REAP: 2026 Alaska Gubernatorial Energy Forum

All right, that's how we get your attention. Thank you all for coming tonight. Good evening and welcome. Yeah, I just wanted to ask the candidates who are in the audience and who have been mingling and talking with folks if you can come to the stage now.

All right, so just wanted to say good evening and welcome. Thank you for joining us tonight for this important conversation about meeting Alaska's domestic energy needs. Thank you to all four gubernatorial candidates for being willing to engage with Alaskans on this important issue. My name is Katie Lister. I'm a lifelong Alaskan and the executive director of the Renewable Energy Alaska Project and one of the co-hosts for tonight's event.

I wanted to acknowledge our other co-hosts, some of whom are in the room: the Alaska Municipal League, Alaska Power Association, Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, Cook Inlet Regional, Doyaan, and New Energy Alaskan. I, along with these co-hosts and many others, recognize that reliable access to reliable and affordable energy is one of the core challenges facing our state. Energy underpins all economic and household activities in the modern world, and Alaska pays some of the highest prices in the nation. For the first hour of tonight, our questions were kind of culled and curated from energy experts and those, and submissions from members of the public. We hope that these questions will give you a chance to hear some thoughtful and specific answers from the people who are asking to lead our state.

And we wanna hear from you too. If you have questions that you'd like to submit for the public Q&A portion, which will begin around 7:00, you can scan the QR code, which will be put back up on the screen here shortly, And if you don't have a smartphone, you can go up, you can submit a written question. You just have to bring it up to the check-in table and we'll get it sort of into the queue. Tonight's discussion is moderated by Lori Townsend. I'd like to invite Lori onto the stage.

Lori is a chief editor and senior vice president of journalism at Alaska Public Media. Thank you, Lori, for being here. And again, thanks to the candidates for participating and thanks to all of you for attending.

Thank you, Katie. And as Katie said, thank you all for being here, for caring about this important discussion. I'll go over a few ground rules. This is a forum, not a debate. There will not be opening statements.

We'll launch right into questions. Each candidate will get 2 minutes to answer each question. We'll alternate which candidate goes first, starting with alphabetical order: Dave Bronson, Jonathan Christ-Thomas, Craig Taylor, and Bernadette Wilson. As your moderator, I'll allow a 1-minute response. If someone during an answer directly names one of you in a response, then you will be allowed 1 minute to respond to that.

Also, at the end, you will have 2 minutes for closing remarks, so if you want to wrap things up in that time you can. All right, let's get started. Mr. Bronson, we'll start with you. Looking ahead 20 years, what do you believe Alaska's domestic energy system should look like, and what decisions does the next governor need to make now to get us there in a way that will benefit ratepayers? What are 3 immediate actions you would take?

Well, in 20 years we definitely need to have a sustainable energy system, but what we can do right now that we have to do, the first 3 things we're going to do is build the gas line, build the gas line, build the gas line. That's how important it is. It is to our generation what TAPS was to our parents and grandparents. And just think about how good or how bad Alaska would have been without TAPS. And TAPS was passed by one vote in Congress.

We've got to move this project forward. We've been kind of horsing around with this long enough, and now it's time to get that project moving. But a lot of natural gas is, especially on the rail belt, 80% of our electricity is produced by natural gas. So we've got an electrical system that needs some redundancy, needs some work, and needs a lot of capital investment. Because if you don't have the ability to distribute your electricity, your electricity doesn't matter.

The other thing I'd look at too, and I know it's controversial in this day and age, but the interest in in data centers coming to Alaska. If we do it right, it's important. The technology is not gonna stop. China's gonna take the lead if we don't, if we don't keep the lead. And, but is what you do is you compel them to bring in more electricity than they're gonna need.

And I've talked to data center folks and people that build them and they says, "We don't want your electricity." because it's not reliable enough. They have to— they've got to get to what they call 5 nines, so 99.99% reliable electricity, and we don't have that. And they— so they'll create their own electricity, they'll deal with the cooling and the noise problems, and I think that'll be good for us. And that will definitely offset a lot of our property taxes and other taxes. All right, Mr. Christomkins.

Question to you, looking 20 years ahead, what do you believe Alaska's domestic energy system should look like, and what decisions does the next governor need to make now to get us there in a way that will benefit rate payers? Rate payers. What are 3 immediate actions you would take?

The big picture 20-year vision for energy is that we have a diverse, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy future. And many of those adjectives do not apply to present day right now, both in the Rail Belt and rural Alaska. We have tremendous work to do. I think the word crisis has some merit to describe the rapidly evolving situation in the Rail Belt, and I think it really demands a lot of attention from our legislature and elected leaders to address it. 3 Actions that I think are important for our elected officials to take, including me if I'm elected governor.

Number 1, in the here and now, in the short term, getting maximum production out of Cook Inlet and natural gas in order to keep the lights on and keep homes and businesses heated and fueled and powered is incredibly important. And that's a— that's an approach that includes Department of Natural Resources and AOGCC. Supporting producers like Hex, which is developing the kitchen lights unit on the Kenai Peninsula. I was in their facility in Akiski yesterday morning. Um, Bluecrest with Cosmopolitan farther down the peninsula.

Um, but making sure that we can extend the life of the Cook Inlet field as long as possible because it is so important to the rail belt energy future. Number 2, I think the state needs to make some big generational investments in our energy future, including renewable energy, including hydro, sort of an all-of-the-above approach. And I'm a huge believer in an energy bond, a multi-hundred million dollar investment like the state did previously with Bradley Lake in our energy future to make it sustainable and affordable. And lastly, I think we need to coordinate our utilities. And this work has been started, but we are not complete.

And the RTO and the RRC need to be empowered on the rail belt to make sure that we have economic dispatch we have efficiency on the rail belt energy. Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Do you— would you like the question again? No, I got it. Thank you.

No, I think that the goal in 20 years is to have affordable, reliable energy with redundant systems so that we can support our growing economy, support new businesses, help businesses that are here expand. And I think the other thing I'd love to see is a unified electric grid with a dispatcher to dispatch the lowest cost energy to Alaskans along the rail belt. We've taken some steps there, but we've been talking about that project since I was a commissioner for ML&P, 7, 8, 10 years ago. And the other part, I think, is we have to think big. When Bradley Lake was built, everybody— there was a lot of detractors saying it's going to— this cost of this energy so much, why are we thinking this?

Why are we looking this so far into the future? And of course, Bradley Lake now is laughable because $0.04 a kilowatt hour is by far the cheapest energy. On the grid, right? And so that's what we've got to have. We have to have that same vision.

Think big. Like the Alaska Gas Line, for example, a $50 billion project. Put a lot of Alaskans to work and solve a lot of our energy needs along the rail belt and with the potential to export that energy to our allies. And the other part, I think we should take a look at Susitna-Wontana. Dam hydroelectric project.

I mean, it has the capability of producing enough power to basically, uh, take 50% of the— what's required for the electric grid currently along the rail belt. These are big picture items that I would like to see us be a lot closer to, or in 20 years hopefully we've got those completed and Alaskans have that safe, affordable, reliable energy that families can depend on. They're not going to be worried about paying more for their to heat their house than their mortgage is, like we had in Fairbanks this last winter. Would you like the question again? No, that's fine.

Thank you, Ms. Wiseland. Well, I would hope that 20 years from now across the country that it is indisputable that it is Alaska who leads the energy conversation for the country. I would hope that globally we would look at American dominance and that it would be nearly impossible to talk about American dominance without bringing up Alaska's energy. I would hope that here at home we would be able to brag about the fact that we have the lowest energy prices in the country and that consistently we have the lowest prices at the pump. So how do we get there?

Yes, a gas line obviously is front and center of that conversation. I support the gas line. We need to have a conversation about the bullet line. We've got gas up on the North Slope. You've got ANWR, NPRA.

You have any number of projects here in Alaska that we need to get developing. So how do we do that? We need to have a conversation about the tax structure. Our tax structure needs to be dependable. Businesses need to know that when they come invest in Alaska, that we are a good business partner, that we're not going to jerk them around on the tax structure.

We need to fix our permitting process so that when businesses come here, they know exactly when are you going to get your permit, how long is it going to take, so that they can plan for labor, they can plan for capital costs. Equipment. Where will they have it and when will they have it? And then we need to invest in the infrastructure. Those are the steps that this administration will take to get us to energy independence and ultimately energy dominance here at home and across the country as we lead that conversation.

All right, thank you. For this round, we'll start with Mr. Christopkins. The question is, the current conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the global oil and natural gas markets and dramatically increased energy prices. This both imposes economic hardships on Alaskan households and benefits state government revenue. An August 31st memo from the Department of Revenue confirmed nearly $600 million in additional revenue is available to the state general fund.

If these prices persist, the next governor, along with the 35th Legislature, will have significant revenue to manage. Should some of this windfall be used to address Alaska's domestic energy priorities, and if so, how?

The short answer is yes. I think making capital investments, big bold capital investments in our energy future is appropriate. And I think it really sort of, if you look at the facts and the sort of fragility of railbelt energy, that kind of response is really demanded. I mean, I mentioned previously a bond, and the state hasn't bonded since 2012, and there's a lot of bonding capacity, which I think we can take some big swings and some projects that can set up Alaska for the next 50 to 75 years. But the capital budget is important as well.

I mean, ultimately, to be clear, I think Alaska needs a sustainably balanced budget and balancing our budget on the geopolitical crises of the Middle East. Is not a long-term fiscal strategy. But in the here and now, with a windfall from high oil prices, I think investing some of that money in energy infrastructure is a really appropriate response. Mr. Taylor, your next extra revenue, should it go toward helping out with Alaska's domestic energy priorities? And if so, how would you do that?

Absolutely, yes. I think that's one of the opportunities that we have to take full advantage of. We've missed those opportunities in the past by just growing state government. And I think, you know, there's a lot of things that we could put that money to. Just upgrading our, our lines so that they can handle the congestion when we go to a unified system where we're sharing the lowest cost power.

All around Alaska. That goes to further AEA's projects of building bulk fuel tanks, building grids out in the rural areas, diesel generation facilities, some of the solar projects that they have, and furthering things like the Susitna-Watana hydro project. I think it also presents a huge opportunity for Alaska. If you think about it, 20% of the world's LNG crosses the Strait of Hormuz. Those hit worst by that are our Asian allies.

It's Singapore, it's Japan, it's South Korea. If we had had the gas line built with Phase 2 export ability, we could have supplied the losses of Japan and South Korea during this conflict alone. And that's a really missed opportunity for Alaska. We, we should be prepared next time so we don't miss those kind of opportunities. All right.

Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Would you like the question again? No. Yeah. All right.

Uh, so yes, we should most certainly be taking those funds and investing in energy infrastructure. I support that wholeheartedly. But like I stated in my first answer, you know, when you look at the global conversation on this, there is no reason that living in Alaska with all of the natural resources that we have, that what's happening in the Middle East should be affecting us. When we talk about the energy crisis internationally, Alaska has the ability to lead that conversation. We have the ability to provide those resources to those other countries.

It's all right here at home. We are way behind on a gas line. For 40 years, we have debated if we were going to make enough money from a gas line. And in 40 years, we have made precisely $0 from a gas line because we're debating on are we going to get our fair share enough. So instead, we have settled for $0.

It's time for us to move forward on these projects. We cannot be apologizing for the industry in which we work. We are a resource development state. We need to get moving. All right, Mr. Bronson, would you like the question again?

No, I got it. Um, so about every dollar increase in the price of oil for Alaska adds about $20 million. To state revenue, and that's a good thing. And of course, $600 million is certainly much better. The issue is, yes, we need to invest in infrastructure, especially energy infrastructure.

But remember, the last time we were here, it was called Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share, ACES, back in 2006, 2007, 2008. And what did we do? Because we thought we were gonna have $119 oil forever, And we grew government. The actual spending went up like this when our trend line, our spending line, was far flatter than that. And that cost us, we wasted about $25 billion from then until now.

So should we, it's what we invest in. Certainly energy. Because we have an energy crisis going on in the state right now. But the notion that we grow government Yeah, I can't support that, because that's what we did, and that's why we're in this budget mix, or mess, at the state. Our focus too often in this state, especially in the legislature down in Juneau, is this, is what can we get for the state treasury?

How much money can we get for the state treasury? And our policies drive that. What we need to focus on is what's good for private industry, because they create the revenue, they create the wealth, and they create the jobs that we need. So whenever we make these investments, it has to focus not focus just on what's good for government. It's gotta focus on what's best for the people of this state, and that includes private enterprise, who creates the wealth and the jobs that we need.

All right, thank you. This time we'll start with Mr. Taylor to begin. The energy sector is one of the most capital-intensive in the world. Energy project investments are typically large and last decades. The state-funded Bradley Lake Hydro Project is a good example.

When the project was brought online, it was the most expensive electricity on the system. Today it is by far the cheapest at 4 cents a kilowatt hour, according to Alaska Energy Authority. Is there a role for the state to invest directly in large capital-intensive energy projects that may seem expensive now but may save money over time? If so, how will you determine which project to pursue? What can your administration reasonably accomplish in the next 4 years?

No, there's a huge opportunity out there for— I think the answer baseline is yes, we should be making that investment in our future. You saw how it paid off with the Bradley Lake project. And we've lost sort of that vision. I talked a little bit about how we need to think bigger and we need to prepare for the future. Right now, Alaskan families can't afford to live here, partly because of energy costs and the cost of living.

That's all driven up because of cost of energy, whether that be heating your home or the groceries you buy at the store. And so the state absolutely has a role in making those types of investments. But I would love to see some partnerships with private entities. And I think that's where you let sort of the market determine the winners in those. We've, we've done a lot of work already as a state on the Susitna-Watana Hydro Project, for example.

We've looked at a lot of aspects that we've done a lot of studies on it. And unfortunately, the licensing for FERC was paused under Walker. Now we've got a lot of money already spent on that issue, and we need to continue that issue, see that project to fruition. And so that's, again, it's just a vision. What do you want in the future of Alaska?

And I think we've got to think big and think of these big projects. I think the other thing that the state could easily do is, is on the regulatory and permitting side. We got to get out of the way as a government. We have to have a government that works at the speed of industry. We need to invite private power producers into the state, allow them to access our grid, and allow them to put the cheapest energy into our grid for the ratepayer.

And we don't have that ability currently. But PURPA on the federal side, that allows that kind of thing to happen. And so there's a potential for that, like the Terra Energy project. That's something the state should be behind in helping go through the permitting process and, and be pushing from a regulatory standpoint to get done on behalf of Alaskans. Because again, we need to alleviate the, the, what the Alaska family is experiencing right now and reduce their costs.

All right, Ms. Wilson, a role for the state to invest in large projects, and if so, what one? How will you determine which projects to go after. Yeah, so I think that the state should absolutely be investing. And when we talk about investing, it's— I think immediately people jump to the finances of it. So should we be supporting it financially?

Yes. But we also need to be investing in the sense that we're spending the time to have the people come to the table so we make sure that government is getting out of the way. We need to invest our own personal individual energy to make sure that we are creating a business climate across Alaska where they want to do business here, because it is the biggest role of the state to get roads built, to get infrastructure developed, and get out of the way so that the private sector can move forward. We have had people here, we've had businesses here in Alaska before that have wanted to do business with us. And I'll tell you what, we do a darn good job of running them out of the state of Alaska.

We need to change our frame of mind. These are our business partners and we need to be treating them as though they are our business partners. I would love to see an option for Alaskans when you apply for your permanent fund, for Alaskans to also be able to invest. Right now you have Pick Click Give. I would love to see a list of projects there, of energy projects where Alaskans can allocate their permanent fund or a portion of their permanent fund and then be investors in these projects also.

I think a gas line is a great start. If you're asking about which projects, I definitely support that. It was disappointing to see that not go forward this year. But let's get some of these projects going and let's give Alaskans also an opportunity to have a stake in this game. All right, Mr. Bronson.

Well, certainly historically in this country, government has stepped in and done some of the big projects. Hoover Dam is probably the most important example on that. But you gotta be careful when you say government's gotta come in and finance big projects, 'cause someone's gotta pay that off. Now, if it's paid off by utility rates, or if it's paid off in some kind of fees, then I'm more apt to support it. But the notion that it comes back to the taxpayer on a GO bond, something like that, that's a problem.

Because it's a cost to the people, and the people are already overtaxed and overspending because of the cost of everything else. That's why I don't support income tax. That's why I don't support a statewide sales tax. It's the same reason. People are at their limit, many people in here I would imagine, you're at your limit on spending.

You can't afford things. So in principle, yes, big projects, sometimes government can come in. But why isn't government subsidizing a big energy project called Cook Inlet natural gas. It's, it's 2 or 3 or 4 private enterprise groups out there, and we're not financing that. That's a big energy project.

Why aren't we doing that? Why don't we just make it easier for private industry to finance their own projects? That's what we really need to be doing, so we're not left holding the bag, and our taxpayers, us, we're not paying the bill for anyone. Bring private industry, will solve almost almost all of our problems better than government ever will. So we gotta be cautious, yeah, it's not a yes or no, it's kind of a blended answer.

I guess I'm talking like a politician, but you don't know until you see the details of the deal. Mr. Christophs, would you like the question again, or? I think I got it, thank you. Yep. The short answer is yes.

I believe the state should be making big, bold, generational investments in our energy future. And I think Bradley Lake, as the question said, centers is so instructive. It was contemplated by the legislature, that investment, in the late '80s. I think early '90s is when it came on to production, as I see a nod in the audience from someone who would know. And '91, I want to say.

And just to put into context, because I think sort of this is helpful and important, 120 megawatts of electrical generation capacity Peak rail belt demand is in the 750 megawatt range. It's the largest single source of power and effectively the cheapest source of power for the entire rail belt. The reason it was so controversial, it passed by one vote in the legislature, if I recall correctly, is that it was multiples more expensive than what we were awash in cheap, almost free Cook Inlet natural gas. So there was this uneconomic, seemingly, decision made to invest in diversifying our energy sources. And it seemed like it was irrational at the time.

In the big picture, in the long term, diversification is incredibly important. There's a reason that asset managers wanna diversify. We should be applying that same principle to energy. So I think the state making investments to diversify our energy resources and make these big investments is incredibly important. I think some of the investments in front of us, there's Dixon Diversion, which is an expansion of the Bradley Lake Complex.

I think makes a tremendous amount of sense. In order to take advantage of the new generating capacity coming out of an expanded Bradley Lake complex, we need to invest in transmission infrastructure, which is not sufficient. So the SEPLINK, the undersea cable from the northern Kenai Peninsula to Beluka, needs to be invested in. There's hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money secured. There's a $140 million state match that's required.

We should be looking at making that investment. So the short answer is yes, the state should do this. We should learn from history. We should apply that to present day. All right, thank you.

Ms. Wilson, we'll start with you with this next question. This is a rural Alaska question. What is the state's role, if any, in ensuring that every community in Alaska, including small off-road and rural communities, have reliable and affordable energy? And I may have a follow-up when you answer this. Yeah, so I think that the state, you know, when we're talking about affordable, reliable energy, I mean, it honestly pertains to everybody no matter where you are.

The state should be having a focus for all of its citizens. I mean, you definitely have issues, you know, you look at up in Interior Alaska where they fought, they're, you know, still fighting the ability to use their wood stoves. So when we have unique challenges like that, we most certainly need to step in and say, hey, how can we help out? Is it working with our federal delegation to secure funds? Is it working to to roll back regulation, whatever that might be.

But as we look at across the state as a whole, how do you do it? The methodology doesn't change. We have to have a tax structure which incentivizes. We have to be a good partner with reliable permitting, and we have to be willing to make the tough choices and make the investments that are needed. And let me stay with you for just a moment.

Small, Communities may lack sufficient staff or technical capacity to develop and maintain their local energy systems. What do you think the state's role in addressing this problem should be? And please be specific. Well, if it's private business, I don't think that the state has a role in coming in and telling private businesses what their staffing has to be. If you're talking about state staffing, if that's what you're asking about, the state of Alaska has more government employees per capita than anywhere else in the country.

That's just the reality of it. We do. We don't have a staffing problem. We have an efficiency problem. So we need to get better with the technologies that we're using.

There's a lot that's come online, even with AI technologies. There's a lot that can be done as far as automation goes. I would argue that that's the direction that the state needs to go. The state doesn't need to be staffing up anymore. All right, Mr. Bronson, the question to you.

Would you like the question again? Sure. What is the state's role, if any, in ensuring that every community in Alaska, including small off-road and rural communities, have reliable and affordable energy? Well, as we know, there's two kinds of customers of electricity in the state. There's on the grid, there's, you know, on the rail belt, that's us.

And then there's off, and that's what we're talking about. And technology is kind of getting ahead of us, and that's a good thing. Because with the new— with the advent of small modular reactors, we could start— the electricity is already in the villages. It's the source of electricity that's the problem, which is by and large diesel. That's the problem.

It's the cost of transportation. It's now the cost of diesel itself. Is what we can do is put small modular reactors starting in, say, Kotzebue, Nome, and Bethel, put in small modular reactors attached to the grid there, negate the need of transporting diesel, and then from there you build outward. So you overbuild your reactors And these small modular reactors, very safe. And I've even proposed putting a 10-megawatt reactor on Ted Stevens International Airport.

I'm the former director of the airport, and it worked very well for us there. We use about 6, and it's kind of off-grid in the sense that it's an independent standalone entity. And we've got reliabilities and electricity out there, not unlike the Bush. And is what we can do is put a 10-megawatt there, The airport uses about 6.7 megawatts, so you can take the other 3 and sell it back into the grid. And Chugach Electric says they will buy every kilowatt that we can produce, every last excess one we can produce, because then they don't have to come in and spend the capital to build new infrastructure.

So, working off the grid, I would say a big answer for us, a really big answer in the near future, and Secretary Wright was up and I was up with him in Fairbanks a month ago when he permitted the first— or dedicated the first SMR in the military base up there. This is happening very quick. And that's a quick answer, or a quick solution for bush electricity. And a follow-up to you as well, sir. What if— do you believe the state would have a role for small communities that don't have city or tribal staff that has the expertise to help with newer energy systems.

What is the solution? Well, remember, in the unimproved borough, the government is responsible for governing and managing everything that goes on out there. We are, the state is the government for the unimproved, the big, you know, half the middle of the state. And government has a place in doing that, and especially in the area of permitting. There's— I'm a fiscal conservative, stridently so.

But we're short on people in the state that do the permits, that not just do energy projects, they do all projects. We can't get projects out because they're not permitted, because we don't have enough employees, state employees, to execute those permits because we don't pay them enough. And coming from a fiscal conservative, that may sound weird, but there's areas where we absolutely need more state employees. And we need to attract more state employees because we got to get the work done. And this is one of the important areas that we've got to get done.

All right, thank you, Mr. Kreiss. Tompkins, would you like the question again? I think I got it. The question being— well, I'll reframe the question in my sort of own, from my own viewpoint, which is what is our commitment to rural Alaska? And what is our commitment to rural Alaskans in terms of having an energy reality that is even sort of halfway sustainable or affordable.

And I believe that is a commitment, um, that we as Alaskans owe to our fellow Alaskans in rural Alaska. The state made tremendous investments in the rail belt, Bradley Lake, which we just talked about, and I believe commensurately we owe rural Alaska, um, uh, investment to make sure that energy is remotely sustainable or affordable, which I don't think you could call it cheap out there. What I think that really means in terms of policy commitment is, number one, protecting power cost equalization. I represented every village in Southeast Alaska— Klukwan, K'ay K'una, Angoon, Kasan, Hyderburg. Many of those communities had 60-cent kilowatt-hour power.

And power cost equalization makes rural life much more sustainable. And thanks to Senator Lyman Hoffman and many others in the legislature, there's a circa billion-dollar PCE endowment. And as governor, I would veto any attempt to raid that endowment because that is a commitment we as Alaskans have made to rural Alaska. Number 2, the Renewable Energy Fund. And the Renewable Energy Fund was, if I remember correctly, established by Senator Liesl McGuire.

And making investments in the annual renewable energy fund process, I think, is a prudent long-term investment in helping rural Alaska get away from costly diesel. So those are the two policy commitments I think the state can make to support rural Alaska. And as governor, I would stand by both of those programs. All right. Mr. Taylor.

Would you like the question again? No, I gotta thank you. You know, it's, uh, things are just naturally going to be more expensive in rural Alaska, right? Including energy, unless we can take advantage of some renewals like geothermal, uh, solar, or hydro for some of these smaller communities. And I think what the question really is, what is the role of state government in bringing those energy costs down?

I think we're doing a remarkably good job at that. Obviously we're struggling even on the rail belt, which makes rural even— because of the power cost equalization, it's going to drive rates up in the rural areas either. We subsidize rural energy by the tune of about $48 million a year through the PCE. I think we have some great programs available to rural communities through AEA, for example. We provide loans and grants to local governments, to utilities, to independent power producers to, to work on cheaper, more affordable energy in these rural areas.

And I think the AEA also engages in direct construction of fuel tank farms, diesel generation facilities, works on the grid out in those areas. And, and I'll just anticipate your secondary follow-up question. They also do a great job with training individuals in those rural areas to run and operate these utilities. And they provide through their circuit rider and emergency response programs the ability for AEA to help them in crisis or help them with questions they have about running those utilities. So we do, we provide a lot of support to those operators from a state level.

And I think it's a value service added and it makes that those services even more reliable out in areas where It's always gonna be a question mark at times. All right. Mr. Bronson, we'll start with you again for this question. The energy challenges facing rural Alaska are very different from those facing our urban and grid-connected communities. What is your strategy for lowering and stabilizing energy costs and improving reliability in rural communities, particularly those that remain heavily dependent on imported fuels?

Are there things that you believe are working well now, and what would you do differently?

Well, I think this is a repeat of the last question, so I'll repeat the answer, I guess, shortly, or abbreviated. Yeah, diesel is just not the answer going forward, because the environmental threat when you transport the diesel, the cost of diesel, and again, the grids are already, these microgrids are already there. Bethel, you know, all the way down to Eek, you know, you can start building these grids out once you create an excess supply of electricity. Again, what I believe with small modular reactors, Southeast is a completely, you know, there's places in Southeast that are very remote, but because of the mountains and the high altitude lakes, they have the ability of generating electricity with hydro. So it's a completely different solution, but out West, there's nothing, there's no wood to burn.

You know, so it's diesel or it's nothing. And so I think small modular reactors is new technology, very safe. Trisoparticle reactors are the best way to go. And we just need to embrace it, work with the federal government. This administration is extremely friendly to this notion.

Secretary Wright is very apt to permit quickly these things. And then we need to invest or encourage Private investors, private energy suppliers to come in and allow them, allow them to install these plants and operate these plants. That's, that's the best way. Private enterprise. We don't need government employees running power plants out in the bush.

We need, we need private enterprise doing that. Would you though, staying with you for a moment sir, some rural communities get at least part of their energy from solar and wind generation. Would you support state investment in more of those types of projects?

Well, wind and solar are not the same thing, and this notion that the renewables— windmills don't work unless they're subsidized. And all the federal subsidies are gone. They're done. And they're probably not coming back. So solar is a different thing, and it works better.

The trouble is, is is not in the generation of the electricity so much as it is in the storage of the electricity. So we're talking batteries. That's where the real challenge is. And the environmental impact of producing batteries throughout the world, from nickel to cobalt to all the other things, that's a real environmental threat. And I'm going, why do that when nuclear now is so available, so small, it's in remove and replace.

When you run out of an energy cell in 8 to 10 years, you can literally helicopter the cell out. I've been briefed many times on this, and you bring in a new one. And they're essentially Connexes, that's what they are. And they take a very, very small footprint. And so we're building these vast areas of windmills and solar farms.

Look at the footprint, the environmental impact of all such large footprints when we can come in and just replace our diesel generation with solar or with nuclear generation, and the environmental impact is less and the cost is less. Mr. Christomkins. Could you repeat the question? I sure can. The energy challenges facing rural Alaska are very different from those facing our urban and grid-connected communities.

What is your strategy for lowering and stabilizing energy costs and improving reliability in rural communities particularly those that remain heavily dependent on imported fuels. Are there things that you believe are working well now, and what would you do differently?

First, I would sort of plus up my previous response on the Renewable Energy Fund. That's been the tip of the spear in terms of helping rural Alaska get away from diesel. I saw that in my own district, you know, Kartena Falls, Run-of-River Hydro, in Hoonah. Going from 60-cent kilowatt-hour diesel-generated electricity to something in the long term that will be much better for that community. Um, wind in St. Mary's on the Yukon River.

There's examples that abound across Alaska, and I think continuing to make that investment in renewable energy and not costly diesel in rural Alaska is something the state should continue to do. Um, number 2, and this is a little bit less glamorous, but the Bulk Fuel Revolving Loan Fund is an incredibly important state tool in terms of making sure that heating fuel in rural Alaska, for which there is not really a viable non-hydrocarbon alternative, is something that communities can count on and homes can stay warm. And especially with the cost of fuel skyrocketing with the Iran war, rural Alaska is really on the brink, and the state being nimble in sort of response to that economic stress and making sure that the revolving loan fund can sort of economically accommodate that sort of surge in cost and make sure that communities can buy bulk fuel so they can stay warm in the winter is really important. And the third answer I'll give is having the state try to promote operating economies of scale in rural Alaska, I think, is an idea that we should be looking at. And there's a great model with AVEC, the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, which provides electricity to a whole set of villages and sort of can sort of centralize institutional knowledge and create operating economies of scale.

And I think the state trying to promote those kinds of organizations in rural Alaska to realize those efficiencies and realize that accrual of institutional knowledge is a smart direction we should explore going. All right. Mr. Taylor, would you like the question again, sir? No, I gotta thank you. Uh, you know, the state should support rural communities' efforts in energy projects, not supplant them.

Um, so I think it's up to these communities to develop sort of a plan for how they want to power their communities, uh, into the future. I think AAA does a great job in education, providing, uh, sort of examples of what can be done. Uh, they've got great studies, they've done a lot of groundwork on a lot of these types of rural energy projects. I would love to see the state partner also with Native corporations in developing power projects out there where the state again provides this expertise, provides the permitting environment that allows these things to get done in a costly— in a cheap and affordable manner, and the Corps provides the funds for these projects. I think the state does a great job on this, like my former answer with the loans and the grants afforded to communities and utilities and independent producers, I think that gives them a huge leg up in providing a cheaper, more reliable energy for their communities.

And as governor, would you support more state investment in some of these rural energy projects in rural communities? Yeah, I think that state investment has to go hand in hand with community investment.

The state, again, should not supplant the programs and the efforts of the communities. I think it has to start at a community level. And when the community desires it and wants it, working with their Native corp, working with AEA to get those projects, that's when I think the state should step in. But it should start with these communities themselves. All right.

Ms. Wilson. Would you like the question again? I got it. Okay. Yeah.

So the conversation should most certainly be starting with those communities. The state shouldn't be subsidizing anything. But let's just be very clear, it's not just the cost of importing fuel that's driving up the cost. The same thing that's cost— that is driving up the cost of importing fuel is driving up the cost of homes out in rural Alaska. It's driving up the cost of groceries.

A lot of that comes down to the lack of infrastructure. We could talk about roads. We need to get building roads into some of these communities so that we have better access into them, so that we can bring down the cost of everything overall. You know, you look at the state of Connecticut, 117— excuse me, much larger than Alaska, has 117 times the amount of road miles that Alaska has. You think about that for a minute.

As big as this state is, and we don't have the roads to get in there. So it's the cost of everything that's being driven up. That is some somewhere, an area that the state most certainly needs to come in and invest. As far as your question about the renewables that are out there, here's the thing. If you've got hydro or you've got solar or whatever it is and you can make it pencil out and it works great and the state doesn't have to subsidize it, go for it.

The state needs to have a consistent economic business climate when it comes to taxes, when it comes to permitting, when it comes to any number of forms of energy that apply across all industries. And if you can make it work, let's make it work. But remember, the reality is to build a lot of that stuff that you need for solar and hydro and everything else comes from petroleum products you get out of the ground. So you're just not gonna get away from it, okay?

All right, thank you. We're going back to a question about the urban environment now, and we'll start with Mr. Christophs. With the first answer here. According to NStar, South Central heating customers may be 3 billion cubic feet short of gas heading into winter, equivalent to 18 days in the middle of winter. What actions would you prioritize now to address South Central's energy supply in the next 1 to 5 years?

Looking farther out, many hope for a North Slope pipeline. How long should we wait to make alternative investment decisions while we wait for a North slope gas line?

Great question. Well, I think it's worth saying, so far as I understand from leaders of utilities and energy producers, that for the coming winter, between Hilcorp and Chugach and Enstar sort of making arrangements, that Southcentral should be in an okay place in terms of gas supply. But that is not to sort of take away from the broader problem, which is a huge problem in terms of the South Central sort of natural gas situation and shortfall. Number one, making sure that we're getting the most out of the Cook Inlet Basin makes a tremendous amount of sense. Supporting producers like Hex with Kitchen Lights and Bluecrest with Cosmopolitan, and Hilcorp has an aggressive drilling program in Cook Inlet.

And, you know, DNR plays a key role in reviewing and approving those plans of development. Development for each of those producers, and DNR has been a major reason why Hex and Blue Crest are moving forward, and recent DNR action has really been a kick in the rear end for Blue Crest, and I think that's an appropriate role for state agency to play. However, in the bigger picture, you know, there's 75 billion cubic feet of natural gas that are consumed by the rail belt every year. 25 Of that approximately is for electricity, 50 1 billion cubic feet of that approximately is for heating. And there are lots of ways to generate electricity.

We're very path dependent in terms of heating on the rail belt, and natural gas is that path that we are dependent on. We can diversify in the medium term, but conserving natural gas for its highest and best use, which is heating, we don't really have an alternative, and aggressively diversifying in terms of how we generate electricity in order to conserve that very precious and finite natural gas resource, I think makes a lot of sense. And that 25 BCF, billion cubic feet, of natural gas we consume every year, 1/3 of the total rail belt consumption, if we can displace generation with other sources and conserve natural gas for heating, I think that is a smart strategic play for us with the rail belt. All right, thank you. Mr. Taylor.

Yeah, I think we need to immediately incentivize more expansion exploration and capital projects in the Cook Inlet. The gas is there, right? The problem for the producers is— and I know this because I kept getting letters from the legislature saying, enforce your contract with the producers out in the Cook Inlet, they're not drilling and they're not, uh, have enough capital projects to produce more gas. And the problem is, is the contract's not going to force a producer to do something that's non-economic. We have a small customer base in Alaska, you know, I mean, 700,000 total residents in the entire state.

And so these capital projects got money. So what you have to do is incentivize these producers like Hexin Hill Corp to take those and make those capital projects and drill those extra wells. And we're seeing Hex— Hex is drilling 3 wells this drilling season. So we are seeing additional production. The second thing is I think we've got to do a better job with our gas storage underground facilities.

I know 2 years ago we had a scare with Singsa when there was sloughing in the wellhead, and, uh, and that almost— that was dead of winter when we needed the most demand, and that almost had, uh, historically bad repercussions for the, for the rail belt. And, you know, heaven forbid, we also got to prepare because of where we've put ourselves for importing LNG. And that's, that's, uh, that's a horrible place to be when you're an energy-rich state and that's going to take a little bit of time to get those facilities. 2027 Is the earliest, 2020, '28. But the reality of that is it's going to increase people's electric costs for probably 25% and people's gas costs up to, up to, 80%.

So this isn't a— that's not a cheap fix. What we need to do is incentivize the Cook Inlet, think about doing some modular gas, LNG gas projects on the North Slope, shipping it down. And a small regasification facility there. But we've got to get moving quickly and we should be pursuing all of the above. We can't just wait for the LNG project.

We need to pursue that with everything that we have, but produce— pursue every other energy project as well. All right. Thank you. Ms. Wilson, would you like the question? I got it.

All right. So we most certainly need to incentivize production in Cook Inlet. Yes. Whatever we can do to incentivize Hex, whatever we can do to incentivize Hillcorp. But I want to point something out, and I know this is really uncomfortable for some of you in the audience, but let's just call it right like it is.

We're talking about a shortage of natural gas and a high cost of energy. Yet as I look across the room tonight, I see several people that wanted to come after Hilcorp to increase their taxes. You don't exactly have a whole lot of people lining up to want to do business with you, Alaska. We've been a terrible business partner. That's why we're in this situation to begin with, because we have been a terrible business partner, because they come into Alaska under a certain set of terms and then we jerk them around and we want to mess with their taxes.

We don't have a reliable permitting process. Yeah, we need a gas line. How many people do you have lining up to build a gas line with you? Not a whole lot. Your legislature that some of you continue to vote for, not all of them, by the way, but some of them you continue to vote for, yet they continue to run a roadblock.

So we have to pay very close attention that when we complain and quite frankly bitch and moan about the gas shortage, who has brought this on? We've brought it upon ourselves and we have to change the outlook. We have to change our business relationships. Because at the end of the day, who's responsible for shortages? It's us.

You don't have people lining up to want to do business. You can't say, well, we got to go to Hillcorp, we've got to go to Hex, and then turn around out the other side of your mouth and say, well, you're not doing your fair share.

All right. Mr. Bronson. Well, we've been in this predicament before, back in 2011, 2012, and what did we do? We invited Hilcorp to come up and solve our problems for us. And they, with the legislature, created CINGSA, Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Area.

It's a large underground natural storage area for natural gas where in the summer we put our excess gas underground, and then in February when it's 20 below, We take it out. That's our shock absorber. They did that. Well, guess what? We kept overspending, we kept growing government, and now we're in the seat cushions looking for a few extra pennies, and what are we doing?

We're going to Hill Corp, we want to change their tax structure. They're an S corp and we want to trade them as a C corp. That's gonna cost them $80 or $100 million. I was in Houston, in the headquarters, talking to their leadership, and they says, "If you want to tax us more, that's fine. That's $80 or $100 million we're not gonna invest in operation on the North Slope or development in Cook Inlet. That's how things work.

And we've got— and Bernadette called it, we didn't do— we're not a good partner. We're not a good— I was dealing with a data center company, and forget the issue of data centers, but a large data center wanted to come up here and build it, and after 2.5 months of their due diligence, you know what they said to me? We're not going to invest in Alaska. And they said, because we think your legislature is going to do to us one day what you've been doing to Hill Corp, which is keep changing the rules. Investment requires stability, known costs for long terms into the future, long term into the future.

We don't give them that, because every passing majority in the Legislature wants to change the rules and change the tax structure. We've gotta stop this kind of stuff. Because we're failing ourselves. And we're creating these messes for ourselves. So again, long-term tax predictability, and just be good partners with the corporations that solve our problems.

All right, we'll, this next question, we'll start with Mr. Taylor. Even before Cook Inlet gas contracts have expired, the Rail Belt has seen significant rate increases for both electricity system-wide and heat in South Central. In the next 3 to 5 years, we can anticipate even more significant increases with estimated imported gas prices double what they have been historically. Does the state have a role in protecting households, businesses, schools, and local governments from higher and potentially unaffordable rates? If so, what specific actions on the supply or demand side would you take?

No, the difference between prosperity and decline in Alaska is often measured in cents per kilowatt hour. That's the bottom line. Without affordable, reliable energies, Alaskan families are going to struggle. It increases the cost of every good and service an Alaska family needs in order to be viable up here. And it's also what you need to attract business.

When I talk to businesses about the possibility of coming to Alaska, setting up shop, it's always an affordable, reliable energy question. And they know exactly what's going on because they've looked. Those businesses that it just makes sense for them to come to our climate, do business here. It's an energy issue with our bases wanting to expand. It's an energy issue.

They haven't expanded to the size that they want because we don't have redundancy in our system and we don't have affordable, reliable energy. And it continues to be a theme throughout. So Alaska has to, has to invest in our future. Future. That's the bottom line.

We have to approach this problem with an all-of-the-above approach. We have to pursue all the avenues and then let the market decide the winners and the losers. And the way that government does that is largely to get out of the way. We need to do— maybe create a regulatory sandbox for some of these industries, right, where we allow them to come up like Arizona has a sandbox, Utah sandbox. We allow them to come up like for SMRs, for example.

What is the regulatory structure for those in Alaska? Allow them to create the sandbox, produce their, their product with regulatory certainty. And then, and then we move forward. It really is about government getting out of the way and incentivizing where they need to, to help the private side solve some of these problems. All right, Ms. Wilson.

Yeah, so does the, does the government have a role? So ultimately, you know, the governor appoints to the RCA board, the Regulatory Commission board. Do they have a duty to oversee? Yes, they do. But the thing is, we've driven up the cost of doing business here ourselves.

And I go back to who's responsible for this. At the end of the day, it's each of us that's responsible for it. We've driven up their costs. We can't give them dependability when it comes to permitting. We jerk everything around.

The state is wishy-washy on any number of regulatory things. We drag out the cost of doing business for them. So if we want to bring down our cost, if we're serious about that, and you're looking in the mirror, and you're going to have an intellectually honest conversation with each other, then we have to talk about how does the state state become more dependable? How do we become more stable so that these businesses don't feel like they've got to come back and they have to jerk that price up? But we're doing it to ourselves, you guys.

At the end of the day, that's the hard, cold, brutal truth of it.

Mr. Bronson, price is determined by one thing, and we learned this back in college or wherever, in Econ 101. It's the relationship between supply and demand. It doesn't matter what the product was. It can be electrons, it can be widgets. We've got to increase supply, in this case of electricity, to drive down the per-unit cost of electricity.

So let me give you one example, and again, I'm going to combine a couple different things here, but data centers. There's two counties in Washington State, Adams and Stevens, where data centers have come in and are now paying nearly all of the property taxes. All of them. Because they came in and they provided excess electricity. They provided their own electricity.

You can come into a data center development group and say, we want— and we can do this in remote Alaska. You can come in and say, all right, you need 100 megawatts for your maximum production for the next— the max— your peak demand, say, is 100 megawatts. We require you as a state to produce 1.25 or 1.5 of that. And then you sell it back in. That's how you drive down the cost of electricity.

Let private enterprise come in and invest, and you compel them to produce more than they actually need. And then, you know what data centers are going for an acre? You know what they're paying for an acre of real estate? $20 Million an acre. Look at all the acres.

We got an industrial park in McKenzie Point that's got 8,000 acres. So we get— they pay that much for land, they create that much excess electricity, that drives down the cost of electricity because it increases supply.

Mr. Christ-Thomas, would you like the question again? I would, thank you. All right. Let me get back to it.

Even before Cook Inlet gas contracts have expired, the Rail Belt has seen significant rate increases for both electricity system-wide and heat in South Central. In the next 3 to 5 years, we can anticipate even more significant increases with estimated imported gas prices double what they have been historically. Does the state have a role in protecting households, businesses, schools, and local governments from higher and potentially unaffordable rates If so, what specific actions on the supply or demand side would you take? Well, I'll add another potential answer to that question beyond supply and demand, which is coordination. And I think part of the reason we have gotten to this place in terms of rail belt energy is a failure to coordinate across utilities and create an overall energy strategy.

For the rail belt, and the state of Alaska is best suited to provide that leadership and that coordination to be able to get us out of the mess that we're in right now. Um, so I will sort of re-up what I said, I think, in response to the very first question tonight, but, um, the Regional Transmission Organization, the RTO, the Rail Belt Reliability Council, those should be empowered to help coordinate and create a coherent energy strategy for the rail belt, so it's not just a bunch of sort of uncoordinated sort of pieces, and we have a whole that is sort of headed in the right direction. But as far as supply, I mean, I think we've talked about this over a couple of questions. I believe strongly that state needs to create a more diverse energy strategy and sources of energy in the rail belt and diversify away from natural gas, especially As far as electricity goes, again, sort of all of the above, more natural gas production, wind, solar, hydro. I think micronuclear is compelling.

OCLO has a pilot project going on Eielson Air Force Base, but I think by any measure, it's still an immature technology and not anything that we can bank on. And on the demand side, ultimately, if we can diversify energy sources, that lessens demand for natural gas as a heating source. So those two are interrelated. Which I spoke to in the previous question. I also think weatherization programs are, you know, important investment to consider.

And as the cost of heating, you know, triples over the last 30 years, quadruples over the last 30 years, the ROI on weatherization investment in terms of foregone cost starts to look pretty compelling. All right. Thank you. I think we'll move now to questions from the public.

And we'll start with Ms. Wilson. It has long been demonstrated that one of the cheapest sources of new energy is energy efficiency through upgrading and retrofitting housing and public-private buildings. As governor, would you take steps to generate a sustainable revenue source to help homeowners, landlords, business owners, and municipalities to upgrade existing housing and buildings?

Yeah, so I think it was a few years ago, maybe several years ago, when there was a federal program that the state partnered with to be able to get winterization and to bring people's homes up to energy code. So absolutely, I would support partnering with the federal government on any programs that they have. I would be very cautious for a state right now that's in the budget situation that we are in, the fiscal situation that we are in, that the state isn't coming in and subsidizing anything.

Mr. Bronson. Okay. Well, whenever the government talks about subsidizing something, I say, "Who's paying for that subsidy?" You gotta ask that question. And it depends. Now, if we're always, always gonna tilt towards, "Well, it's federal money," and I'm just telling you, again, as a fiscal conservative, I learned well from my friend Don Young, And that is, I'm gonna bring back every last federal dollar to this state that I can, and I'm gonna do it unapologetically.

Because in the argument Ted Stevens gave me once in a conversation, when I asked him about this, he says, "You know, all the other states," he says, "from starting with the 13 colonies, they got all their federal projects done. They got an interstate system. They got bridges across every last river in the lower 48." And he says, "It's our time now." And he says, It's our time, him and Daniel Inouye, because he always spoke about him as his partner in this. He says if they want to start cutting federal funding, he says have them start in the 13 colonies. By the time they get to Alaska and Hawaii, we'll take our cuts.

But until then, we're gonna take in every last federal dollar we can. And I support that notion. But the governor is responsible for the treasury of this state. And when you sit there and say that the That I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna subsidize. Beware of a politician that says he's gonna subsidize something.

Because there's another word for subsidy, and that's called tax. 'Cause somebody, the taxpayer, pays for everything. That's why I always pivot to make it easier for private enterprise to solve our problems for. Let them make money solving our problems. Okay, that's what we have to do.

So again, to answer the question specifically, it depends on the project. It depends on what the subsidy is, and it depends most of all on who's paying for it. And if the Alaskan taxpayer's paying for it, I'm almost to say no. Mr. Christomkins, would you like the question again? I think I got it.

And this question, I guess unintentionally, maybe sort of segues out of my last response on weatherization. So weatherization, energy efficiency improvements, conservation. I mean, that's all, I think, sort of an integrated sort of piece of the energy puzzle that we should very much keep in mind. And I guess sort of when energy prices skyrocket, the ROI on conservation and energy efficiency starts to get more and more compelling. Unfortunately, you don't want skyrocketed energy prices to begin with, but they're starts to be an economic logic to it.

And making sure that there are the financial tools so that you can make energy efficiency investments that then pay for themselves, revolving loan funds and similar financial tools is something the state should absolutely explore. And I think the state is best situated to do that. A couple of those revolving loan funds and tools already exist. And unfortunately, as energy costs continue to go up, we should make sure that they are being fully employed. And again, these are sort of closed-loop revolving loan funds that pay for energy efficiency improvements on their own.

We just need to make sure that there's the sort of catalyst to make sure that those opportunities are being pursued when they do, in fact, pay for themselves over the lifespan of the improvement. But I think more than ever before, because the baseline cost of energy is high and getting higher, we should aggressively pursue that. All right. Mr. Taylor. Yeah, I think there is a place.

I don't think it should be on the taxpayer dime to, to, to the full extent. But there are incentives that the state can offer for energy efficiency upgrades. And I think through grants and loans, those are the appropriate places there. I think a lot of this is an education issue. My wife and I, our business is we renovate rundown older properties.

And quality affordable housing for Alaskans. And without a doubt, whenever we change out a system, you know, whether it's a water heater or a furnace, the savings on there is, is, is frankly amazing. I am always amazed at the savings you get when you upgrade your systems. A lot of the places in Anchorage and throughout Alaska built in the '50s, '60s, '70s. Those systems are incredibly inefficient.

And I think, you know, some of the— even the municipalities, for example, Anchorage has an incentive program for upgrading old systems for tax incentives. And I think another part that we can play and even utilities could play is in education. Take your highest ratepayers that are working off of these older systems and show them on paper how upgrading their systems to more efficient systems is gonna save them and their bottom line. Give them that roadmap. And homeowners, the same thing.

If a homeowner— I mean, the utilities know these things, right? They know where there's an efficient house and inefficient house. A letter to them saying, hey, here's the process, here's how much you could save if you replace your water heater and your furnace to a more energy efficient. And I think that would incentivize the public to move on their own when they saw the savings that was available to them and their bottom line.

All right, we're back to you, Mr. Bronson, for this next question. The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has an outsized influence on policy implementation and regulation setting for Alaska's energy system, from validating electric utilities' avoided cost of fuel to approving cost recovery mechanisms for natural gas import facilities and setting the base power cost equalization rate for eligible rural utilities. This commission has been consistently understaffed with documented vacancies for multiple staff positions for the past few years. What steps would you take and commit to, to appoint qualified commissioners and ensure sufficient staffing and capacity? Well, that's an easy one.

You appoint qualified commissioners. If you're understaffed at something, find out why you're understaffed and staff them. It is—. The RCA is incredibly important in the state for the reasons you said. When you have an organization, a government organization that doesn't have enough people to do the job that they are compelled statutorily to do, fix the problem.

We're right now, and it doesn't impact everyone on the RCA as far as the members, but the staff it does. We're under a hiring freeze. We've been under a hiring freeze as a state for 15 months. And there's— you have directors that are doing their own admin work because they're not allowed to hire a new secretary. I know this personally.

We've— and I'll just tell you, at the Ted Stevens International Airport had 45 heavy equipment operator positions. These are the people that plow the snow. 3 Shifts of 15 each. We can only hire 18 because we don't pay enough, because we only pay $29 an hour. The city pays $34.50.

Private enterprise is starting in the $40s and $50s. And the gas line is going to be somewhere a little bit less than $90. I mean, it's going to get worse. And unfortunately, we've— and unfortunately at the airport, tax dollars don't pay for the people at the airport, the 500 people. At the airport.

There's an aviation— there's an aviation operational fund that's paid for by the 37 or 38 signatories to the AAAAC, the board that the airlines pay for all the expenses, and they want to pay more. Please allow us to pay the employees at the airport more. This is just one example, and we don't let them. And oh, by the way, we're also in a hiring freeze. This is kind of crazy stuff, and it's just got to get fixed.

Mr. Christopkins, would you like the question again? I think I got it. Thank you. Um, the RCA is understaffed, and if we want to solve the energy problem in Alaska and the Rail Belt and beyond, we need to make sure the RCA is functioning well, and getting it fully staffed is a key change that needs to be made. Whether that's more better compensation for staff, other changes to make sure that the RCA is functioning well, that's incredibly important.

I think the bigger picture goal with the RCA is allowing the RCA to move faster and more nimbly to be responsive to proposals from utilities or other regulated entities. Right now, I believe in law there's a 450-day requirement for NSTAR to sort of consider anything that comes to it for consideration. One year, three months approximately.

The time cost of inaction of sort of like regulatory freeze tag, like you have to sort of stay in place for a year and three months while the RCA considers whatever comes before it, just compounds in every direction across the economy and across the energy landscape. And if we can get to a place where the RCA has good commissioners and is fully staffed and able to function in a timely fashion. And that sort of helps the entire energy landscape in Alaska. And so I think making that investment and making that a priority is, is something we have to do and we have to do quickly. Mr. Taylor.

Yeah, obviously we need quality leadership who have integrity. I think that's extremely important and As far as the staffing concerns, I'd love to find out why we're having staffing concerns. Is it a money issue? Is it a quality of work issue? Is it— whatever the issue may be.

When I took over the Department of Law as the Attorney General, we had all-time morale lows. We had just gone through two scandals with Attorneys General and the public trust was at an all-time low for the Department of Law. We made some major changes. Now, you had to have leadership that shared that vision and got others to buy into that vision to do this. But we, we increased our supervision, which actually was wanted, right?

I think when most people think that increasing supervision wouldn't necessarily— but we increased the quality and the, and the amount of supervision. We went and did really purposeful training for employees so they felt like they were qualified. They felt like they understood their jobs. And we changed the direction of the Department of Law from a department that just took department's questions and said no, too risky, to a department that understood their clients, that we actually had clients, helping those clients solve their problems, getting to yes, understanding their problems enough that you can help solve those problems. That increased morale intensely at the Department of Law.

Now ultimately, we were not competitive for salaries. So we went to the legislature and said, look, we can't compete with the federal government. We certainly can't compete with the municipalities. At least at least make us competitive. Obviously, we're not even anywhere close to competitive with the private sector, but those changes, we actually got a raise for those individuals.

What we found is when we made those 4 changes, we had people returning to the Department of Law that left for the private sector, that left for the federal government, that left for the municipality. So, how do you solve your staffing problems? Well, it depends. We need to look into why we have staffing problems with the RCA, because it is vitally important to helping us navigate the future of energy in Alaska. All right, thank you.

Ms. Wilson. Yeah, so do you need to, do you need to staff your RCA? Yes, you do. But I can tell you that the minute that you get government jobs trying to keep up with the private sector, now you pull them from the private sector, and we keep doing this bouncing back and forth. The reality is it's not just state government, it's not just the airport, And it's not just the RCA where we have labor issues.

Anyone that has worked in the private sector in Alaska and owns a business, as I do, can tell you about labor shortage issues. I know more business owners that show up on the weekends, that stay late or show up early because they don't have the employees. We have a labor shortage in this state. It doesn't matter if it's public or private. It is not unique to government, and it most certainly isn't unique to Alaska's government.

The reality is states have found ways around this. They're starting to automate. We are decades, I would say decades, behind states as they look at automating systems. You start talking to people down in Florida, go talk to them in Texas, they're shocked at how long it takes for us to get any number of things done in this state, whether it's permitting or anything else, license renewal. And yet they're shocked when they find out also how many people we have working for government.

The reality is, you guys, we gotta get up with the times. Times. We went for so long, and I can tell you, having been born and raised in this state, we went for so long and it was, don't turn us into the Lower 48, don't lower 48 my Alaska. Well, I got news, the Lower 48 passed us up on any number of issues. We could talk about education, we could talk about energy, we could talk about any number of things, but we need to start looking at what are other states doing, how are they compensating for the labor shortage that exists across all industries.

All right. This time has gone by so quickly. We're getting very close to closing comments, but I would like to ask one more question. For this round, we'll just have one minute for your answers. And we are starting with Mr. Christ Thompson.

So the question is, our in-state workforce is aging, and large projects often support jobs for folks from out of state. As governor, What role would you have the state play in building Alaska's in-state energy workforce?

Well, first, I want to make sure that Alaska, to the maximum extent allowed under the Alaska and U.S. constitutions, is sort of having a local hire preference. And so that's just sort of a matter of policy that we should zealously and patriotically pursue. But more broadly, the shortage of labor in the trades, which which I think we see sort of across the economy, is a real problem. I think weaving in apprenticeships even to the high school level in Alaska is something that I think is exciting and makes a lot of sense. It's— God forbid if I mention this as an example— but something common in Western Europe, actually, where people get on those career pathways at a really young age.

Making sure that VoTech is a key part of our K-12 education system and extending into post-secondary. But I think if we can sort of go upstream in terms of the labor shortage and make sure that our education system is responsive to what our economy and labor market needs, that's what we should do as a state. All right. Mr. Taylor, 1 minute. Would you like the question again?

No, I got it. Thank you. You know, this is particularly important to me. I have 6 children. So I'm wondering what the future of Alaska holds for them and wanting them to have the same opportunities that my my wife and I had here in Alaska, which has been amazing for us.

And I think what we have to change day one is the misalignment between our K-12 education and our university systems with the actual jobs that we need to fill in Alaska. And the other thing is, is we've gotta realign what our high schools do. There is no reason why kids can't graduate high school with a certificate or a license that makes them job ready. This means increasing and changing the way we do vocational training here in the state. And obviously, that's going to take working with the legislature.

That's going to take working with our federal counterparts. That's going to take working with our, our labor. Right. Because we need to make it so that we can have, like, for example, one— right now, one apprentice to one journeyman ratio for most trades. We need to change that in a way that we can put more people job ready from Alaska upon graduation.

All right, thank you. Miss Wilson. Yeah, so we most certainly need to be investing in the high school level with our vocational and technical school. So it starts at high school. At the university level, the state needs to make sure that as we're investing in our university, are we investing in the programs that meet the workforce?

If you've got a, a waiting list for a welding program, but you're investing the same amount of money in your underwater basket weaving class, Clearly we have a problem. So we need to have that conversation. We also need to talk about licenses that can transfer. So if you've been working in a particular area out of state and you come to Alaska, those licenses should be able to transfer over. The other side of this is we need to look at things like our CDL program.

I, you know, I use this one as an example. Now, if you want to get your CDL in Alaska, you'll wait roughly 3 months to get into a CDL class. And you will pay, you know, somewhere starting at roughly $10,000, sometimes more. So there's things like that that we also need to revamp here in this state. All right, Mr. Bronson.

Public education plays a really key part in this, and I think you've captured that sentiment. Our public education system is designed to do one thing, and it's designed to send kids to college. We gotta rethink that. I remember when Joe Biden comes in and he's talking to a bunch of coal miners in West Virginia, and he was, for environmental reasons he's gonna shut 'em down 'cause he didn't like coal. And he says, "Go learn how to be a code, write code." I remember this clearly.

"Go write code." Well, guess what? We don't need code writers 'cause AI writes the code now. We don't need them. But boy, we need a lot more workers. We need heavy equipment operators.

We need plumbers. We need electricians. Plumbers, we changed the rule on how to certify to get to a 4-year journeyman plumber. And it's this, they gotta go through a certified a program. And you can't get certified as a plumber unless you go through the program.

How we always used to do it was we, the young kid got in and got a job at a plumbing company, and he was trained on the job, and he did for 4 years, got his 8,000 hours, and he became a journeyman plumber. That's what we need to go back to. That's an example of what we need to go back to. All right, thank you candidates so much for your answers. Thank you audience members for your respectful attention.

We'll move to closing comments now. You'll each have 2 minutes, and we'll start with Mr. Taylor.

Thank you. First, I'd like to introduce my running mate, Candy English, who's sitting up front. You want to raise your hand for everybody? I encourage you all to talk to her. She's one of the most amazing individuals and successful individuals that I've ever known, and she's going to do great things for the state.

Second, our next governor has to be able to fight on behalf of Alaska, but also work across the aisle and get things done for Alaskans. I'm a proven fighter on behalf of Alaska. As your chief prosecutor, I work closely with law enforcement and the legislature. We're at 40-year crime lows right now. Violent crime down 5%.

Sexual assaults down 26%. We focused on cold case murders. We solved 10 of them. Work with the legislature to increase fines or increase the penalty to murder for those drug dealers peddling drugs that kill our youth and families. And as your attorney general, I also fought back for parents to be able to choose the right of their kids' education, fought back and saved the correspondence program for the state that 22,000 students use, which enables them to get those certificates I was talking about.

And pursue the course of education they desire. As your Attorney General, I fought back against the onslaught of Biden's 70 executive actions, right, designed to shut our state down and our way of life. But I also can work across the aisle. I was unanimously voted by the Democrat and Republican Attorneys General and throughout the United States to chair the Attorney General Alliance, a bipartisan group. Together, we worked very closely across the aisle, so closely PBS did a miniseries on us because they were shocked that Republicans and Democrats could get so much done together.

And one of the things we did is we took on Big Pharma for the opioid epidemic when they lied to us about the addictive properties of opioids. And I got $100 million to fight addiction recovery in Alaska through that. We worked against Big Tech to try to make sure they were protecting our data. We talked and threatened lawsuits to social media companies who didn't have adequate parental controls and didn't know that children were on their websites. Those are the types of things we can get done as Alaskans if we work together, work across the aisle.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Well, you know, as we sit up here today, you guys, a lot of the same projects, a lot of the same concerns that we're talking about, whether it's labor, whether it's a gas line, whether it's the roads, any number of things that were just discussed up on this stage are the exact same conversations that you have had with your gubernatorial candidates. 10, 20, And 30 years ago. That's just the reality of it.

How long have we talked about Alaska needing a gas line? 40 Years we've talked about it. And for all of these years, we have consistently elected the experienced politicians, the bureaucrats. And you are no better off than you were 10, 20, or 30 years ago. So the question is, what are you going to do differently this time.

You know, everywhere I go across Alaska, people tell me, Bernadette, your great uncle Wally was one of the best governors Alaska ever had. How do we get that back? A guy who came from outside government, he had zero government experience when he became governor. Think about that. One of the greatest governors Alaska had.

He'd signed the front of a paycheck. He knew the ups and downs of business.

I really urge you to consider that. I am the only one up on this stage that has never worked for government. I've signed the front of a paycheck, and I'll tell you what I can tell you about the ups and downs of a business. Right now you need someone that knows how to pull through those problems, because the question really is, what are we going to do today so that in 4 years from now, 8 years from now, you're not sitting here with the exact same ask the same questions of your next set of gubernatorial candidates. We cannot keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

All right. Mr. Bronson, 2 minutes. Well, to be clear, what we're doing here is you're going to hire someone to do a job for you, and one of us 4 are going to be that person. It's going to be the governor. A governor is a political executive position.

There's only a few in the country like this. President, governors, and mayors. There's only one person on the stand that has the resume, that's held the position that's closest to this job in the state, the job of governor, and that's the mayor of Anchorage, and I held that job. I led the city out of COVID It was very difficult. It was a difficult time for all of us.

We all remember 6-foot spacing and masks and mandates and all the craziness. I led the city out of that. It was a difficult time. There's a lot of challenges coming down the pike for this state. We've talked about it tonight, but the other thing we have is we have great opportunities.

Opportunity. We have nearly $70 billion next 7 or 8 years in construction coming into this state. $70 Billion. You need somebody who doesn't need on-the-job training to get those projects over the line. That's what's needed.

You're hiring somebody, don't forget. Have you ever hired somebody, those executives and these managers and directors here that have hired people, have you ever hired someone and never looked at their resume? The resume matters. Being a political executive, in a politically executive position, mayor or governor, this is really difficult work and it's very specific work. I've led in the corporate world, I've led in the military as a lieutenant colonel and major in the United States Air Force.

This is difficult. And this is different. And you gotta have that experience. We don't have time for on-the-job training. We just don't.

So, I just want to say I never come in front of a crowd crowd without asking for your vote. My name is Dave Bronson. I'd really appreciate your vote. I just ask that you rank 1, 2, and 3. Just not JKT, my new friend here.

So, thank you very much. Mr. Christompkins, 2 minutes. Thank you. Well, I'm running for governor because I'm concerned about the direction Alaska's gone in the last 8 years under this current governor, Mike Dunleavy. And I feel like we are in a far worse place under this administration's leadership than we were in 2016 or 2018, excuse me, when he first took office.

And putting the Dunleavy era in the rearview mirror is my goal and what motivated me to run for office, which is our state is suffering and we need a ferocious problem-solving mindset in the executive branch and the ability to work together, work with the legislature to find common ground and get things done and solve problems. And I've looked to the records that have been broken in the worst possible way. Right now I think 32 bills were vetoed this current legislature. That is a record in Alaska history since we became a state. If I'm governor, I hope we're breaking records, but the most pieces of legislation passed, not the most pieces of legislation legislation vetoed.

I think Governor Dunleavy's record represents a failure of governance, and it has hurt Alaskans. And there are big problems we need to solve. We need to make big generational investments in our energy future and become energy independent and have affordable energy in both urban and rural Alaska. We need to balance our budget so we're not relying on geopolitical crises in the Middle East to allow us to squeak through another year. We need to support our schools and make sure public education is something that families and Alaskans can depend on.

But most of all, we need to be able to solve problems and work together across party lines. And my running mate, Zach Johnson, who's here, lifelong independent on the Anchorage Assembly, and I are very committed to do that. We'll convene a cabinet across party lines— Republicans, independents, and Democrats— as long as they have integrity. And they care about finding common ground and solving problems. And I feel like that is the energy that Alaska needs, and that is what Zach and I want to bring to Juneau.

All right. Thank you to our candidates this evening. I wanted to remind folks that they will again be with us for a debate that Alaska Public Media and KTUU Channel 2 will be hosting on October 8th at 7 PM. You'll be able to find that on radio, on television, online, and that will stream live statewide. The U.S. House debate will be on October 14th and the U.S. Senate debate will be October 15th.

All will be at 7:00 PM. And the governor candidates are also joining us for Talk of Alaska. And so we will feature them and you can find that on our website as well. Thank you so much to everyone for being here this evening, for the care that you have for our state and these issues that face us. Thanks to the candidates.

There's campaign material up here from all 4 candidates, so if you haven't had a chance to look at that, you can. And enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you.