11-3-25 RDC Breakfast Forum - A Conversation with Alaska's Regulatory Agency Commissioners

Riley over there. Please walk, don't run, and as soon as the situation is corrected, we'll be readmitted back into the center. Additionally, there are two AEDs located in the building. One is on the third floor. The second one is located adjacent to the security department on the loading docks.

Now, before we get our conversation going with our resort agency commissioners, I'd like to bring up Scott Haverstand briefly, president and board of RDC, to give us a quick update.

Shout out, please. I don't know why I'm putting this on because I'm not reading anything. Good morning. A big shout out this morning to DeAntha, her team, their board. We were downtown last night.

There seemed to be events everywhere in downtown Anchorage, and I haven't seen as much excitement in this community as I saw last night in a long time. So Dee, thank you, and thank you to your board for bringing energy to Anchorage. Um, ARC, lots going on. First off, um, large shout out to our former executive director, Layla Campbell. Stepped down.

She served us for a couple, 3 years. This morning we're launching the search for RDC's next executive director to take us into the next 50 years. RDC advances responsible resource development across all of our industries in Alaska. It's proven itself over the years to help everybody. We're excited about that.

We've got a fast track right now. The intention is to have applicants come in through the 24th of the month with interviews in early December for putting somebody in place in January, getting ready for the legislative season to make sure that we help you guys advance the projects you're looking to do. I want to make a large shout out to our team with RDC. I believe Jennifer is here. Jennifer's back there checking you in.

I believe Connor's here. The board is named Connor's right over there. Connor's our interim executive director to get us through to the new hire. They're doing a great job. Our conference is next week.

Hope to see you guys there. We're sold out. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jennifer. I believe our trade show is sold out. So trade show sold out, and— but you can still register to go.

It's a huge lineup of men. Appreciate you guys. Thank you for what you're doing to advance Alaska's economy. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to these guys. All right, thank you.

We really appreciate our partnership with RDC and the opportunity to co-host the breakfast with you and everyone to be here bright and early in the morning.

Well, I myself am a geologist and a miner. We look forward to this conversation. We want to focus on all aspects of RDC that we represent— fishing, forestry, oil and gas, tourism, and more. So I'd like to get our discussion started this morning with Commissioners of Alaska's Department of of Environmental Conservation, Fish and Game, and Natural Resources. These folks and their team are a key part of Alaska industry success as well as success of the mission to protect the environment, the fish, wildlife, people, and Alaska's benefits.

So thank you all for being here this morning. I'll get started with a couple quick questions, a couple ground rules. This is our opportunity to talk, so please use up the whole hour. If we start running over, I'll start giving you the sign, but we'll fill it up. There's no hook to pull you off stage this morning.

So to start off, I'd ask each of you to briefly tell us about yourself. Yourself, how you got your role, and a brief overview of your agency and the mission and as it relates to Alaska resource industries.

All right, well, good morning everybody. So my name is John Prother. I'm the Acting Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources. I've been doing it for about 9 days, so I've got a lot to learn and a lot of good people to teach me. And so I have worked for the last 8 DNR commissioners though.

I started at the department in 2012 when now-Senator Sullivan was Commissioner Sullivan and had the opportunity to see a lot of great leaders, learn a lot along the way. So I'm hoping I'm somewhat prepared, and I trust the trial by fire will continue to refine that. So I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, lived in Alaska off and on all my life, and As I mentioned, worked at DNR now for the better part of a decade and, you know, just love the agency, love the state. Never been happier than to move back here in 2021 and really hope to live here the rest of my life and hope to make our economy, our culture, our place as good as I can. And so I'm going to be working really hard to do that through DNR.

I think many of you are probably very familiar with our mission. It's pretty simply in Article 8 of our Constitution, make our resources available for use in the public interest. And, you know, that's— it sounds simple, it can be in one sentence, but as you all know, it's a lot of hard work to strike that right balance, conserve and protect our important resources with the folks here on stage, but really make— you know, we are a resource state, minerals, oil and gas, timber. It's what makes Alaska Alaska, what makes us all able to live and thrive here. So Our mission is, I think, keep doing what we're doing, make improvements.

The governor is intensely focused on permitting efficiency, on adopting new technology, being more adaptive, and keeping pace with the federal opportunity we have. So I think our mission, as I understand it for DNR, is double down on what we're doing, improve what we're doing as we can every day, and keep working with you all to make sure you have what you need to unlock our mineral potential.

Good morning all, welcome to early breakfast. Thank you, Dave, thank you, Scott, for bringing the energy. I'm Randy Bates, I'm the Commissioner of DEC. I'm Juneau-based, Juneau's been home for a very long time, graduated high school there, commercial fished my way through both high school and college where I got a fisheries degree from the original Oregon State University, the original OSU for those of you from Ohio, the longest serving OSU, hey, there we go, Scott.

And I'm like Commissioner Krohler, I'm relatively new, started in May, but I'm not new to the state, not new to the state system. I've been around for 25 years. Been with DNR in the original project management permitting when it was there, moved to Coastal Ocean Management and moved into Fish and Game Division of Habitat, moved back over to DEC. So I've been with all three of these agencies up here and in water. Took about a a year off and then came back when he had the chance to be Commissioner of DEC.

It's a tremendous privilege to be here in this position. When I walked in, I walked in with what I believe are my three pillars that I'm trying to impose and present with DEC, and that is I am a strong and fierce advocate of resource development, I am a fierce advocate of states' rights, and it is critical to me in my non-suited world that we get fish back to the rivers. I don't have authority there, but those are the pillars that I stand with. And those are, by the way, not mutually exclusive concepts, and that's very, very important to me that we can have those three things coexist together. The agency is critical to all of you in this room, human health and the environment.

And when I took this job and I was thinking, okay, I'm going to be on the elevator with different people, how do I explain in a 10-second, 30-second window what we do? The acronym I came up with, I never heard it anywhere else, BED, right? So if you breathe, if you eat, if you drink, or if you discharge, my agency at DEC has a role in your world. Whether you're a body or a business, my agency has a role in your world. So you probably remember that if you're on the elevator with me, you say, "What do you do, Randy?" But it's really an important agency in your world.

It's a very important agency that we, it's very important that we run this agency right to both perform permitting in an expedient and protective manner. And that's really the reason I took this position at this time. There's— with President Trump, Administrator Zeldin, Regional Administrator Emma Pocan, Governor Dunleavy, this cabinet, and myself, this is the most opportune time that I've ever seen in Alaska. I've never seen the federal-state alignment the way it is. We've got a real opportunity in a very short period of time time to make a big difference for the future of Alaska.

I'm just tremendously privileged and pleased to be in this position and look forward to sharing more information today. I will now turn the mic to the OG of the commissioners on stage.

Well, now you got me thinking. Next time I go to the restroom, I'm going to think about DC. Holy Christmas. So I guess I am the old guard here. I've been Commissioner of Fish and Game for now almost 8 years.

In my 8th year, I joined Governor on his first day. It's been an interesting ride. It's been fun. It's been enjoyable. I've never regretted doing this job.

I grew up in Wisconsin. Go Pack! And I came up to Alaska in 1978, so I think I've been up here almost 50 years now. I don't plan to move out of Alaska any longer. Fish and Game— who doesn't hunt and fish in the state of Alaska?

And who doesn't have an opinion about hunting and fishing, more importantly? I think we did a scan a couple years ago, there's newspaper articles in the Daily News, and I think Fish and Game has more issues, more headlines on the front page than any other department or any other issue in the state. So people really fundamentally care about Fish and Game. It's our role to make sure that those resources are there, not only today, but for your kids that you're going to teach to go out and hunt and fish, so that we can pass that on generationally. So I really enjoy my job.

I really like it. It's fun. That said, in another couple months, or I mean, in about a year, I'll be retiring and I'll be passing that on to somebody else. So it's been a really great opportunity, and I want to thank you guys personally because you're the kind of people that hold our state together. You're the people putting your effort, your lives, and everything to make our state our state who it is.

We couldn't do it without you. I tell fishermen that all the time. You know, we're there to help you guys make your living so you can make Alaska great. And without you guys out there doing that stuff, we would have nothing to manage. So really, fundamentally, thank you all for what you're doing for Alaska and the contribution you make.

Thank you. One down, 90 to go. Just kidding. As commissioners of your department, that strategic leadership role is obviously important. In your priorities you set for your departments.

Can I briefly ask each of you to kind of give us your priorities in upcoming legislative session and if there's any specific budgetary or statutory changes you're hoping to see? We'll go ahead and start down that way and we'll come back this way. How's that sound? Okay. Well, I think most of you know the governor last year got interested in onshore fish farming, so we're going to have that discussion again with the legislature this next year.

I know there's a lot of angst in Alaska about fish farming, but this is a very carefully crafted bill that just looks at onshore fish farming, basically in tanks or in ponds that are contained so that it's not like the offshore fish farms that a lot of people have concerns with in offshore waters that can have escapees and other things. So we'll have that discussion with them. We're certainly looking for how we can implement the President's executive order on unleashing Alaska's energy potential. We are working very carefully with the Governor's Office and with the President's Office at the White House to try to figure out ways that we can eliminate some of the concerns about polar bears on the North Slope so we can unleash both ANWR and the Petroleum Refuge for oil exploration. We're also very interested in working with the White House and the Governor's Office on how we can mitigate some of the potential impacts on belugas in Cook Inlet so that we can have some extra mineral development in Cook Inlet, as well as have oil and gas and mining developments.

I think all of you are aware, I think we'll get into it later, of the President's AO regarding seafood competitiveness. We're going to be working very carefully to make our seafood more competitive in the world. Right now we are kind of behind the scenes on a lot of different things. We're kind of behind the 8-ball. Russia is undercutting us competitively in the world.

They get the same seafood certification that we have, but they're not held to the same standards. We're going to make our seafood competitive in the world. We're going to bring our playing field to be the same playing field other people are playing on. And then finally, you're all aware, I think we're getting to this really later on, Governor Zayle regarding permitting reform. We're going to be working to what we can do to make our permitting faster.

I think Fish and Game pretty dang fast the way it is, but we're going to look for efficiencies in that so that you're not waiting unnecessarily to get to the permit requirement from one of our agencies to move forward and get these activities going. Thanks, Commissioner. At DEC, we don't have any sponsored bills at this point. There's nothing— I'll save us a little time on this response because it's pretty quick. There's At this time, there's nothing we have going on legislatively that we are the driver on at DEC, but we're certainly going to be responsive to those issues that are going to come up legislatively in this coming session.

And it'll be— there'll be a lot going on this coming session for a variety of different reasons. One of the more dominating aspects of our life right now, and it'll probably be a big topic in this coming session, is the, uh, Storm Along response. And what's happening there. And DEC, DOT, we've been very, very, very involved across our agencies in response to that storm. In fact, we were just— the Governor, Commissioner Anderson, Major General Sachs, we're— our Deputy Commissioner Crystal Keenan, for those of you that know her, sitting up here.

We are all up in western Alaska this last— the last couple of days in Kivmuk, Napakiak, Nabuskiak, Quinhock and looking at that damage. So our response, the funding of that, that's going to be, that's going to be a very dominant topic, I believe, this coming session and how we responded to that. But as Doug said also, we're taking a look at the Administrative Order 360 that the governor issued and we're working on that. That is an opportunity for us to make regulatory changes outside the venue of statute in the legislature, and we're taking that as a real opportunity to do a real look at what we can do. I think we'll touch on that in a little bit, so I'll hold comments there on that one, but I expect a quiet session.

The dean of the cabinet at the end of the table can give a much clear answer. The new guy will probably say, for bills, we support the governor's bills, and for budget, we support the governor's budget.

But I, you know, I know two things that are a focus of the department kind of at every level is, you know, the governor wants us to meet or beat the federal timelines. And for the first time in my life, federal timelines may be moving forward and actually be a little bit more predictable timeline. And so, you know, that's I think that's going to be a focus for everything we do at DNR to make sure we have the resources we need to be really on staff. And then similarly, as alluded to, you know, the permitting reform, it's certainly a focus at every level of the department and we'll keep focus there. So I think looking forward to an interesting session.

Awesome. I'd like to kind of skip on the topic of permitting reform. A lot of talk this week, a lot of talk across all of our industry partners out there that permitting reform is probably the single best thing we can do for our jurisdiction.

To promote investment in Alaska. I'd like to start and talk a little more permitting reform. We'll start kind of the high level on this first one with kind of the federal side. We're all excited that Alaska was the first state to sign that MOU with the Permitting Council. We'd like to kind of ask, what does this mean exactly for your departments?

Are there any overlapping issues, and can you tell us any areas of strengths or areas you see improvements through this process going forward? This will be open to anyone who wants to start off.— if anyone wants to decline now, we won't hold it against you. Yeah, so happy to start off from the DNR side, and folks probably know our Office of Project Management and Permitting has been working very closely with the Governor's Office on this MOU, getting it in place, and then now on its implementation. You know, and I would say a couple things about the FAST-41 process and what the MOU is intended to do, and that's really to open the door to the state participating, encouraging projects to get on the dashboard, and then participating with the federal agencies for those projects that are on the dashboard to ensure that the state voice is heard and that the timelines work for the state, for the project, and to get the work done. You know, we had— the state had a little bit of experience with this dashboard process in the first Trump administration.

Alaska LNG project was on it, and I was working on that with the team at the time, and I can tell you the federal agencies, the staff, the leadership, the middle management, really when something is on the dashboard, it creates a federal structure on the back end for them to work on things. What's going on? Why hasn't this been responded to? Why hasn't this been sent to this person? What's the timeline?

How are we meeting it? And so I think the mechanics of FAST-41 are really encouraging, and it's tremendous to have that state MOU in place so that we can be encouraging projects to get on the dashboard and participating in those decisions and then making sure to track them. Because I can tell you all of them, I think we'll get into it, the first Trump administration was really focused on projects, really focused on getting in and trying to understand these things, but was learning a lot, was bumping into things, you know, had some staff challenges. You know, this team that's on the FIPSC, the permitting, or the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, It's led by an extremely experienced person, Emily Domenich, but she has a whole staff of people, long-term federal employees, business people. It is staffed up.

They understand the process and they're pushing really hard. So, we're eager to join them, have our OPOP team, many of them are here today working with them, and we're really excited about that MOU and what comes next for these key projects.

So I just want to say, fishing game, get permits out the door quickly. We've got requests for permits to do Eisenbeck after it got approved. We got a request on Thursday, we had them out on Tuesday. The biggest issue with permitting from my agency's perspective is the federal process. It basically has a NEPA process and it has to select a referral alternative at the end of that NEPA process.

Many state permitting, they function operations can't start until that referral alternative is out. I know you guys all want permits from the state agencies, but we don't know what we're permitting until that NEPA process is done. So I want to make it clear, I think we very strongly support anything we can do to clean up that NEPA process and expedite the NEPA process and have our role in it so that we know what we're getting and we can then quickly respond to that, that referral alternative that comes out the other end. So yeah, permitting reform is a great But I can tell you that the biggest improvement in permitting reform will get a quicker result out of the federal process so the state knows what we're doing in terms of permitting targets moving forward.

Thanks. And probably the second biggest issue or hurdle that we as an agency face is getting the applicant to come in early and often and share information with us. That's critical to us. Okay, NEPA is a process, but agency or applicant information is critical for us as well. So my request, my push is early and often come into our office, work with our permitors.

Look, in the DEC world of water where so many permits come from in our water world there, we have a mining section that has over 100 years of collective experience in permitting. That is extraordinary knowledge, experience, ability to navigate the regs. Use them. Get in there, use them to the extent you can, because they're going to find ways to get to yes. That's our directive, that's our mission, is find ways to get to yes.

So there's ways to improve permitting. FAST-41 is a wonderful opportunity to align, expedite, and coordinate our permits.

Commissioner Krohler mentioned OPMD. If I can, I'll tell a quick Simple story. I think our original director of OPMP is in the audience, Bill Jeffers. Many of you probably know Bill. Back in this— tell you how long I've been with the state— back in, I think it was 2005, when EO-106, Executive Order 106, 107 came out, there was a new office created, the OPMP, and this is just inside information if you guys didn't know it, How do we name that entity?

What is that going to be named? And if you now look at FAST-41, OPMP, there could have been an agency called Resource Project Management, acronym RPM, the speed of action. They chose not to name it that, they named it OPMP, but same concept exists. Let's move faster with permitting and so forth. So OPMP was created largely in some ways to facilitate that coordination.

We had a federal agency at that time stood up to do this. Now they've reempowered this FAST-41 group, and we just need to make it permanent. We need to make it stick so that it has longevity and withstands the swing of the next administration's pendulum. Because this is important that we coordinate the federal action, the permitting with the state directions. Okay, can I just have one very, very quick thing?

You know, there's, there's a couple key Alaska projects already on the dashboard. The permitting folks are wide open for more suggestions. The state has an under-that-MOU ability to suggest, recommend how projects get on the dashboard. So if you're looking at a big project, a lot of timelines, a lot of federal opposition, take a close look at it. And, and I, I really mean on the back end, the state has the ability under the MOU to directly ask the specifics of the project, not when is this going to get done, 9 months, okay, we hope so.

Why hasn't this particular person reviewed this? What's the hangup here? We have a lot of ability to get in and participate now, so it's really exciting. Nice, perfect, thank you. We'll drop down to our state level.

We're all familiar with the Governor's Administrative Order 360. We briefly talked about it. I'd like to ask the question of each of you, how do you see these impacts with your departments with this order? Do you anticipate meaningful change of the regulatory framework, or what are your expectations and envision coming out of this? I'll start with you, Commissioner Powell.

Yeah, happy to speak to this one. Our team has been working really hard on this, and I've been really thankful how many different people in the agency we have that understand our current regulations but also understand what we do and how we can and may be able to shape those better to make them more efficient. As Commissioner Vincent Lang mentioned, you know, we do a lot of permitting really well. We have some of our cycle times literally down to less than a week. We have some of them down to, you know, 32 days, and 30 of that is a public notice period.

And so, you know, we're proud of the work we've done there, really impressed by all the people who've worked really hard on that to date. But it's an opportunity to revisit things wholesale and look at the whole record, you know, what's on there that's just kind of been on there for a long time and how do we reimagine it. So I do anticipate it will continue to be a major effort at DNR certainly, and with the tools, with the technology, with the kind of opportunities we have today, it's extremely timely.

Thank you. At DEC, we looked at this as a real opportunity for our agency to do a deep dive, a deep scrub, a scour of our regulations and see if we can't find a way to identify ways to improve the timeliness, the predictability, whether there's duplication, whether there's holes in our regulations. Again, these are the regulations that we control, and that's what the governor's taking a look at. It's not statutorily what we need authority for, but how do we actually implement those statutes and whether those regulations are a burden or a blessing, and are they assisting the industry and protecting the environment in the way necessary. So it's important that we do a hard look at this every once in a while, and we are.

I'll give you an example. It's not going to come out under the administrative order, but most recently we We've reissued a permit that had some dual authority nature to it, and the public was, uh, number one, probably concerned if not confused. And so they came to us during that public comment period and say, hey, this is kind of burdensome to us, this is owners, can we find a better way of doing business? And we went back and looked, and we have different ways of issuing permits or authorizations. It doesn't have to be a piece of paper across the table that we sit and negotiate on.

We found a better way of doing business where a simple drafting of regulations sets out the rules by which you operate. You just simply have to toggle online that you need this coverage. You're good to go. It's an overnight permit. It's called permit by rule.

So it's, it's something that we haven't played with very much in the regulatory world, but it's something that has a lot of potential to streamline permitting, make it easier to get your permit, make it easier to get you active in the field. So those are the types of issues we're looking at. And again, I just mentioned we have 100 years of experience in the mining world. We have to find a way to make sure we're looking even in that world where they have that much experience to see if there's ways to improve that process. And so anything we can do to improve that.

If we did go out for public notice, we did seek public comment. I think all of our agencies either have or are seeking input. I can guarantee you, between Deputy Commissioner Kieneman and myself, we will be looking at the comments that you submitted, seeing if there's ways we can improve our processes regulatorily through the administrative order. Yeah, I want to second that. This is your opportunity to tell us tell us what you see as issues that are burning in our agencies.

Take this opportunity, the Governor's given it to you, take that opportunity to talk to us. Talk to us what you think are the issues with how we're permitting the projects that you're trying to put in the water. Number 2 is realize again that oftentimes it's very hard for us state agencies to figure out what the next step is until we have a federal decision on what the preferred alternative is. So, you can Realize that sometimes we're pushing hard on the federal government to expedite that process so that we can start our process on specific site locations and a variety of other things. For instance, it's very hard for me to issue a Title 16 permit for a stream crossing when I don't know what that stream crossing— where that stream crossing is going to be.

So, we've got to expedite that process. Then finally, talk to us. I think all of us have said that. The sooner you get into our permitting aid regulatory staffing, the quicker your decision is going to get out the door. Because we're there to work with you, we're there to get you out in the water.

And as soon as we can hear from you, we can talk to you, represent what we see the issues are, how we can mitigate those, how we get a permit out the door, the quicker you're going to get that permit out the door. So don't be shy, don't be fearful, just come in and talk to our staff. And you run into roadblocks, That's what the three of us are here for. Just give us a call and we'll discuss with staff and figure out a pathway forward. But, you know, talk to us.

Get in early and often. Nice, perfect. I got a series of individual questions for each of you. Commissioner Mates, we'll start with you. Probably one of your favorite topics, WOTUS.

There's been a lot of changes. You have to underestimate a lot of changes on the WOTUS front, especially with the Supreme Court decision to the executive branch policy changes. Can you give us the latest and greatest WOTUS policy updates?

WOTUS. So Commissioner Vincent Lang just said tears of Alaska. That's the definition. That's the most appropriate definition of WOTUS. So WOTUS, very, very brief background.

WOTUS is a federal definition that establishes the coverage and control for two paths of permitting: 402 permit program, which is the discharge of pollutants, and 404 permit program, which is dredge or fill activities. And it is this definition, the federal definition of WOTUS, that has been a barrier, impactful, tough for the industry, tough for landowners, tough for courts. It's been— people are going to get dissertations and careers quicker on WOTUS than we're going to cover everything here for sure. But most recently, a couple years ago, the Sackett versus the EPA case came out, and what that did was the Supreme Court rule that came out limited the jurisdiction of those waters, the waters of the US. It was landscape-changing legislation, really, really important.

So this is, this is an exciting opportunity for us. It came out under the Biden era, and what came out of the implementing regulations to then implement that Sackett case fell woefully short of what we expected, what we think is lawful. So we were troubled by it. We filed suit along with many other states, and so those rules are not being implemented in Alaska because we didn't pass it. We're actually operating under the 2015 rules.

However, Trump took office, the alignment that we have federally and state with all states, the executive order, the Trump administration is redrafting those very regulations that deal with the definition of WOTUS. We expect and we've heard that those rules would be favorable to Alaska. Those regulations draft regulations. That's good news, that's great news. It may, hopefully it goes as far as we want it to as a state and as an industry.

We haven't seen those draft regulations yet, and the unfortunate part is the government shutdown has sort of stymied that progress. So we keep, they're stuck in, I think OMB is where they were, the federal process back there. But with the shutdown, it's, we were hoping to see them a month ago, we're still waiting, and I think I think it's going to be a little bit until we get those. We're going to take a very, very, very hard look at those and we'll be providing comments and making sure that we're engaged from a critical review of those. Okay, so that's super important for us.

That's going to be a landscape-changing moment in Alaska in what that definition of WOTUS is, what that coverage is, and whether you need a 402 or a 404 permit for your projects. We're not going to sit and wait. For EPA to make a decision though. And so we've taken an approach where we are putting together a program policy because the state of Alaska has primacy on the 402 program, the pollutant discharge program. We are pursuing an implementation related to WOTUS because we're the primacy drivers, we're the implementers of that permit.

We're taking an approach that we are going to geographically define what we believe, the state of Alaska believes, to be the reach of WOTUS in the absence of the Corps of Engineers or EPA. So we're putting together a program document that defines that, that establishes what we believe to be that definition, that jurisdictional reach of that permit. We'll be able to issue 402 permits. There's not— I'll say this carefully— there's not a huge win necessarily under the 402 program with that changing definition because the State of Alaska still has laws that say we still have to permit or authorize discharges into any state lands or waters. So while the definition of WOTUS may be much more limited, we still have the obligation to review projects and issue permits within all of our lands and waters where discharges may occur.

However, when we implement a program policy on 402 that establishes what we believe to be the modus reach under our 402 program, that should leverage and establish some level of accountability or legality or something for a 404 permit, which is subject to the same definition of waters. So if we have said at a particular project, be it a landfill or a sewage lagoon or a mine, that it is absolutely from our perspective at DEC not within waters of the US, therefore not a 402 permit for discharge but a state permit, that applicant that's going to go to the Corps of Engineers and try and get a 404 permit They can use our finding and say, look, the state has an approved process where it shows we are out of WOAS and leverage that with a 404. I dare the 404 to say differently. That's, that's sort of our approach. We're trying to leverage what we have as a primacy program, a legal primacy program, to get some relief under the 404 program without EPA or the Corps of Engineers weighing in yet.

So we're going to push that through EPA, we're going to try and get a signature from Administrator Zeldin. Again, this is not secret to EPA, it's not secret to the Corps of Engineers, the alignment has never been better. We're working with EPA on this particular policy so that they understand it, they can support it, they can implement it knowing exactly what we're trying to do, which is leverage our authority against AB 404 to provide some limitations on what the reach of these programs are. That's perfect, thank you. Commissioner Brumfield, you're up next.

I'd like to switch briefly to a forestry question for you. How has DNR and the Division of Forestry supported the timber industry and how does this support look in the future? I'd like to put it in the context of with the recent imposition of tariffs on Canadian lumber, does this open up additional opportunities for Alaska timber and how can the Department help with this? Thank you for the question. You've just heard from someone who clearly knows a great deal about the question.

You're about to hear from someone who's about to learn about this subject matter. I've been joking with folks that I previously was the Deputy Commissioner overseeing our oil and gas division, so I've been working on all the easy stuff in the department, and now the real work is coming in. So a couple different, different threads on this. You know, first and foremost, you know, we have state timber available. We're working really hard.

Our state director, Jeremy Dowse, and his team have been working really hard to have our processes be as efficient, as streamlined, as forward-leaning as possible, both in Southeast and in other areas of the state. Because in Southeast, the federal Federal folks are just not showing up. We all know that, I don't need to labor that point, but you know, I mean, the ratio of harvest from state lands, which I think the last 2 years has been higher than it's ever been, dwarfs the federal harvest. And I mean, we all know it's like a 10,000 to 1 scale of federal lands versus state lands down there. So it's been really important for the state to be as efficient as possible getting timber sales out, getting them, getting operators working with us as we lay them out, as we get them out, so that they work for those operators and they can move quickly, sale to sale.

We're absolutely going to keep doing that. You know, I know it's tremendously important to the governor, and we've had a lot of public discussion about it in recent time, but not just, you know, we need to be doing everything we can to keep our mills down in Southeast going, to make timber available to entrepreneurial operators in other parts of the state, Okay, but what are we doing to, you know, the status quo is huge forest fires, huge loss of assets, disease, loss of assets, public expenditure, and what are we doing to dive into that new integrated world that other parts of the world are doing? You know, we talked about it with carbon, and so that discussion is I think very much live, very much a priority What are we doing to set our forest on a state level up for not just how do we have a timber sale quickly, which we have to do, but how do we set ourselves up for success in 50 years? How do we enable this asset? We're asset managers in DNR.

What are we doing to boost the value of our asset and create a structure that uses it? So we're definitely working really hard on that. The last part of your question I think is another thing to flag. We, you know, there's no doubt we're all in a very complex international space on trade, you know, and it has challenges for us. We had some Chinese timber export or import bans that were very challenging for some of our operators.

The good news is I think through the negotiations the President was doing last week, it looks like those are loosening up. And, you know, I know the Governor is tremendously engaged directly with the President himself, the White House. Has been advocating with USDA and other part of Congress folks to share those impacts of those particular restrictions on timber. So, you know, there's challenges, but there's huge opportunities. I mean, we look at— I mean, the zeitgeist of the current administration is manufacture in the United States, make America great again.

I mean, minerals are the input to huge amounts of manufacturing So you guys are the, you know, you're the critical lever to make that agenda successful. And, you know, we're just— we're seeing that all over the place. And I think that those trade winds, when they're challenges, we have to roll with them and try and use them for our advantage. When they're behind us, we have to run. That's perfect.

Thank you. Commissioner Bisolay, I'm going to jump to the next one for you, a specific one real quick. Responsibility of managing state natural resources. Management of fisheries is a complicated process. It's a lot of misinformation and how the process works gets out there.

It does seem to be especially true when it comes to managing our state fisheries. What does your agency do to make the management process more transparent to the public, giving the public more confidence in the process, and especially balancing out the various interests between commercial, sport, recreational, personal use, and subsidiaries of fisheries? Oh, wow. Can we get back to permitting?

I just want to touch real— before I answer that, just touch basically on forestry. Alaska, my department believes firmly that the Alaska Forest Protection Act, Practices Act, is sufficient to manage our state's forestry and forestry on federal lands. We do not believe we need things like roadless rules that basically go in and make lands unavailable. And I just want to note around this room, if you've ever hunted in Southeast Alaska, most of that hunting occurs along old logging roads. So logging roads in themselves are not necessarily bad.

They can be managed as long as they're managed with existing state regulations. So fisheries. Um, everybody's got an opinion on fisheries, but one of the good things about the state of Alaska is this was an issue of statehood, and our founders of our state constitution basically ensured that all Alaskans have a voice in this process. Any one of you around this room in the Board of Fish cycle can submit a proposal to change how we manage our fisheries. That's the most open process in the nation.

Anybody can have an opportunity to submit their language that they want to see changed on a cycle. And hear it. We have 70-some advisory committees across the state. People can go and talk to those advisory committees. Those advisory committees are present at almost all the Board of Fish meetings, and they weigh in through written comments and oral comments.

So we have an open and transparent process for people to get involved in these processes. Now, at the end of the decision, is everybody going to like those decisions? No. You know, their commercial interests aren't always aligned with sport fishing interests, interests, sport fishing interests aren't always aligned with commercial use interests. There's a lot of disalignment there.

But at the end of the day, there is complete alignment on the viewpoint that we want to make sure that fish are coming back to the streams. Randy said he wanted to make sure they were coming back in future years. We are at the base, we make sure that first and foremost that we're putting fish back in there so we can sustain it, not only for today, but for the future generations. Generations, you know, and your kids and your grandkids are going to be out there hunting and fishing. And number 2 is then we'll regulate allocation after that based on a public, very transparent public process.

Nice, thank you. I want to swing back real quick to the Roadless Rule for everyone, so this question kind of for all of you. Can you briefly describe from your departments the implications for the National Roadless Rule rescission in Alaska and lands adjacent Just very quickly, from the DNR perspective, you know, in the oil and gas space we often talk about how underexplored the North Slope is. You know, you look at other states— Wyoming, Texas— you know, they're drilling development wells, fracking wells, exploration wells, you know, all over the place. And we've got 1 in a 100-square-mile area.

From Bridgerton's perspective, Arizona, So underexplored in the North Slope, talk about a lot. Southeast Alaska, underexplored for minerals. It's, you know, 150 years of mining there, and but the last 50, 75, there just hasn't been the ability to get in and see what's there. And, you know, I think there's a USGS Porter assessment maybe from the '90s, but so that's one of the things from a world visual perspective, you know, that I'm, you know, learning a lot about but very interested is what can we start to learn about those mineral resources and tie together small deposits, large deposits, you know, get some synergies and really unlock those resources. Do you have a call about the roadless rule?

Again, I think I said it earlier, roads are not the way to stop resource development. In the state of Alaska, I'm amazed at how hard it has been just to make a single road like I understand there's subsistence issues and a variety of other things that are related to caribou. We manage caribou along the Parks Highway, Richardson Highway. We can manage fish and wildlife resources with the presence of roads. But we need roads.

We need roads to get access to our state. We need roads to get access to mineral development. We need roads to get access to some of our fish and game resources that aren't available to most most of the people that live in Alaska because they don't have an airplane. So road development is something key. And again, we can manage these activities.

We can manage the activities associated with local use through a variety of Board of Game regulations and, and Department regulations. But road development should not be feared. But as we increasingly try to propose roads, the voices are very loud that it's changing the landscape of Alaska. So I'm very I'm very supportive of road development in the state, but I think it needs to be done in a manner that is carefully done so that we're protecting those people that live along those roads, those lifestyles. I think we can do that.

Well, thank you very much. Uh, got another question for all three of you. I'll give you the question first and give some background. The question is, you know, how does your department handle writing regulations for some local initiatives that may have conflicting goals with your department? I'll frame it with But the tourist industry has recently faced local initiatives that could curtail the statewide industry efforts.

And all industries kind of live in fear that the local or other state initiatives may hinder their ability out there. So again, the question back to you guys is how does your department handle writing some of these regulations to support but may have conflicting interests with the departments?

Looking at me. And I see somebody right in the front row here looking at me too. Yeah, but cruise ships in reality can discharge a lot of people into different areas, and that is really definitely causing stress on some resources in Southeast Alaska. That's a board of fishing. They get to decide how they're going to reallocate resources, but tourism is something we all should be happy about.

It's bringing economy into the state of Alaska. It's bringing new people in to visit our state. Hopefully we'll Some of those people will stay and become members of our community and contribute to our economy moving forward. So yeah, there's challenges with a growing tourism industry, but there's also a lot of benefits. And how we deal with those challenges, gotta make sure that we're not necessarily negatively impacting the benefits.

Thanks, Doug. And might as well stick with tourism, cruise ships in Southeast Alaska. But our agencies write regulations to implement statutes. And so if a statute is written, we simply take that guidance from the statute, embellish as necessary, but stay within the confines and the scope of what that statute provides. If it's a poorly written statute like we've seen in some arenas, whether it's a ballot initiative or something else, we have to take some liberties and make sure that how we write our regulations regulations fits with what the administration is interested in as well.

And so we'll certainly do that. We'll flavor the regulations. In a ballot initiative situation, like the cruise ship initiative that was 2000 and some time long ago, my understanding is there's a 2-year window where we cannot statutorily— legislatively make changes to that statute. They have to be implemented for 2 years. However, after that 2-year, it's free rein.

The industry, the public, anybody can come in, the legislature can come in and work towards those revisions statutorily. We as an agency always have the right to change our regulations at any given time to match what that statute is or match what we as an agency or an administration want or need to do. So we have that prerogative, but we have to stay within that scope of what that statute says.

I think I'll stop there.

I would just say that, you know, with the— obviously the Department of Law isn't going to be heavily involved in any regulation of a ballot initiative, and it's been just encouraging to me, our new Attorney General, highly experienced, he's brought on a Solicitor General, obviously that's appellate litigation focused, but the mindset is getting into the details, dealing with these complex zoning legal issues, and being proactive. How do we express the state's interest through that? So I think, you know, you're well set up, and it's just important to keep that mindset. Excuse me, perfect. I'll switch subjects real quick to something that's near and dear to all of us here, and it is workforce development.

You know, everyone in here knows the struggle of finding good people for the business, for the industry, and it's not unique to the private sector. Can I ask each of you to kind of give us your perspective on what challenges you guys face in your agencies to develop that workforce, to bring in skilled Alaskans to meet your workforce needs, and do you have any tips or suggestions on how you've been successful in this?

Yeah, fair question, and I will tell you, we have most recently in the last couple few months, we've been the beneficiary of some of the federal challenges. So we've picked up some federal employees that are unbelievably overqualified and wonderfully matched to our program. So we're— when we're recruiting for positions, we're seeing candidate pools right now that are pretty deep. Which is wonderful. People want to work, and we have a quality of applicant that is— we haven't— we're super pleased with.

As I mentioned previous a couple times, we've had a lot of experience in our mining group. Here's the challenge with that: when you have individuals that are at that 20-year level, coming close to that 25-year level, we know they're going to unplug pretty soon. What does that mean to us? We've got to find and backfill those positions with and overlap them in some way so that they gain the experience and the mentoring that is necessary to make really high-quality permittees for the agency and for the industry.

Being a commissioner, having been in the state for— state system for 20+ to 25 years, what it comes down to is, for me, is number one, pay. Employees of the state of Alaska have to be paid a reasonable amount. The industry is competitive, but we have to find a way to pay our employees a level that keeps them there. We have to respect our employees internally, and we have to have good morale in the agencies. That's what keeps our employees working at our place.

The state of Alaska uniquely, I think, offers a work-life balance, right? They have an 8-hour workday. They can go home, come in the next day, and continue their work. Work. In some of the industries, it is 10, 12, 16-hour days.

You all know that. And that's— we offer a little bit better, a little bit different benefit. There's plenty of state employees that work beyond their 8-hour window for sure, but they get leave, they get an hourly rate, they're protected by unions. And so we offer something that maybe the industry doesn't always, which is that work-life balance which is critical for a lot of folks. Here's my suggestion.

Let our agency staff develop themselves. Don't steal the good ones. Don't steal them. We're a training ground. Thank you, Kate, for the stand-up clap.

But we're a training ground, right? You all work with permitters and you see, my God, that person is really good. We should get them on our staff. We want to keep them to help you too, so don't steal. And retention just helps us all, so let them alone.

I'll second that. He said it very well. But one of the things I noticed in Fish and Game is that we have a fairly good group of biologists, biometricians, and statisticians. We can do the biology of fisheries management really well. One thing we really missed was is policy people.

People that have an understanding of how you integrate that science and turn it into management action, that policy interface. When I became commissioner, I worked very closely with the University of Alaska and we developed a master's degree in fisheries policy. Now we have, I think, 6 or 7 students from Fish and Game actually pursuing that degree. Those are the kinds of things we're going to have to increasingly do. We're going to look at that now as a wildlife policy policy search and so on.

Because we do other things other than just manage fisheries. We interface with the Board of Fishery— there's a lot of policy in that. We interface on treaties, we negotiate treaties on behalf of the United States in the Yukon and lower 48. So we need that policy piece and we need to look beyond that piece as we try to fill candidates. We have a strong university program that isn't just focused on their academics, but it's focused on the needs that we have as a Just very quickly, you know, for an agency as diverse as DNR, I would never want to say we don't have workforce challenges because there's all sorts of technical capacities, hard to recruit things, small groups.

But I will just say it is, you know, I've been with DNR, as I said, kind of more than a decade now. The workforce at DNR is so motivated, entrepreneurial, you know, folks just out of college coming up in their career, folks mid-career with great experience. I mean, we have— I don't want to get complacent, don't want to say we don't have complex workforce challenges to deal with, but there is an amazing capacity at the agency right now. And I think one of the things for workforce we have to figure out how to do is is get those people in, moving up in terms of responsibility, capacity, creativity, opportunity for them personally in their profession certainly. But, you know, I mean, DNR is not an organization where you just go and you do what you did 20 years ago, go what you did 50 years ago, go do the same thing every day.

I mean, we are having to adapt, and I think our folks are stepping up to that. And so, you know, I certainly would never I never encourage anyone to steal any of our rising stars, but we have so many, and I think part of it is the exchange. You know, people know they're learning real skills, they're adapting, they're working with industry, get an opportunity, you know, outside of the state, but consider coming back in too. You know, we want that virtuous cycle. That's perfect.

Thank you for the frank comments. We appreciate those. Kind of our last question. We're right on time, right on target, so I appreciate that. One last question for you with our workforce.

I'd like to kind of drill down and make it a little more personal. You know, the people that you have in your agencies, you know, top-notch, critical for our success. I'm asking and hoping each of you can make this a little more personal and just tell us a quick story about one of your employees and how they've stood out. Put that personal touch on it for us, please. Yeah, well, two quick things.

First, I want to recognize, I mean, there's so many DNR folks in the room right now, and I get a— blessedly get a chance to interact with many of them sometimes. Times daily or weekly. And I mean, amazing to the person. I don't want to single anyone out and miss someone, but I would say one of the things that jumped out to me, we have what we call the Future Leaders Summit. It's an academy we've had, I think we're on the 5th one maybe.

We have internal folks who identify they want to participate, nominated and recommended by our division directors, kind of cohort of 15 to 20 annually. And they meet, they learn, they receive training, but it's increasingly been taken over by alumni of the program. So it's now run by people who participated in it last year, 3 years ago. And so it's become kind of self-sustaining. And, you know, those folks, I'll just name them, you know, Pam, Justin, Alex, and Anna.

Many of you may have on some level interacted with some of them. You know, they're They are creating this program, mentoring their peers, and creating opportunities for people at the department. It's what I talked about earlier. These people are all, you know, some of them worked for the state 2 years, some have been out of college 5 years, and they're stepping up to lead, stepping up to say, how can we change and improve DNR on every level? Regulation, statute, processes, culture.

It's an amazing thing.

Thank you, great question. At DEC, we have 585 employees, and I could probably tell a story of a standout of each of those individuals.

I'll talk briefly about a group of individuals, no one in particular, but it's related specifically to the last month that we've been in response response to the storm.

Um, we watched the storm forecast, we watched it come in, and then it hit. And we knew it was going to be bad. We probably had no idea how bad it was going to be. Uh, within hours after the storm and what we saw occurring, the governor convened the cabinet, a group of members, Doug, myself, General Saxe, Dean of Bishop, Brian Anderson, a couple others, and said, get out there, make a difference, we have to respond. And so took that message back to the department, recognizing communities that are just absolutely hammered like Kitnaak and Napakiak and Quinhauk and Quig and Kong and others, they have to have water.

They have to have a school. They have to have systems. They have to have power. These are critical infrastructure needs for the community, not only to respond but to recover and reenter. So went back to the staff, had a staff meeting, sent out an email and said, hey, look, this is an all hands on deck moment.

This is a defining moment and a critical moment for our residents. And I couldn't be prouder or happier or filled with more pride than to see the response from our staff. Not just those that deal with the communities on a regular basis, our remote maintenance workers or our village safe water folks that are there or understand it, our engineers that are out in the communities. But we have— we ended up setting up command center in Anchorage. We have a command center in Bethel..

And we have individuals from Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchorage, Soldotna who are completely— their PD, their position description, does not include rural travel sampling wastewater systems. They are out in these communities sampling the water, sleeping on the gym floors, trying to assess the damage in the community so that we can establish a game plan for recovery and reentry. These communities. It is simply an outstanding all hands on deck response from my department because we needed to. And it's— how does that relate to this?

It is a family affair at DEC and within our state agencies. It is an amazing group of individuals who will probably never see the accolades that they deserve. But it's—. Yeah, thank you.

But they are, they are heroes because of what they're doing. And I'm going to make Crystal cry here for a minute. Just very easily, one of the things that makes a difference to us is we were on a picnic we visited with the community at the school. We were walking out and you could see that the tide line was like 6 feet above. And I mean, that was, that was the storm surge.

It was at the base of the school, like You know, it was bumper houses, bumper cars with houses. They were just piled up. And as we walk out, there's a dog limping, right? And it's— sorry, it's a limping dog. And we also have a state vet who's been coordinating the capture, recovery, and reunification of animals, canines.

This dog Kipnick was the hardest-hit community that we've ever seen. It was one of the reasons we went out and visited that was to see and really assess what they need. Crystal noticed that dog, took a picture of it. We got back to town. It's a limping dog on his front leg.

Lots of village dogs. I mean, somebody has to own it, right? Got back to town and said, hey, vet, there's a limping dog. Can we just look into it? So we called our staff just like that.

The next day we recognized that that was— that night, the next day we worked on this issue. We found that that dog's owner was in Anchorage, tearful because they couldn't get a hold of anybody to find their dog. We recognized it, made a phone call. We had a crate and staff on the next flight out to that community to gather that dog and reunite them in Anchorage with that dog. I mean, that's the kind of effort that I think our staff staff, and this whole response has— it's the epitome of what that is.

It's just an incredible response, really, really important. It's as simple as reuniting a dog with an owner, and there's probably tears from, from both of them, including us. So thank you for that.

So I want to recognize one of my staff members that was involved in the intensive management program, in the multi-habitat And it's been a very controversial program that we've been doing to try to restore that caribou herd that's really important for cultural resources and for food security for many people that live in western Alaska. But it's been the center of a lot of op-ed pieces, a lot of personal attacks, a variety of other things. This is John Landisil. He led that program for 3 years through all that turbulence and events. Unfortunately, we lost him in an airplane Plane crash.

Crash this last summer. So that guy was amazingly run through that program. He continued those efforts despite the personal attacks on him and his staff. And he's— as a result of that, we're now having that herd rebuild to a point where probably or hopefully in 3 or 4 years, we're going to provide some hunting opportunity back in western Alaska for caribou. And then I'd also just generally like to thank all my habitat staff.

You know, you just look across the state, the resource development occurring, mining activities that are occurring, we haven't really negatively impacted Fish and Game in any of those areas. You look at the North Slope oil and gas operations, all that's been permitted by Fish and Game. We have some of the strongest caribou herds in the Prudhoe Bay area. So kudos to all my staff to find ways to make it work. I know sometimes you guys wish it occurred a little bit quicker, But just look at the past history of success.

We have permitted a lot of activities that have resulted in economic development opportunities for our state. Well, Jeff, I just want to say thank you for putting the personal touch on it. You know, as commissioners of your department, sometimes we look, we just talk policies, regulations, and behind the curtain. Sometimes we're cussing at you, but we purposely put that question last. We put that personal front on there and really highlight your staff.

So thank you. I just want to thank you guys for a great discussion today. Right on time, right on target. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

If everyone could just please join me in a round of applause for—.