

Their groups that support them don't like it. But we are at a moment right now in the Congress where we have a really good opportunity, best opportunities I've seen since I've been in the U.S. Senate to get broad-based NEPA reform. Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are engaging with us. I think we're close. This would be a version of what passed the House, the SPEED Act, that goes to timeliness, certainty, limiting litigation, limiting standing for the lower 48 groups that all they want to do is abuse and weaponize laws to slow things down.

So we're getting pretty darn close. I'm in the middle of this in the Senate in terms of our leadership working on this. The administration has been supportive. We can get that over the goal line. We had a hearing on this bill in the Environment and Public Works Committee.

The head of the laborers union and the head of the Business Roundtable said if we could get this done, they think that up to $2 trillion of American capital, $2 trillion, which is on the sidelines because they won't invest in America, infrastructure, oil and gas because the permitting system's not certain enough, $2 trillion could come in. $1.5 Billion if we got that done. That's not government money. That is private sector capital that I guarantee would benefit Alaska in an enormous way. We're close.

We're working on that one as well. Thanks, Senator. We're getting a little short on time. I know that the Secretary and the Governor have something immediately. We're supposed to wrap up here in the next 7 minutes.

I've got a question that I think is on everybody's mind for Secretary Wright, and then I'm going to give our two-term governor the privilege of closing us out. So, Mr. Secretary, in the Alaska Executive Order, in my role at the Department of Interior, I looked at that as our to-do list. So I actually went through and I itemized it. There are 52 to-do items in the Alaska Executive Order. We have accomplished in 15 months Almost 47 of those.

And that's in a large part for all of our teams. I know you've got some amazing team members over there with A&D and others that are at NADC. It's a team effort. It's not just any one department. You know, it's not one department, but there's one big one that's not off the list yet, and that's AKLNG.

So can you talk about where your view is, how is our administration prioritizing AKLNG? I hear rumors that we don't care about it anymore, which I know is hard to believe because I know your team's working day in and day out on it. So talk about where is the administration on AKLNG, and then I have a quick follow-up before we let the governor close us out. You bet. Now that's a crazy rumor if that is a rumor.

And I have learned in D.C. there's some— Absolutely insane, purely fabricated rumors that just get told to someone in the press and they write it. It's like you can't make this stuff up. But AK LNG is a massive priority, and not just because it's transformative for Alaska. It's transformative for the United States. It's transformative for the United States' geopolitical position.

As I said, everywhere I talk to anyone in Asia, you know, all the India, Pakistan, not just the, not just the East Asian nations, People crave LNG access in the Pacific Ocean near, near Korea, near Taiwan, near Japan. They crave to see more LNG capacity come online. Back with my energy nerd hat on, if you look at the last, since the financial crisis where a lot of countries changed their energy policies, the fastest growing energy source on the planet, number one, is natural gas. The thirst for natural gas around the world is immense. What limits the growth of natural gas is just the infrastructure.

You build more pipeline to move natural gas, you build more liquefaction capacity and more liquefaction capacity, you get growth in natural gas. It is just an absolute home run energy source. What's going to dominate our, our, our AI and modern manufacturing, all that? It's natural gas. So we need a lot more natural gas, but AK LNG is not just more LNG, which is great for America and great for the world.

It's Pacific LNG. Even better than being Pacific LNG is it's North and, and West Pacific LNG. It's the closest to the fastest growing marketplace of any LNG in America could possibly be. And it could be transformative for the state of Alaska. You know, as I said in my opening words, great humans in this state, great adventurous people in Alaska who have— I mean, look at that TAPS Alaska pipeline.

Look at this spectacular and rugged state. You all came up here or were born here and have made just an awesome place to live with awesome achievements. And then again, that progress has been strangled by these bad energy policies. Nothing says more that Alaska is open for business Alaskans are doing big, bold things again than to build this pipeline. It transforms energy costs in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

It transforms energy opportunities, transforms the whole fiscal situation of the state because you become a massive exporter of the fastest growing energy demand in the world. So we are all— I wish I had a bigger word than all in, but I think all in is the word. And as you said, What I— I just don't know politics from a distance, and you always hear about the backstabbing and this and that, the power struggles and all that. We don't actually have that problem in this administration. Like, we just want to make stuff happen.

And so anyone who's in our administration, like, we need your help to do this for Alaska LNG or for any other project. But that is the centerpiece, the cornerstone project. And I'd be— I'd be— I'd be not fully candid, and I'm an overly candid guy, if I didn't say I'm disappointed that I'm sitting here right now and we're not talking about shovels in the ground and we had an accelerated delivery date and all that. That's what everyone on this stage, everyone on this stage is working to do. But the big things in life sometimes are very difficult, and sometimes they take longer than we think they should.

Doesn't mean they're not going to happen. This administration, the level of commitment, the level of willingness to be creative in financing and offtakes and supporting and all that, like we— I will say this, we will get it done. We will get it done. We need it. It's—.

The country needs it.

Secretary Wright, just a quick follow-up on AK LNG, and like I said, we're going to let our governor end our program today. We heard earlier, and I really appreciate— I know how busy your schedule is working for another secretary, and you are scripted from before you get up until basically after you go to bed. But you sat here this morning and listened to panels, and you wanted to learn about Alaska, and you listened to the Cook Inlet panel, and you heard the Cook Inlet operator say, Hey, we've got gas in Cook Inlet, but at current production, we might have to start importing until we get our big project done. But do you ever see AKLNG replacing Cook Inlet gas? No, no, the story of energy really in an open society is there's never replacement.

There's only addition. There's addition. You want to have— and to have a secure energy system, you want redundancies. And if you have more energy, guess what? You will have more things.

You will have modern manufacturing. You'll have more mining. You'll have better qualities of life. You'll have new facilities. When you have affordable, reliable energy, uses— uses appear.

People always say, oh, the demand's not growing. Well, the demand's not growing because the supply is growing. If you have a pathway to growing supply, demand materializes. Nebraska. Like the third cheapest, fourth cheapest electricity in the country and third most reliable grid.

They're going to more than double the output of their grid in like 7 or 8 years. And believe me, you do that, the demand comes, the demand comes. So no, I don't see a mass replacement. We've, we've had talk about building coal electric generating in Alaska. If you added that, that doesn't replace AK LNG or Cook Inlet gas either.

That is energy addition. That just means more economic opportunities and lower prices. There is, there's only a finite number of ways to produce energy, and it's a significant cost and investment. There is an infinite number of uses for energy. You create more energy, it will be put to productive use.

But that's, that has been that challenge in Alaska, is getting those right fiscal conditions, business conditions, so investors and entrepreneurs can make things happen. I know the humans are here. I know the passion is here. We just got to get those barriers out of the way and let them go. But no, all, all of these energy generation projects will better Alaska, will better the United States of America, and will better the security profile of the United States of America.

Thank you, sir. Governor Dunleavy, as Luke mentioned, you're only, I think, second governor to ever serve two consecutive terms or something like that, or— Had a few, okay. But I do know you were the first to serve two consecutive terms in over 20 years. And so really appreciate your leadership, your vision for the state of Alaska. So why don't you tell us what policy you're the most proud of and what one piece of advice do you have for the next governor of the state of Alaska?

Well, I appreciate that.

Let me tell a little story though. I think it'll be more illustrative. So in 1976, it was the bicentennial, July 4th, and a 15-year-old Mike Dunleavy, you'll be able to date my birthday now, was down the end of the road celebrating with the other kids shooting off illegal fireworks. And there was this 20-year-old kid who had disappeared and came back. I was 15, they were 20, he was 20, and he was telling stories about Alaska.

And he was telling stories about working on the pipeline in 1976. I never heard of— I've heard of Alaska, but didn't know about the pipeline. And I'm not making this up, the whole concept of Alaska I focused on, not the fireworks, not July 4th, not the bicentennial, it was Alaska. Because this guy went on and on about the opportunities, the amount of money he was making, what they were building up there. And no kidding, it was at that point that I start to do a little research on Alaska.

This is pre-internet, you know, Encyclopedia Britannica and other library books. And I, at that point, committed to go to Alaska when I was 15 years old. I graduated from college in 1983. I came to Alaska. I ended up in Southeast Alaska.

The timber industry was still booming in Southeast Alaska, and there were guys— I met two guys at the camp going to Seattle with cash in their pockets. To go buy pickup trucks. And I thought to myself, I died and went to heaven. This place was unbelievable. It was unbelievable.

And as you know, our motto is "North to the Future." Oil production was ramping up. Alaska was set for generations because of oil. And we have been set for generations because of oil. This pipeline was supposed to be decommissioned. It'll probably last another 50 years because of the work that you're doing.

And hopefully because of the policies that future governors and future legislators keep in place to help this industry. For 50 years, we've also been talking about a gas line. It's right after oil was going, we start talking about a gas line, enormous amounts of gas we have in the North Slope. And never has that gas line advanced more than it has today. Dan has worked on it tremendously.

I can tell you, I could spend an hour talking about the work he's done on the gas line. Nick and I have talked about the gas line. Others have talked about the gas line. We now have all the permits in place. We have people that want to buy our gas.

We have the president of the United States that's behind the gas line. We have chaos in Russia. We have chaos in the Straits of Hormuz. Uh, we're running out of gas in Alaska. Our bases are running out of gas in Alaska.

So we're this close to realizing another massive mega project. This would be the largest non-recourse-funded project in the history of the world here in Alaska. And we need to work on a little tax issue down in Juneau to get over that hurdle, because currently our property tax is way too high for investors to come in here and take a serious look at this for the long run. But we are very close. And I'll leave you with this thought, and this is what I learned as a governor.

This is what I learned as a politician. This is why politics is crucial. Every single one of you in this audience, every single person outside of this, in the United States of America, you will either be a beneficiary of or you'll be a victim of politics. If you don't get involved at some level in understanding politics and how it impacts your life— and today we're talking about energy policy, but it's across the board. If you don't get involved in it, if you don't understand it, you could end up being a victim, whether you're an oil and gas company, whether you're a manufacturing company, whether you're an average person.

The policies that are developed, voted on, and put into law, whether it's in Washington or whether it's in Juneau, have a direct impact on your life, your livelihood, and quite frankly, the future of this country in Alaska. As was said up here, we've got all the oil. We've got the gas. America the Beautiful is blessed with resources that the rest of the world would envy, and they do envy. But if we can get our act together on policy and put together good policy for the long term, this place, this state, this country will be untouchable for decades and generations to come.

So, Understand politics, understand its impact. I'm going to miss being governor. Some may not miss me being governor. I'm going to miss being governor because I think this is the greatest state in the greatest country on the face of the earth. I just want nothing but the best for this state.

I'll be there to support those that come after me, but we are so close to some unbelievable opportunities for this great state. But it comes down to one thing. And that's policy. So I got to run to talk to another secretary here in 2 minutes. Okay.

Well, let's give all of our panelists a great round of applause.

Thank you, Kara. Mr. Secretary, I think we're going to hold— there's going to be a photo op with some state elected officials here on the stage.

Thank you, Governor. Appreciate it, sir. You bet.

Thank you, Senator Bagich. I think you're going to do a photo op with some state legislators. This way? Yeah, Ben arranged for it on the stage. Yes, sir.

Go ahead. Come on up on stage. We got to move.

Mr. Secretary, we had some members of the Alaska State Legislature.