2026 Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference Thursday closing remarks

And quite honestly, I was amazed, befuddled, fascinated by what appeared to be a lack of understanding about Alaska. Oh yes, and these are very sophisticated individuals. They travel the world. They invest all over the world. And they would be like, oh yes, we love Alaska.

We fish up there. We take a cruise ship, which is great. We've got a great tourist industry. But then it kind of faltered off after that. People didn't understand the opportunities here in Alaska.

People didn't understand our resources in Alaska. People didn't understand the whole energy concept in Alaska. And, you know, we got involved in this when there was this discussion about transition of energy. What's energy going to look like? Security.

We got involved in this conference in the midst of a lot of upheaval— COVID, the Russian-Ukraine war, and then the subsequent cultural and other shocks that have occurred since then. But I think what we've demonstrated here in Alaska is that it's a very unique state with some very unique opportunities, tremendous opportunities. Alaska has always been a risk. Purchased in 1867 by William H. Seward from Russia. You are on old Russian territory.

The Russians were here before the United States was a country. So as Washington and others are doing business on the East Coast, there are Russian individuals here doing business here in Alaska. But in the end, we bought that— we thought this piece of property was bought for $7.2 million, probably the greatest real estate deal ever. We've had tremendous success with resources from timber to fisheries, the best fisheries in the world, and some of the most important ports for fisheries here. The busiest cargo airport in the United States is right here where you guys flew in and out of.

It's the third busiest in the world. We were the first state with the university to launch rockets in 1965. We have our own spaceport on Kodiak Island that launches satellites. People don't realize this. The list goes on and on about Alaska.

Its resources have barely been scratched, and now its position on the globe is also, you know, becoming important, not just for our military but for trade and transportation. But I want to thank you all for being part of the conference. Many of you have been here all 5 years, and I have complete faith in Andrew's hands and others that this is going to continue to grow and become very important. As you know, Alaska is important to this country. Alaska is important to the Trump administration.

We were the only state, I think, in the history of the country that got an executive order from the President of the United States on the first day in office, and there was a reason for that. He sees— he saw and he sees the value of Alaska from a strategic location standpoint, to a resource standpoint to an energy giant. And I want to close by thanking Andrew, thanking Sarah, Martha, thanking all of my staff that work hard to put this together and all of the folks that come up here to add to this conference. This truly is a laboratory for ideas, and to come this far north for something like this, I think, says a lot. I've— a number of you have said this is one of the better conferences they've attended.

And they've attended conferences all over the world. We want to make it the best. We're going to continue to do that. But I want to leave you with a thought that I think is, for me, is incredibly important.

People don't understand how much politics plays in your everyday life. We take things for granted. Like I said, politics, policy, lobbying, all of that is impact— has impacted your life since day one. The clothes you wear, The fiery tartan, those clothes, has been lobbied. The food pyramid that used to be like this and now it's like this has been lobbied.

Codes for homes have been lobbied. Anything involving construction, architecture, has been lobbied. Cars, how much the gas mileage, the protections, the safety features have been lobbied. Airlines, airports, food systems across the board. These are not just natural things that have sprung up.

They're created by humankind, and they're constantly lobbied. So where am I going with this?

Well, under a previous administration, under— before President Trump, the Biden administration, we went from opportunity, as Magat was saying, opportunity like you never could imagine. This whole state, by the way, people don't realize it, was set up to develop its resources. We were not going to be allowed to become a state by the federal government in 1959 unless we agreed to collectivize our resources, because there was a very small population. So they wanted us to maximize the development of our resources. 1970, You have Earth Day.

1970, '71, You have Greenpeace. And it's been a battle with the federal government ever since for Alaska to realize its dream as to what it should be. Trump administration has changed that dramatically. But as we were talking up here, it's fragile. We had the Biden administration that had 70 to 80 sanctions against Alaska, basically shut us down, almost shut, almost shut the entire state down.

Elections matter. Policy matters, whether it's at the utility level, whether it's at your city council, whether it's your school board. Policy is being made all the time. And so I would say to you, if it's one thing I want, if one thing I want to impart before you leave is When you get up out of here and you go out of here today, I hope you say to yourself, you know, I never thought about that. I never thought that lobbying and policy and political decisions impact my daily life from the house and the bed I sleep in to the car I drive to the schools we send our kids to, to the universities, to the regulatory commissions, etc.

It's all policy. Alaska has tremendous resources. Never had a question about that. I'll give you a stark example. We have the largest national forest, two of them, in the entire United States.

We have one-seventh of the country's timber here in the United States. We have a smaller timber industry than the state of Rhode Island. 420 Rhode Islands could fit in Alaska. Their timber industry is 5 times the size of ours in terms of the amount of income revenue they make. Why is that?

How could that be? Because the national forests are on federal land, and previous administrations wanted to turn those national forests into parks, which they weren't supposed to be. That was policy. We never ran out of trees. We never ran out of the opportunity to harvest timber, but those policies shut down the Tongass and the Chugach National Forests.

So think about this when you're looking at energy. Think about this when you're looking at investing in a mining play. Think about this when you're looking at, um, How to transport energy, how to build things, how to create things. We're on a— we're on a precipice. We could be looking at 50 to 100 years of prosperity here in the United States of America, but that hinges on two things at the federal level.

The Trump administration, in my opinion, has done tremendous positive things for the entrepreneurial and the business world and so much more in the United States. But it's got to be codified into law. We need congressional— two congressional acts that will ensure that permitting is streamlined and that permitting itself isn't subject to the whims of regulatory individuals within the organizations, but that it's streamlined for long runways so investors can invest in things. And then we need to reform lawfare. Can't be using court action just because you don't like a project Lawfare, the court action was supposed to be in those, those regulations that protect people, was supposed to be to protect people's lives and their health, not to be used as a way to shut things down.

If we can deal with those two things, if you guys can stay vigilant, uh, when it comes to politics and policy, and if you remember what Benjamin Franklin said when he was asked, what do we have? Basically, he said it's up to each and every one of you every single day going forward to make sure that we have a republic. And part of that republic is to make sure that we have the ability, ability to be the beacon for investment, for freedom, for opportunity. And so with that, I want to thank you. I hope you're going to stay an extra couple of days and drop some coin here in Alaska and go see some things.

But I'm anticipating another exciting conference next year. I'm anticipating some incredible announcements that come out of investment here in Alaska. Including our natural gas pipeline. That's a policy issue we're working on. I have complete confidence that our legislature will come to the conclusion here shortly that that massive project will benefit this entire state and this country and this world.

But keep in mind, policy is incredibly important. Don't be a passive viewer, observer of policy and political, political action, because if you do, you may end up on the short end of the stick and become a victim of it. So with that, Thank you very much. Have fun. I hope you met a lot of friends and you get something out of this.

But take care. Thank you.