Alaska Energy Conference 2026-05-19 - part 5

Secretary Bergman, 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 want to just 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— the center of economy, the center of prosperity, the center projecting peace around the world. It's moving towards the Western Hemisphere from other parts of the world, and Alaska is a key part of that because Asia 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 4 years of President Trump, was elected the same day he was in 2016. Had 4 years of wind at the back, and then we had 4 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 1st, 2025. I don't think I waited—. That's what I was thinking. 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 even been sworn in yet. We were 3 weeks away from the inauguration, and he was already like, get on the phone with the governor. And so, you know, he was— President Trump was, you know, from the moment he got elected— and it was on day 1, on January 20th was the— unleashing the extraordinary potential of Alaska was one of the first EOs that came out. But yeah, it is a remarkable change. And of course, when Alaska is so blessed, as our country is, with such abundant resources, and whether those— and I'm sure we'll talk about them later— but whether it's critical minerals, whether it's the oil on the North Slope, the incredible gas that's been reinjected 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 of course, as Secretary of the Interior, I've also got a lot of responsibilities 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 sales 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 lease sale 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 and Hawaii, our territories, U.S. 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 Dunleavy because he's been steadfast, both fighting back against the Biden administration, but now taking an opportunity of these, these tailwinds to get as much done as he can in terms of building out the infrastructure that's gonna allow, again, the US to prosper, improve affordability, and improve all of our relationships with our important allies around the Pacific. Before my reign is over, Maynard.

Before the reign, yes. Don't stop the reign. Now, one question for you, Governor, and I should say this is the fourth time you've been very generous with your time with us, and this is 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 U.S. would be a good partner. You know, what a change over your reign that we've seen.

But maybe talk about that lease 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, uh, 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 it'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 lease 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, assurity 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 assurity, they see great investment opportunities. We're different, right, with our conventional oil compared to other states and our infrastructure that has the capacity to move that oil, our port in Valdez that has the capacity to ship that oil. And so right now, I think things are in 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 northernmost, that's obvious. We're the westernmost, we're the easternmost state, okay? That's something that Texas, by the way, can't trump us on. Anyway, but we're very close to our Asian allies. And right now with the disruption in the Gulf, and who knows if that will ever get back to what we would consider normalcy, Alaska 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 Burgum, you referenced the Western Hemisphere. It was really interesting because if you replay the last 6 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, is experiencing this, this, this great comeback. Can you talk a little bit about, since you used the expression, the Western Hemisphere, people wanting to be on this, in this part of the world, how the administration views that as good for the nation? Well, let's just talk about how much has changed in the last 5 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 4 and a half months into it, and 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 Gulf Coast refineries were set up to handle that Venezuelan heavier crude.

But then the flip side of that is that when we take a look at who we might think of as adversaries, the IRGC, IRGC, which is the Revolutionary Guard in Iran. Not the country of Iran is not the enemy. The people of Iran support the US, but the 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. Then we have Russia, who is, when the Iranian conflict began and those things, that got pushed to page 18 or off the pages and people don't even talk about it. You can't even find an article on the news someday, but 25,000 people dying a month in World War I-style trench warfare meets autonomous drones. I mean, that whole thing is just the definition of insanity. And Russia themselves recently announced that a million of their people had died, a million since that conflict started 4 years ago.

And 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 terror groups. And then it was sanctioned, but sanctioned poorly by the Biden administration, not enforced by blockades. And so it was still flowing, just flowing at a discount.

And Venezuela, the same thing. So the failed sanctions, not only did we have policies that were 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 a barrel, okay, and when the world price was $60.

So now that changes the leverage in those negotiations as well. It certainly changed the discussion that went on during the summit recently. So when I say the geopolitical, it shifted and shifted generationally, and then we take what's going on and the potential that's here, you know, with PICA, the first oil that Dan Sullivan, I was up there with him, 80,000 barrels of oil going back into this amazing thing called the Trans-Alaska Pipeline built you know, 50 years ago, technological marvel. You know, every barrel that goes down there has got a buyer in Asia. There's— and our friends and allies are all sitting here.

And the whole point of energy dominance— when President Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council and asked, you know, Chris Wright, our amazing Secretary of Energy, Lee Zeldin, an amazing head of EPA, all of— and all of you, I mean, whether it's Bessant or Lutnick, or Rubio, all of our team, we're all talking to each other all the time at the secretarial level to solve these issues, whether it's sanctions, whether it's Venezuela, whether it's Middle East, whether it's all these things. So together, moving towards this thing where energy dominance is sell energy to our friends and allies so they don't have to buy from our adversaries, and then have enough so that we can have prosperity at home. And we know how to get energy prices down in 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 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 to free ourselves up from those that want to wage war and terror, to 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 even though, again, every article is about, you know, we do have high prices right now, and certainly this thing that Dan talked about where we're gonna try to fix it The Alaskan, that we say 274 communities that don't have a road. That don't have a road. I mean, this is, there's some unique things up here. But you pull back from that and you say, okay, 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 capital is going to be safe. 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 reshore manufacturing right now. It's unbelievable.

So the long-term, the near-term and the longer-term outlook for the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 prosperity and to prosperity of the world and peace the world is coming. I was, I was wondering, last year it was incredible. Governor, this is your 5th conference, I believe, since you started this.

And last year Secretary Bergen was here, Secretary Wright was here, and Secretary Zeldin were here. And so we talked about the partnership between the state and the federal government, but having 3 secretaries, 3 important parts of the federal government also in sync— could I ask you to talk about that, Secretary Bergum? 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. Well, it is. It's live and well.

We got senior leaders from from the Department of Energy sitting right here. We got Audrey, we got Rachel, we got folks from the EPA here, we got folks from Department of Interior that are here, from all the different, you know, equities we have here. I've been with U.S. Fish and Wildlife, National Park Service, the, you know, Bureau of Land Management, all these folks that are coming. I mean, the teamwork that's happening I think is also unprecedented.

The policy is right, but then the teamwork is actually happening, and everything we I think we have all thing one 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 gonna shut down base load and add intermittent, unreliable, weather-dependent, foreign-sourced kinds of energy, that was energy subtraction. We were literally, and just look at the numbers, we were actually decreasing the amount of electricity we had in the country at a time when we were facing a massive increase. And why was there a massive increase? A, the economy was gonna getting stronger, but B, this is the first time in history that you've been able to take a kilowatt of electricity and, and turn it into, and turn it into intelligence. I mean, it's amazing that, you know, I mean, Thank you, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, that 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 the 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 because we're worried about global warming. But it turned out it was oversold, I guess.

I mean, when a place like North Dakota and Alaska and you try to sell global warming, you know, most times people are like, "Okay, I'm in." But it's cold in Alaska and in North Dakota. You guys know.

Is it dad jokes? They got it. No, it was pretty good. I didn't see a sign. Is there a sign that says you can't—.

There's more laughter coming in. Jokes at this conference? It was just a lag. It was a latency. Okay.

All right. So, but we— but I'm just saying, again, the—. 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.

This— 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, where 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 'em, 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 3 or 4 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, but let's just be clear.

The— where the dollars are flowing in terms of the new economy is going to be driven by the fact that there's more need for electricity. So just take the hyperscalers. This year, their CapEx budgets were $400 billion, 5 companies. These are companies that 20 years ago did not have CapEx expenditures. And you say, well, CapEx, capital expense, what am I 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, it's greater than, it's bigger, it's a bigger number than the oil and gas numbers. So that's that, that was the current year we're in. Some of them have already announced they're doubling for next year. So it's going from $400 billion to $800 billion.

States like Alaska that have policies that were supported by the governor, which is a pro-energy state, are gonna see some of that $800 billion of capital. States that are running around saying, "Oh, this will raise your electric rates," they should say, "P.S., even further," because it was their energy transition policies that actually drove their rates up, 'cause they were subtracting energy at a time when demand was increasing. That'll cause the price to go up. So there's— we're going to have a bifurcation of the American economy on where dollars flow, and dollars are going to flow to places like Alaska that have got the right strategy and the right pro-energy. 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 going to miss out on the whole thing. We're at the— in this administration, we're trying to help everybody. But if you have states that are blocking energy development, blocking energy infrastructure, to— and then getting— winning elections on that, it's just going to be interesting, because they're going to wake up and find out that this next wave, it's like the Industrial Revolution happened someplace else, or the Agricultural Revolution happened someplace else, only this is going to be the intelligence revolution, and this is It's gonna affect everything. And you say, oh, what's he talking about? No, it is literally, it's gonna cure cancer.

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. I mean, '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 want to use all this excess intelligence that's coming.

So I'm— I don't want to sound like I'm anxious, but I care about the 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 optimistic when I'm in a state— when I'm in a state led by someone like the governor that's actually embracing it, the potential is unlimited. So I started with you two guys were energy governors. You were pro-energy, pro-development. You had very good economies.

Governor Dunleavy, 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 U.S. 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 is really a one-off. It's very different.

It's a very different state. I mean, and I was— as the Secretary was talking, it's very important that you come here. Let me ask 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 to answer this, but I know you're going to have takeaways where you said to yourself, I didn't realize that.

In other words, you know, when you're in New Jersey, right, you have to see a sign that 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 microgrids than just about anywhere else in North America, maybe even parts of the world, other parts of the world.

So I would say in answer to your question, the energy discussions, because you have intertied grids down south between states, you have similar energy mixes down south between the states. Alaska is just so unique in what it has to offer, right? We, 3,600 gigawatts of potential power, renewable power. The largest supergiant in North America, Prudhoe Bay. Trillions of cubic feet of gas.

Trillions of tons, trillions, not billions, trillions 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, I mean, Doug and I had conversations years ago at a conference in which when he was experiencing a rise in gas in the Bakken, you know, what he was going to do with it. And if you know anything about Doug Burgum, he's very successful in the private world, as a governor, and now as DOI.

Different conversation on that. But I would say Alaska is a state of contradictions. 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 way. 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 they— some states just honestly— because this stuff is pretty straightforward. We need more supply. You can't have too much regulation. You can't overtax.

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 Bergman, it's all part of America and we need to fix these issues. Sounds like you were talking about California.

But, well, yeah, that would be one. Yes. That's policy, right? I mean, we had the same thing under the— I'm just being honest— under the Biden administration. America wasn't running out of oil or running out of gas.

It was an 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 renewables, solar, wind work in Alaska because of the distances and the small scale of the population. But at the same time, we are a resource giant. We are a gas and oil giant.

So, um, I— 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 the Secretary's 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 you, Secretary Burgum. 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. Whether it's nuclear, where President Trump is 4 executive orders positive on nuclear, bringing tens of billions of capital back into SMRs.

That's gonna be a great solution for some, even like here in remote areas where we don't have to spend a bunch of money on transmission. We can have the load consumed near where it's developed. That's great. There's much we can do on hydro. Bureau of Reclamation, which is part part of Interior, we manage 400 hydroelectric dams.

Army Corps of Engineers, 700. So there's 1,100 federally owned hydro dams. Virtually none of them have been repowered. 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, you know, a small micro hydro thing which is just which is brilliant and great. And of course, they saved a ton of money this winter not having to pay for elevated diesel prices. So there's just big opportunities. Geothermal has got an incredible opportunity in front of us. Again, thank you to the shale revolution because geothermal is about precision drilling and what's occurred.

Even like when we're up on the North Slope, I mean, at the peak of the well, the rig we were on, they were drilling a 27,000-foot well. Well, that was total depth of the well, but they're only going down 4,000 feet. So you go down 4,000 feet, you got 27,000— you have 27,000 feet total. You're talking like 4-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 on— in the United States where geothermal could be be a fantastic longer-term solution, but in the short term, you know, the way that for the AI arms race 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, and now we're not, and we're not in any of it. China controls 80% 85 to 100% of the top 20 most necessary critical and rare earth minerals on the list, you know, produced by US Geological Survey, which is part of Interior, which had 60 critical minerals. And so we— and I 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 don't want to say the creep, to, you know, beyond what the original law was, now is 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 places like, you know, whether it's Indonesia, whether it's the Congo, you know, often with Chinese-funded, no EPA, no reclamation, no child labor laws, no concern about emissions.

If you actually care about the planet and you care about the environment globally, then you should insist on having all the oil and gas, all the critical minerals, all the timber, you should have it all done here because the US is gonna do it better, cleaner, smarter, safer than anywhere else in the world if you really, that's your top thing that you're concerned about. Again, trying to drive in the Trump administration, we've taken things that would took a year a year or 2 years, and we've dropped them below 2 weeks and 4 weeks for EAs and EISs. We're getting— we've taken on the NEPA thing. 80% Of what we discovered in NEPA wasn't in the original law. Now that 80% is in a handbook or an appendix, and if you want to get a permit, you've got to follow the 20% that was originally the law.

But that frees up time from federal team members, you know, who are busy dealing with all this ambiguity. Is this part of the law, or was this just some rule that someone came up with? You know, where'd this stuff come from? 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 the deregulatory thing, which is, it's not get rid of regulations, it's not disregard the important role we have on stewarding the resources we have, it's following the law.

It's don't have a bunch of regulations 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 deployment, stop building horizontal infrastructure. I mean, if we had the set of rules today that we had then, there 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, shipped it overseas to people that did it less clean than we did. So a question for you, just logistically, 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 penetrate that bureaucracy? 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 transparency and accountability. And in some cases, just putting all of putting these permitting processes up on a website so that both 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 of dollars so they can send us royalties. If someone is, in my world in the private sector, if 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 to take care of our parks, take care of our wildlife refuges, 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 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 milestones. So that's one piece of it.

The other is just what I'd already described as 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 set. These, these are the actual laws. So we're doing both of those.

Those things. But then we also have the other thing, which is with President Trump. If you're in the Oval Office with him, and he's like, how's this project coming? You say, 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 permit's on the way. And we followed all the rules, checked all the boxes. It's going to be durable in the courts. But there's a sense of urgency that hasn't existed.

CEOs need to figure out that the federal government in some cases right now with the groups I'm talking about that are connected with NEDC is we're moving faster than the private sector is. And that shocks people, but it's the pace that we have to move at because we have a national energy emergency. And we have to get ourselves out of this 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 so 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 that I know well that said that they applied for a permit for a small gas line. They got the permit in 12 days because of these guys, and they were in shock. What they're doing now needs to be codified. We mentioned this kind of this morning, this morning, and that is Congress needs to act to ensure that we have a permanent runway, long runway for investment and investors when they look at America and they look at Alaska.

And lawfare 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 in law by Congress, America is gonna— America is going to be the place for the next 50 to 100 years to And right now, I mean, thanks to 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, maybe I could ask, since you'll be going back into the private sector soon. I was thinking about going to work for you later. We have your desk ready. We're excited. We don't have any governors at the company.

We need one. I'm going to 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 going to do. But I'm a huge cheerleader of Doug and company and the administration. And this is the goal.

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 have been big proponents of them?

How do we put them into law? How do we change the processes? And 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.

Any 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? I would say, 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.

I mean, whether it's, you know, opening a mine, developing— we heard things this morning when people could bring things on quickly. But, you know, I'll take the Alaska LNG project, which is of incredible strategic importance to Alaska, to the world, to the United States. And I know we've got— I met with them last night, but they're There's a number of the friends that are here that are potential partners in this thing, in the Alaska LNG, including offtake agreements. So, and we had this winter 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 hundred people to come. Things started happening in the Middle East. 600, We crammed 650 people in there. 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, aka 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 Asia-Pac and Hawaii and our military bases in places like Guam, You know, and getting California off of foreign oil, 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 Lutnick goes, why aren't 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 light, for electricity, for fertilizer. And it's an equivalent, I mean, we talk about the price of diesel, but the energy equivalent of LNG right now at US prices It's like 50 cents or less a gallon, you know, for diesel. That's what we got to think about. It's like if you could get 50-cent diesel, how much would people buy?

Only LNG, of course, has a lot, you know, stronger attributes, but just energy density. So I want to thank all the people that are here because we had groups, you know, Taiwan and South Korea, and I know, you know, Philippines, Thailand, all of these folks have been lining up to partner on this thing, and, you know, Japan is as well, and as well as our own territories and countries, 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, it's 8 days between here and Tokyo as opposed to, you know, it's 32 on a good day.

If you have one strait closed, multiple straits closed, then your shipment's either never going to arrive or it's there. And, you know, in Japan, most people in Japan didn't know that 92% 80% of their oil was coming through the Strait of Hormuz. Every person that lives in that country knows it now. So again, we have along US territorial waters protected by US fleet, you know, going virtually all the way into some of these customers. That project has to happen, and I would just, you know, invite Alaska to not get in your own way.

If you're 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, then 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 and 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 TAPS.

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 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, and we're here. We're here. From the president on down, Let's go get the AK LNG built and let's get it built well, just like TAPS was, and let's get it built soon. And thank you, Governor, for your, again, steadfast support. That's why we love Doug Burgum.

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. You know, over the years, Alaska— everyone knew Alaska is a beautiful place, and we knew— they knew we had a large oil pipeline, etc., etc. But Alaska is back on the map for investors. It's not an 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 greenfield operation in the United States of America. We are the westernmost state. We are the northernmost state. We sit at a 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 renaissance on the slope, we're gonna 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 gonna 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 and 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 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 winds in our sails here. I'm optimistic for the future.

Thank you to you both. Thanks to all of you. Thank you, Secretary. Great. Thank you.

Where are we going? We're going to announce a break. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

I can tell who's been paying attention to the app and the agenda. We are now going to take a break, and we will be back here at 2:40 for our next session. So please refresh your coffee, use the facilities, stretch, and meet some more new people. Take care.

Ladies and gentlemen, please make your way out to the foyer for a a coffee break and continued conversations. If you could, again, please make your way to the foyer. The Dena'ina staff needs to clear from our lunch service. Head on out. We will be back here in the main ballroom at 2:40.

We appreciate your help exiting the ballroom and continuing the conversation in the foyer to help the Dena'ina staff clear for our afternoon program.

Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder to please leave the ballroom to allow the Dinahina staff to clear from our lunch service so that we start our afternoon programming on time. If you could please exit the ballroom and continue your conversations in the foyer or on the second floor landing, or check out the Polar LNG Energy Lounge. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, again, this is a reminder to please exit the ballroom so the Denaina staff can Flip for our afternoon programming. We do need to clear the ballroom also for.