Transcripts For CSPAN2 North 20240704

[applause] [applause] oh come on. Good morning. Thank you for that warm welcome and thank you for being in person all the people watching on line or listening remotely we say thank you for joining us for the 2024 state of the state. Youve all been thoroughly welcomed this morning but i want to give a special shout out to a few people in the course ive got to start with first Lady Catherine and her family members she spirit their sister julie and her cousin lisa and watching on line to the rest of our rest of our extended families and their sons joe and tom and her daughter jesse and their extended families. When you serve your family serves with you so i want to be sure to at this time thank them for all their support in the seven years in todays a special day because its jesses birthday and so we need on a one, two, three everybody to yell happy birthday jesse. It will be the Largest Group to ever yell her birthday at the same time. One, 23, happy birthday jesse [applause] way to go. You guys did fantastic. [applause] you saw her here on stage but to have such an outstanding partner in the tammy miller. Shes an asset for the state of north dakota and we have a historic year in terms of milestones in progress but her background in finance privatesector leadership is the ceo of a company with over 4000 people operating in 29 states you rarely get people like that delete the privatesector and the Lieutenant Governors made a huge difference to transform government. I want to give her womb were welcome. Say thank you for your great leadership. [applause] and kicking us off today after the great music we had and thank you for hosting us and seen a lot of clever ways to impress the legislature that we need more money for improvements. Pulling the plug as we were getting here i think president east end that was brilliant. And for legislators you may want to look at the lector back here. There probably are some upgrades that could be made but here we are at the auditoriums namesake. As you know this is the name, she was the second rough rider award winner in the state of north dakota and one of the states highest honor people in 1951. Her success is there success though its an honor to be in the stage and hollow named after one of our rough riders. The stark county commissioners the whole group fantastic job legislature kicking us off today senator david hogue are majority leader in our minority leaders youve all been recognized for thank you all for your important leadership in the course they are busy working in d. C. But i do want to say hello important are resisting this hoeven senator cramer and congressman armstrong three people in strong and powerful positions in d. C. They are good at their jobs as legislators and to help push back the federal government so lets say thanks right now. [applause] and we have our Supreme Court chief Justice Jensen and the other justices and districtwide justices. We have three great branches of government in our state and we werent allowed in time in seven years in office the demographics of retirement is the major reason that we have set a record. Ive had the honor of appointing 20 different district judges and Supreme Court judges. Sometimes you go back in history and sometimes the governor in 40 years in office might appoint two to four. We have done 20. The process has been an important one. Well talk about Behavior Health later but i want to share right now as part of appointing judges to get to interview 75 different people that have come up through the judicial system in one of the questions i always ask is how much of your job as a judge advocate in a prosecutor and defender working in her system and north dakota or in the privatesector working with criminal defense how much of your work would go away if we eliminate Behavioral Health and addiction. Ive never heard an answer. Think of what is the state and a nation in our judicial system dealing with the problems of something we can work to fix so keep that in the back of your mind when we are talking about Behavior Health. We do a nice job on the back in but i do want to say are administered yours also around third judicial area they were carefully behind the scene that they never get recognized. They run it efficiently and effectively. Lets say thank you to the frontline workers. [applause] since this is a day for reflection its the duty and honor and after a appoint them everyone calls them your honor. Due to legislative budget cuts in the Governors Office i ride all my own jolts. Thats all youre going to get. Dad jolts but i learned last week how do you know what a joke becomes a bad joke . It becomes apparent. [laughter] we are done here. [applause] we have a lot of gratitude for the toughest elected job and north dakota of any elected officials. We have great tribal chairs and Tribal Council spirit lake Standing Rock chairman janet of veteran Turtle Mountain chippewa leader chairman hill incredible folks and we have made so much progress together. One of our top on the objective has been state travel. The collaboration we have had historic tax revenue sharing which senator cook was in the service last friday. They came to his Prayer Service for the work that he did on making sure we had fairness and equity. The gaming contacts which we issued last year that had been going on for 20 years and agreement that improved our ability to respond and to work with the tribes on cybersecurity because their tribes are being attacked to ransomware through foreign entities. We look forward to building on all of the partners in the five tribal nations. I remind everyone guess they are enrolled members of tribes that are sovereign nations that every single one is a north dakota system and its our responsibility and duty to serve alongside with them. From the government to government stamp what i would say encourage all of you to join in our strengthening government to government relationships. Our tribal conference you are all invited every agency. I just want to say when we had federal partners to be a part of that they say this is the best government to government tribal state conference in the country. Dont miss it. Its coming up in june gill learned a lot and youll make great relationships. Theres Economic Opportunities as well. We are also grateful for the tremendous dedicated cabinet leaders that we have. Its so important when you are leading in the credit sometimes goes to the governor and Lieutenant Governor but you can get any of these things done unless you have people that are driving in the same direction. Its been an honor to work with these cabinet leaders of the haves and they have five he was joined in the last year who are looking forward to working with. Shes off to strong start in one of the commitments we have in 2024 from our office is we are digging in as hard as ever in a Strategic Planning process with all of you. Over 75 agencies will be there in the budget process that follows it. We are committed in delivering. Albeit delivering the budget address next december before the end of my term. We have three to 27 days left. We will be delivering the best budget the state is ever received and that means it will be better than the last one we did. We are super committed to that process to make sure you have the best starting point in the legislature to make Smart Investments to take their state forward. The director has been on the ground and running. This is a huge challenge. We have massive transportation things going on in want to tell him thank you for his collaboration and three new commissioners that started last week when it was an external player and two there were internal. The commissioners here the deputy of texas a much larger job in hhh says our Largest Agency in terms of budgets and People Affairs director bret hawke is taking over and congratulations to director kobe bryant. He has time here in new englund. He knows her system and hell be fantastic. Again for those by people lets give them a hand and say thank you. [applause] we have a small but mighty Governors Office team all told about 16 people. We we are not a big agency but we get a lot done because the people we have work aroundtheclock seven days a week. They are all amazing and everyone of them like me will be coasting to the finish line so getting ready for four things helping announce that arent even being announced today. We are going to keep driving our agenda forward. We did make story progress working with all of you tribes in the legislation and leaders and some the things we have accomplished are the longstanding practical issues and identified and implemented commonsense solutions. These are benefiting us. Some of you in this room do that. Take one that we didnt even talk about last year during the session because we solved it. Protecting over 25 of their health care 25 of our k12 students and the entire university of the state owns over 60 billion in Property Value protected was completely stalled and stopped by the state of for 53 reasons. They said heres a 53 seat reasons you cant get a permit. But we Work Together and got it done in salt it with the joint process with minnesota and its being billed and by 2027 we are going to have 250,000 people who dont have the worry about it anymore and that will help the Economic Growth continue in that market. Pension reform. Mike devore was appearing in its been tried and tried and it happened this year. 1. 9 billion we met the obligations completely about 53,000 current members and retirees. Now we have a 401 k style plan that will allow us and their leaders to recruit young people to work for the state of north dakota. Good job. [applause] the primary seatbelt has been tried since 2000. We lose more than 100 people every year to otter deaths are conjuring up a goal of saying theres no acceptable number other than zero. Its not like we got it down to 75 because 75 is still a son and a daughter and niece or nephew. One is to many of the work we can do with d. O. T. Human services and a lot of these are Impaired Driving issues but it took a legislator like dean rommel who helped to drive it and to have the courage to say with and we got a past. We are one of the last states to have a primary seatbelt law. Im a freedom of liberty guy but im also a guy that guess what theres nothing in the constitution that says you can drive could you have to have a license to be qualified and you need to not be impaired and you have to be qualified to do it. Its not like the right to vote. Thats something you apply for and you get the skill to that. If you want to be doing that you have to achieve something so good job. We got it done. Corporate farming we had the most outdated corporate farming laws in america. We killed Animal Agriculture and i mean killed. We are still doing and almost no sheep herds and the stated we had less, 12,000 dairy cattle in our state. We were importing milk and of the state. We had one north dakota entity running at darion oregon where they could do Animal Agriculture and they had 35,000 dairy in oregon. We and our whole state of 12,000 so i say we ran into the ground. We carved out and said Animal Agriculture we will protect family farming that the strongest protections for family farmers in the nation. Corporations can own land here and if you and i want to start a farm together and youre related to me, we couldnt start a farm together here so we have the tightest protections for family farmers. We can save our tradition and open up the door for cattle and since the law passed we have several, 12,000 dairy firms to want to build on our side of the river instead of the minnesota side or the celtic of the site. We are bringing cattle back which will save our communities. So thats fantastic in the course Interest Rates are super high right now. Guess what, we have smart leaders and a couple of years ago we said wow maybe we could borrow some money and take some of these big projects like the diversion like the minot floods the money that would flow into our spending like Water Infrastructure would compete with all the smaller sized megaprojects on the table. 680 milliondollar bonding package and 2021 to support infrastructure upgrades took advantage of historic low Interest Rates. That would not have happened without senator rich warden sitting in the front pushing through that bill. Thank you. [applause] this last year record 550 milliondollar income or Property Tax Relief with the prime sponsor whos always been a champion. He and i are completely alike. We still need to get north dakota down to zero income tax and well talk more about that later. Thank you craig for being such a strong proponent of lower taxes and her stay. Thats just a few of the things in aikido on and on. Other than that we have so much work to get them could be a big challenges that lie ahead in the biggest challenge we face in her state is the workforce. We have made significant headway last session to tackle one of the Biggest Barriers to workforce participation. The legislature came to understand the thing that was holding us back when we have 30,000 jobs open in our state in every restaurant in every manufacture and every farmer and certainly every oil company in the state does not have enough workers and we dont have enough teachers. We need to make sure we were investing in workforce infrastructure. What is the workforce infrastructure look like today . One of them as childcare. If you have too educated parents that are here are too educated parents want to move here we had the Legislature Last year that told me personally they finally got the spot or both of their kids were career folks living in south dakota and they would come home starting a family and they wanted to be close to their grandparents and they were coming back to their hometown. They couldnt find it childcare slots and so they move back home. We have made progress on childcare and housing. This will be another big lift. Thats not the governments job. Workforce infrastructure we have to create the incentives for the privatesector to bring n. To solve these problems. We have to continue to work as one across all of State Government to cabinet leaders are getting so good at right now. And what we have done on the drilling and waters usa and 20 rules that are currently being jammed by the federal government and i say rule of pages. You dont understand the amount of time and energy the ags office in our office and the land board, we are to defend sovereign state license board because these rules are trying to take the power of the state to move it towards unelected bureaucrats in d. C. We have got to keep fighting back on that and we will do that. We have made great progress in attracting Capitol Investment into our state and thats how we grow and investment investment in the workforce. We do that for the things we are doing right now reducing taxes cutting red tape. This Legislature Passed 50 added that 51 red tape reduction bills we sent them last year and thats fantastic and we are building healthy and vibrant community so we can compete against every other state. Every one of job titles i talked about if youre a teacher or nurse or work in manufacturing, if you can do anything even drive a combine if you can work there you can get a job anywhere in this country because they have jobs open in virtually every industry. We are in a competition like never before. Their 10 million jobs open in america, 10 million some people move to states because its warm. We have been quite sold that yet in our state but we had to compete in other ways but one of the ways we compete is on innovation or regulation. In our office we get together and innovation and not regulation. We need a rule to stop some person from from doing that and i say how bout have innovation so we never had to do it in the first place. We want to unleash her states full potential. Innovation in the forwardlooking. Renovation is looking. But you get a federal role in place by the time they get in pretty soon youre like whos going to monitor that to make sure that company is following that rule . The federal government as we have to stop this issue. We have a government and agent with a clipboard driving around Western North dakota trying to make sure that someone is following it and it takes the federal government eight years to go from an idea to implementation to enforcement . We have ripped through four evolutions of moores law with a computer chip that half the price and by the time you get out there and drive around in your pickup to do some monitoring we could be tracking all that electronically. Digitally and remotely. Satellite internet upload whatever you want data thats collected automatically thats accurate fast fast remote and. Data is collected by humans that the high cost in and inaccurate but the regulation not only when you make the rule but the downstream costs raises the cost of almost every product in america. Our state needs to hold high innovation not regulation of thats part of her past. Opportunities have never been greater. With ai and the power of natural language computing it is unbelievable what we can do to transform the way we think about it. Its a super exciting with to do a better job. One of the things that catherine and i learned this last year when we are traveling around the country sharing the amazing story of north dakota at such an honor to represent the state and the rest of the nation does not understand us. Its not like they dont understand us like they have never met anybody from her state before and probably because of our brand literally because we are in north dakota for the one thing for sure that will be brought up will talk about how cold it is and yes its super freezing. When we were kids we all froze walking to school uphill both ways 50 below windchill and all of these things are frozen your you brought it in and fought it out. We just play into it when we do that but heres the thing. We understand more than ever in my lifetime ive worked with people from 120 countries who didnt have the right to vote the buchter free speech or the right to assemble in the customers and team members working around the 50 states. We had a good thing going on here but when you see whats happened in the rest of her country and whats going on here in north dakota we have the best of america right here. [applause] we feed the world. We are the top producer. We should make sure that every k12 student and every University Student in our system understands and can recite this list because if they go what you do in north dakota . How bout we feed the world as the top producer of a dozen commodities in the top five of another eight commodities. And soybeans were shooting up. Soybeans county was the largest soybean producing county in america a couple of years ago. That wasnt possible when i was a kid and now just during this last administration of hours we have gone through processing plants with one open into more on the way. Thats close to a billion dollars of Capitol Investment and valueadded around one product soy beans and now we see whats going on with corn and ethanol in the future that has never been brighter. Thats fantastic and energy. Ive met people that live in north dakota, you guys are an energy state . They didnt know we were in energy state. How can we have people in america who drive an american heat their homes and not know the ones who are providing a big chunk of that. The number three Oil Producing state. How many school kids would say how many oil wells we have in north dakota would anybody answer we have 18,733 wells . Thats a record and its going up every month. The permits we are getting when i hear people say we have to ban drilling on federal land ive heard people that said that they get an image of the 1950s rock hudson movie in black and white with oil flying all over and everybody is covered with oil spewing out on the ground and they are like if you do that on federal land we will bring everything. I tell them threequarters of the well permits we are offering right now north dakota the traditional talk and well is two miles down into miles over. 75 of the new permits are two miles down in three mouse over. We can drill drill and land three miles away sending a check to the federal government to reduce the deficit and no one would step foot on the land. We had to tell her story. We had to tell her story to the oil industry of today so efficient and so effective in so safe and so smart and so environmentally friendly compared to any other nation. North dakota does it better than anyone and we are losing the battle or hats nationally losing the battle. Some people people say we are the bad bad guys. You have fossil fuels . We are helping stabilize the world so we dont have to buy energy from iran and iraq and russia and venezuela. We didnt use that oil money to support terrorism. We have to tell our story here and some people how many people knew in november we set a record for north dakota. 3. 5 billion not million, billion cubic feet per day. 3. 5 billion cubic feet per day. Unbelievable. And what we can do is Clean Natural gas to heat homes and create electricity create fertilizer about the things we can do these patrolling projects are Amazing Things that they can do and we always been an all of the the above electricity state. We are all driving towards Carbon Sequestration and zero co2. That power will help save the nation because every other state is shutting down their base load prematurely at a time when the demand for electricity goes upandup. It wont be because of electric cars. It will go up for Everything Else including, including demand for data services. All of the stuff with ai and ability to transform every job in every company and industry to ai requires power to run those data centers and we should be building building more of those in north dakota. Biofuels and whats happening here in dickerson of banal Renewable Fuels hydro from the dam. All of the above Energy Strategies or wind portfolio. We are providing Energy Cheaper than anyone else and what a surprise interview with so much that was going on in north dakota and tell someone we have the lowest average price of electricity in the nation to customers for all segments in north dakota better, cheaper and faster here more reliable than anyplace else. Energy leader of america right here, north dakota. [applause] and how about our military . American should know our air force bases in north dakota schnoor air force bases in the north Dakota National guard play a role in protecting our nations freedom. We have allowed people that say we dont really know whats going on up there. How about the fact that we are operating at minot two of the three legs of the Nuclear Triad. We have a missile wing in a bomber wing. How about the fact that you and me, not you and me. Grand Forks Air Force base and theres a lot of conjunction with you and me. At the air force base they have a new mission for the global hawks are flying and all being refurbished there. Its 4 billion they are refurbishing with the largest Unmanned Aircraft in the world. They have 83foot wing spans. They fly for 24 hours. They leap and forks and flights of the pacific and fly back. Thats exciting and interesting. We are such a leader in Unmanned Aerial Systems both commercially and otherwise. The city of minot winning the trophy for going above and beyond supporting airmen and their families. I had a trick question this last year with a National Reporter and talking about the Nuclear Triad. He asked me hey with the three legs of the Nuclear Triad and which was your favorite . We underestimate north dakota and this guy guy probably does it know im talking about so im going to embarrass him on a national program. I said we are the only state that has two of the three but i also said my favorite might be the third uss north dakota one of the Largest Nuclear submarines in the world and we have this lake that so big. If we can get them back and forth will have all three legs in the Nuclear Triad. [applause] that would be fun. Catherine and i had a chance to be on that incredible boat and i do chance in september 2 change the command that is such an honor for state to be connected with that one piece of the u. S. Navy and a great relationship between that boat and i know many legislators say we should keep that relationship growing. Natural resources wow. A gift that we have been given. If you want to get up every day and be grateful for something be grateful for what has given us through Natural Resources. We have been so richly blessed with the soil that we have across our state and all that agriculture. That only happens because of the rich land we have been given. Record amounts of oil and Gas Production is their geology and we have so many other things we could do here. We have diverse land and stunning sunsets and i think people ought to know the fact that our sunsets are the best in america. We dont have pesky buildings that block the thing. Theres no trees that are blocking your view of the sunset and i dont need minnesota. Minnesota has five cities with statues of paul bunyan and you can barely see the guy because there are so many trees. He did all of his best work in north dakota and we are so humbled we dont even have a statue for him. We are just like gone, finished the job done. But with that and im sure its the sunsets but how cool is this . Over the majority of my lifetime and for some people even more in the 1930s lived up until this last decade you would have virtually your entire life is the only state in the nation that was a losing population. 49 states grew between 1930 and 2005 and one shrank in north dakota. We had less population in early 2000 then at the end of the depression and you say how did that happen . It was a keen effort. I was helping in the 1980s with some other people but here we are and what they are Natural Resources with innovation and a privateSector Investment in the western part of our state where we least expected if thats what drove us and the revenue coming up at the oil and Gas Administration which is a massive input which affects their health care our education our roads are water projects we have been able to leverage that industry in every corner thursday. There is no school kid a living person in our state that hasnt benefited from the oil and gas industry and because of that people are saying wow they have the infrastructure and Great Schools and great cities and maybe all move there. Maybe i will move home. We have young people that are staying. We went from having one of the most lowest birthrates to one of the highest. We set an alltime high record in population this past year. We broke through now we are at 784,000 with an alltime record high population. Lets keep that going and if you guys have kids and grandkids that are raising families tell them to keep it up, way to go. Laborforce participation. We have states we are competing with people are still on the silence of the pandemic. Theyre working two jobs people in north dakota know how to work. These rankings not only have we become younger and happier, we have also now become the second best state to raise a family. Tell everybody you know, as part of this thing to tell people this is the best place, the best in america with safe cities, Great Schools you want to raise a family . Do it here. Guess what we were just recently named, thank you legislature, thank you state Water Commission, secondbest infrastructure in the state and that includes of course our infrastructure related we have invested in our highspeed bandwidth and broadband we have amongst the best broadband infrastructure number two in education and childcare amazing. And a new and that just came out, best estate for business friendliness. This is like one of the best places to do that. Another thing along with the friendliest we also have name by forbes magazines second year old best estate to start a business. Best estate to start a business. Ive been in business start ups in north dakota and i am telling us a lot better now than it was we actually care and we actually got examples and we have mentors and we have programs that help people and one to have reasons why its the best place to start a business is our failure rate is lower. We have some things and be able to afford to actually survive. Thats way higher than other states. Way to go north dakota. N anyway, thanks to conservative budgeting efficient operations, strong revenues and a ton of investment by the private sector that creates all of this wealth, guess what, our state is in the best financial shape it has ever, ever been. [applause] record general fund ending b balance of nearly 1 and a half billion dollars, thats a billion with a b for people not familiar with the budgeting process. Normally, you know, when you plan a budget you try to end the budgeting process with 50 million, 75 million, 1. 5 billion. That was our ending balance. We had an estimate that it was going to be high. We were back in special session, you have cash, hey, we shouldel give back to taxpayers through tax relief. We tried through special session, we got a bill that got through one to have chambers, 91 million, ran into a road block. We didnt get it done but weid should keep going to be competitive ine attracting retaining workforce which is our number one job to keep our state growing and thriving, attract capitol, capitol, you know, workforce use today follow capital, you know. Theyd be like a company would announce we are opening up a big plant here and everybody would move there to get a job there. Ive been on the phone, i was on the phone with the head of the abm, they have 40,000 employees and they operate in like 80 different countries, the board has approved 350 million for jamestown, im like weve got this. Im on the phone with him, can we hire 75 plant in jamestown. Can we actually get workforce. Capital follows workforce. It used to be exactly the other way around. Workforce would follow capital. We have to solve the workforce problem every possible way we can and if we solve it for the energy industry, if we had more fracking crews, all the numbers for all the reserves i just showed you would be f higher, a lot higher. Weve only got 39 rigs operating right now. We should have 60. Its a workforce issue. Ec we can celebrate that we are record high but i want everybody to understand that we are not where we could be if we solve workforce we could be even much higher. So to be competitive, one to have simplest things we can do, we have the money to do it is get to zero income tax and why does that matter, well, you know, part of it matters is because we are competing against states that have zero income tax but these dollars that are in the endingfund balances, think of your Checking Account. We end up more in the checkingck account that we thought, we have reserves, think of savings account. The reserves have never been higher. Get this, the Budget Stabilization fund and the strategic investment and Improvement Fund which i affectionately call Checking Account 2, general fund 2, proposal to make whole things go away and have money go into the general fund and some people are applauding from the treasurers office, anyway, but anyway, this is dollars and just flows in but look at this. Look at the scale of thiss. Compared to where we were when we took office and this is a reflection of we you go around all the other reserves that we have stacked up, this ie just a couple of them. Weve got so much cash in so many different places and its 7 times than when we took office. In terms of the trust funds because thats slide right there is 7 times larger does not include trust fund including the legacy fund which didnt really existence years ago and now the legacy fund gets a giant check every month, 30 of our Oil Tax Revenue goes into that and remember oil taxes for those who arent playing close attention, we take it off the top. I mean, if you if you dont make any income as an individual you dont pay income tax. If youre a farmer and dont have any income, you dont pay meincome tax. Om if youre an oil company we take 10 of your revenue and not 10 of income. Its a revenue tax we are doing. As long as we are producing those 18,000 wells, theres money coming in every month and growing and growing. Itll blow through 10 billion before we get to next summer on the legacy fund and the Common Schools trust sits at 6. 1 billion and last year we are kicking 500 million of payment out of that trust fund for Common Schools that goes out that helps reduce property taxeo and that just happens without anybody paying attention. We do so much to reduce property tax already in our budget but anyway, we predict that we will end the current budget cycle in june 2025 with balance of 518 million and then, after six months through december we are already running 154 million ahead. We are 11 ahead of forecast just in the First Six Months. Things are cooking along and thats great. North dakota, we are hiring. We found out this morning just the end today that we are we are tied with maryland for the lowest Unemployment Rate in america. 1. 9 . Thank you to privatesector folks that are hiring. [applause] and we talked about we talked about new business startups and great place to start a business, this is how economy stays vibrant, 8,000 new businesses registered to open in north dakota in 2023, and so we are going to continue to have demand. We know that we when we talk about jobs and personally there might be 14, 15,000 job service with the numbers always double. We know that because if you have through Healthcare Organizations we survey them, they might post for five nursing positions and they just leave it posted forever versus paying 100 positions but most of them might have ten or 20 times positions opened than what they are posting so we have this workforce challenge, so i want the whole thing to get to this point right here and this is where youre supposed to say the state of the state is and i went through almost every other governor, we are stronger than ever, strongest, unbelievably strong. The state of our state, we areta under estimated. Thats the state of our state. We are so good at so many things and weve never been stronger financially economically, people wise, weve never been stronger, but the state of the state is underestimated. We are underestimated by people externally and we have to change that. One person shot and killed and two people that have taken multiple gunshots. We had a citizen thats injured and officer Zach Robinson takes action and puts himselfho at rik to neutralize the shooter and saving countless other lives into that individual was doing rounds in his vehicle. The attorney general knows all about this case but we came very close to having something that would have put us on a different level of national news. But in our state our men and blue responded. Last month the sheriffs deputy was tragically killed by a vehicle crash when he was trying to protect his community from nature and if we move to the military slide, this is not a fatality but its a tragedy. On Christmas Day a pilot suffered a serious head injury. Hes there at walter hes there at walter reed with his wife and mother and other family members. I did share with him i would ask all of you join everybody in north dakota and for a full recovery these are people serving our country and fighting for liberty. [applause] freedom isnt free and we should be grateful not just on military honoring days, veterans day, Peace Office Memorial day but weve got to make sure that we are doing that s every day. [applause] as weve said weve got to make sure we are showing gratitude for Law Enforcement and military with ouran actions and thats wy the legislature this last year did such a great job. We are all in it together and made strides towards reaching our goal towards being the most military friendly state in the nation. When you look at the percentage of the people that stood up that are also serving here because you are an elected leader, that makes my heart burst with pride but we have taken steps over the past few years weve exempted military state income tax and expanded Tuition Assistance and cutor red tape for military chid providers so they dont have to reapply redundantly and of course contributing, north dakota is home to 13,000 active duty guard and reserve Service Members who made this contribution to the communities. Its always ready and always there. Highperforming organizations exist with highperformingve leadership and we are very fortunate these past eight years the Major General whether its the air men protecting the skies around the nation capital were serving overseas, the managers leadership has an short the cardmembers are well trained and prepared for their mission and so i want to see if i see him and say thank you. Go ahead and stand up please. The progress could not have been accomplished without the work of task force lines shared by none other than the Lieutenant Governor but theres still more work to be done. We want to keep the soldiers at the top of our mind to double down in the months to be not onlyur the most military friendy but also we want to keep driving across others and establish military friendly working groups with the National Guard to support the task force landed developing proposals related to healthcare, childcare, licensure and more so we can be the most military friendly state in the nation. One thing we have to do is take care of the members after they are out of the military and this is 2024. We want to make sure we are doing the right thing and we have a lot of work to do on the thatraumatic things happened. Every year in our country, suicide takes the lives of over 6,000 veterans and military members even at times like this in conflict, we are losing more people to completed suicides and we are to actual combat and as the Major General reminds us they are left without the services they needed to manage their scars. For this reason yesterday i signed a proclamation declaring 2024 is the Suicide Prevention awareness year inspired by the american legions being the one program to connect with veterans who are struggling with the thought of suicide we are honored to have leaders Clarence Carol the third, Vice Commander and they are here along with other members. Recognized. To be [applause] we are looking forward to collaborating building off the governors challenge led by military and veteran organizations and these individuals have answered the call for their country when they served and in north dakota we know we need to know that each veteran will know the citizens of our state and our government in the state is behind them and we have their backs. One thing we can all do right now to immediately start raising awareness for the veterans and citizens time. Effective i alike because we are doing across the we have issues with nonmilitary and suicide as well but we need to expand the marketing page ofs that will link people to the resources they need so we can have awareness everywhere. People know what to do an emergency to call 91 people do not yet know 988 is the place you call if you know someone who is in need for Behavioral Health issue. Even if you have an inkling of a concern you can call this number. We want to encourage state agencies Government Entities in the private sector to followed suit to proudly display the 988 icon because it is going to share that you care about the people, you care about our veterans to help raise awareness around suicide. Lets indeed stigmatize the fear of asking for Mental Health support thats one of the problems we have her on the Behavioral Health side the challenge of Behavioral Health is prevalent in all of society not just the veterans population thats why we made Behavioral Health and addiction from the start seven years ago one of our five strategic initiatives. Who knew that when we started that seven years ago that now we would be facing a crisis of mammoth proportions that did not exist then. We havent lost in the last three years under Joe Bidens Administration features but a new record of Overdose Deaths and now we have passed well past the three and a thousand mark in a nation. We have lost the equivalent of five vietnams to Overdose Deaths in the last three years is over one or 200,002,023. Its over three to people a day that we are losing. It is just unbelievable. But what we are focusing on and north dakota, one of the things we have focused on his recovery. It is a substantial increase Recovery Support services or individuals that got involved with the criminal Justice System. We talked about the early its the most extensive way to treat Behavioral Health problem with incarceration. Sometimes its necessary for Violent Crime but if there are times that we need to be doing is having the services upfront that keep people from getting in the situation where they have got to conduct property crimes to pay for their addiction. This program that we have right now freedom recovery has 1700 participants in and served nearly 6003 unit individuals through 57 share coordinated providers but with this is doing is reducing recidivism. If we get people related to addiction we get them out and keep them out and help them get a job, get a place to live, get a drivers license socially determines a health food we keep them out now weve got more people in the workforce. Weve got more people connect with the family and their kids we are spending less money on the backend. On incarcerations with the win for everybody. Substance abuse disorder vouchers, 7000 individuals have access the Substance Abuse Vouchers Program thank you legislature 18 million to help support this. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what we pay on the backend for all of the county cy and city jails around the state and our whole Justice System could be 75 related to addiction and Behavioral Health we did not have enough providers in our state we have rural areas or is not anywhere close to enough providers the program that came up was lets take peoples lived experience who can help others attain and stay and recovery and now have over half of them have got a criminal justice interaction, a. K. A. They are likely a felon. These are people that might have been unemployable and now they are working and have a job keeping other people sober and in recovery and out of inexpensive solution which is back in criminal justice. Recovery housing is another issue. One thing you can do in the country we say no discrimination. You have a felony we can discriminate where you work and where you live. There is no such thing anymore of now ive paid my debt to society because if you have a felony 30 to 40 you can get a felony pretty easily today and then you end up with e a thing where youre stigmatized but 670 people have been served since may 22 and 11 providers. Again, this is working to help keep people back in a productive way to be better neighbors as opposed to trying to make better prisoners. The Behavioral Health workforce we make Great Strides and access to services with people facing addiction and we know the Behavioral Health providers are increasingly challenged by Workforce Shortages. So in addition to the Peer Support Specialist Program we are also working in the coming months with the University Leaders into the healthcare system, private sector to help solve this issue, the office of the recovery with hhs will be held by facilitating conversations Strategic Planning efforts across the state regarding Behavioral Health workforce specifically coming and expect the legislators to see some new legislation coming to help solve that particular problem. Precovery reinvented, unbelievable. What this has done its made Great Strides to eliminate the shame and stigma in north dakota and we survey addiction in north dakota and the stigma of addiction and we know weve made progress. More than 21,000 people have participated in recovery in the past seven years and joining this movement to help individuals find hope and recovery and now its time to ensure weve actually got the workforce in place to help them. That goes back to the workforce piece. But theres one person who made a difference for this. Somebody that had the courage to stand up and share her story to people across the state and across the nation and when she tells her story it moves people. I know that shes saved lives and changed lives by doing that and shes going to be celebrating her 22nd year of recovery after decades before that of struggling with the disease of addiction but her incredible work to drive policy and create a Better Solutions for folks has been amazing. So again, if you could please help me welcome the most courageous first lady in america. [applause] we know that addiction doesnt discriminate. It p affects every family, community and every sector of government especially Law Enforcement officers. They deal with a farreaching impactrs of addiction on every single ship. Just ask anyone of the Highway Patrol this is what they are dealing with. It is the same as with of the courts. Its important that we support the men and women in uniform who protect our communities. We backt the blue with our words but again backing without actions we did thatid by expandg workersnd comp. And exempted lw enforcement retirement aid from state income tax and we helped offset the cost of routine medical exams. Our efforts are not going to end there because in b addition to w enforcement we have people in the state we want to bring forward a plan to support all the Law Enforcement officials across north dakota making this the premier place to work in Law Enforcement where it is respected. Lets respect the people thatero it and get the people to come and work and create a profession that is respected. Every time someone in my family sees someone in Law Enforcement, we say one thing. Thank you. Think about that someone might have thanked him. They really are that thin blue line. We have neighbors every day in north dakota who put on their firefighting gear and they all deserve our gratitude. We have over 3500 licensed Emergency Medical Services personnel. A lot of them work in these locations foror free. They are volunteers nearly 7,000 volunteer firefighters. We have ten times as many people who volunteered to go help save their neighbors and ifei you ara firefighter these t days most of your calls are not fires most are ems related. Sometimes the highs is 80 , medical related for firefighters. We are grateful for the service and if theres people here today, if theres personnel or firefighters if you have today or before volunteered for your local fire department, stand up and lets say thanks to you. [applause] here in stark county, we had one of these incredible individuals sort of the best of america kind of guy who served as the chief of the Gladstone Fire Department for 45 years. Fortyfive yearsye volunteering serving the citizens ofve the community and surrounding communities including others, risking himself to put others safety ahead of his own but like many, he didnt stop there. He was active in the coalition, the knights of columbus and other state organizations and sadly the community lost him toa a battle to brain cancer last july but not before he received the spirit of excellence award. We know that hes with us in spirit today and we are honored to have with us back in the center of the auditorium we have his wife, two of three children, all here in the audience today about as symbolically for their service to gladstone, this kind of story happens over and over in the state. This is the best of america. Thank you all the volunteers lets give them a hand. [applause]e] we want to turn actions into ideas. Thats been the theme of the section and we would encourage if you are a First Responder or you are related or no one, if there is a better waybe for us d i say us the State Government and legislation if there is a better way to support men and women in uniform whether its Law Enforcement, fire fighters, First Responders, please call, email, write the Governors Office, we will share them with the legislative partners and keep doing what weve been doing. We wille cut the red tape, get rid of the restrictions and past laurels to help support what all of you are doing. So keep those ideas coming. We want to support workers not only forhe their physical health but for the safety of the Overall Health in the community and oneth of the ways we do that of course is with accessible affordable childcare and it puts us in the position to make these incredible strategicic investmes and one of the biggest obstacles in the workforce, which i talked aboutrl earlier and still remais childcare availability, affordability, quality. 66 million went into the childcare initiative. This is workforce infrastructure. Thank you for doing that. Whats happening with that investment now more than 4800 working familiesha have received help with Childcare Costs in the First Six Months of the biennium. More than 300 have benefited from the incentives helping the businesses. Think of that close to 5,000 when we talk about trying to solve our issue with 30,000 we put a huge dent in it as we got 5,000 people that may be came back in the workforce. Other things we are doing to support the workforce in the first time the north Dakota Job Service budget included funding to support the visa program for temporary workers and if you are informing you know how critical and important this is. Some others may not know it gets confusing and caught up in all this discussion about immigration but we have had in some cases for decades the visa workers from countries such as south africa like these guys pictured here to come to north dakota every harvest season and in incredible 46 from two years before. They come back and work for the same families. You talk to farmers across the state we wouldnt have gotten the crop if it were not for the workers so weve got to make sure we keep that pipeline ofpeople that come here to work seasonally and it theyve got the equipment and they know how to drive the machinery. To help attract the International Talent because we have a great pipeline of workers that we want to make sure that weve got this piece figured out and a pipeline of people coming that can help the farmers and of the ad workers on h2o. The Inclusion Program provides Technical Assistance from International Experts so thats off to a great start. Career academies fought hard for this stuff and we kept our word to make sure the funding would be available for the 13 career academies where students will be able to pursue the high demand careers and thought technology. One of those examples is right herent in the technical educatin and students from seven high schools around the region utilize the stateoftheart facility to help students identify interest and build skills to identify the workforce more quickly. For the career path of becoming a welder which we need we grew short of those. Last fall placed with the fish are industries to earn credit while on the job. Still getting his education but getting paid and earning credit to be able to build that relationship now hes gained the support Welding Technology so hes got a local Company Fisher willing to pay him to get further education. Its working, the partnerships between companies and the education system, filling the gap between k12, higher ed and i want to say thank you for being here. Director anderson is here. They represent more than 25,000 students around the state that are taking advantage. Lance is right here. Lets stand up and give him a hand. [applause], transforming education is the next topic but when teachers and educators and state leaders use innovative approaches to create experiences outside of the classroom, students thrive and over 10 miles away, she been a music teacher at the Public School for 18 years and look at her innovation. Her dedication to students and passion for her subject which happens to be music. She was just selected as one of the 50 band directors who make a difference to. Shes brought together 300 students from 13 different schools to create a massive marching band and i will skip the story about me having to go to the music camp up at the border because i wanted to go to football camp but my mom wouldnt let me unless you went to music camp. I will save you that whole thing but thats the reason im not playing a trumpet solo today. But anyway, shes a fierce advocate. Where are you, and congratulations. Go ahead and stand up, National Recognition weve got a task force we put together for retention, recruitment of teachers. We know they are rewording and they make a difference but we also understand the challenges that teachers are facing and that results in a Workforce Shortage and last fall we created the retention and Recruitment Task force to bring proposals forward. Thats going ahead to support our leaders and teachers and students to help them develop and grow into the best versions of themselves, so that is charging ahead into the next several months they will keep going on that task force across the educational landscape digging into data. Our schools are the cornerstone of our communities so this task force has got an important thing because it is one thing to drive the teachers all t the way throh education and get them into the School System teaching and then they teach for a year or two and that is where we are losing them. Ifre we can get people to retaia little longer that canin help serve the longterm pipeline so this task force, way to go, keep it up. All of our innovative teachers into the teacher of the year sheila peterson, they are dedicating themselves to help the future and the students represent 20 of the population, but they do represent 100 of the future. They are instrumental to the state of success, so if we have any teachers that are here today if you are a current or former educator teaching at any level k12, prek, please stand up and let us say thank you to all the educators. [applause] at my very firstth state of the state i talked about innovation education and how we had to change the status quo and progress is made but theres more to do. This week is School Choice week in north dakota. And it almost goes handinhand with competition. The cyber madness competition, Great Innovation is a fantastic experience. But School Choice has become this political debate about a Public School versus a private school or religious. It shouldnt be centered around that at all. School choice and competition is how to be centered around students and their experiences and personal learning goals. It could include i guess like how do we expand the ct programs . Weve set the table and created rules and regulations where every h k12 district has an opportunity to reinvent. Weve done that. Weve gotoo some schools that he taken every bit of flexibility and have driven innovation and in the last year they want to have a milliondollar national rework. We have other districts that havent adopted one of the pieces of flexibility weve given them so during the interim the legislature is engaging in a study that is fantastic and we support that. They are going to be looking at the continuum and we look forward to working with of the committee for a comprehensive proposal that puts innovation and students first to make sure we can keep driving k12 education forward in our state. We will have our governor only innovative education on june 17 in bismarck and invites you to be there and mark your calendars as it has been incredible with of the great ideas that have come out of that and we would love to have more legislators join us. Competition and choice thats always been part of Higher Education students can decide what is the tuition, where should i go, they are unrestricted do i want to go online, stay home or go g far away . O right here across the university system, guess what, every university in america is facing these unstoppable forces, demographics, cultural economics which are blowingal up the traditional Business Models and forcing campusesom to become moe economic, innovativeve and nimb. Its going to require not just alumni donors but partnerships between the private sector and the Public Sector to identify the demand for graduates and if we create student opportunities that lead into careers youre going toto get more support from the private sector it cant just all come from the state of north dakota at the universities. Theres got to be a private sector component. The scholarships created just in 2019 that partnership last year there was 220 scholarships and loan repayments provided to north dakota students who went on to fill the high demands and we encourage all employees to consider participating in the successful publicprivate partnership. When we look ahead to the future of Higher Education, one thing ive got to ask the legislature, we were joking about maybe there was infrastructure in this particular hall that weve got to focus on but where the bulk of the money has gone its gone into buildings, 414 million has gone into buildings across the campus. Thats great. We had the money, we needed it. That alone isnt going to drive success but some of the places where we put 150 million the enrollment is down. They have to work on their vision for 2035. We urge each of the nine study groups to focus on future Business Models and how that is going to shift. We focus on how to get more collaboration system wide across the system to eliminate duplication and make ourselves more competitive and how do we make sure that we accept the realities of these forces that are actually changing. High ad isnt going to be back to where it was. The students coming to a campus out of high School Spending hoursng a day listening to lectures in auditoriums those days are over. Wewe need to the institutions fm the inside to drive new things, speed up the degree completion. The nonstate university, they are offering people come here, play sports and youre going to get not only an undergraduate degree but a masters in four years. They are getting people more value for the same level of time they are there. Providing flexibility to ensure wide varieties so we have to keep innovating in higher ed. One thing that we need to do across the k12 and all students and may be adults as well, we have to make sure the students are wellversed and theres a survey that test that. 1 of the adults feel confident in their own knowledge and finances and today we are settingrt a goal of the most financially literate estate by 2027. That is the goal that we are putting. The state treasurer, right down here in front they will be leading this effort into coordinating the blink of north dakota which is a great entity and also the Governors Office, securities, the team led by karen tyler, other state agencies. We will announce a full plan in aprilis about the Financial Literacy but i want to thank you for your leadership. This is a fantastic program, but we need to keep driving forward. On the housingue side, we have o continue to grow and attract new workforces we talked about to ensure everyone has access to affordable housing. It is workforce infrastructure. Competing with talent as ive said and the Housing Market fundamentally but there is gaps. We know there is gaps and there is also hidden subsidies and hidden penalties that are affecting how they are d being developed and some prudent Public Sector investments can make a difference in helping us solve this problem. To serve the citizens, again i gave an example earlier about a the family not moving back because they couldnt find a child care. We know we northry dakota weve given job offers to people to try to move here to our state to take a job with the state and part of the search is the look around and say can i afford to get a house in this community and if they cant upgrade their housing they might say no to a job that pays ten or 20 grand more. Or i have a low interest mortgage if i sell that and move to north dakota the Interest Rates now i cant move, so its causing some stickiness in the workforce because of the high Interest Rates, but we have to keep workingak to make sure that its a better place to work and play by addressing the housing challengesng many communities face. The Needs Assessment from 20 to 25 predicts that we are going to be 9,000 additional just through now through 2025 in the next two years. 9,000 more units and fortunately, weve already got a blueprint out there on how to address these issues into that blueprint is what we did to get to the starting line on child care. In the coming months its going to be a platform for north dakota and as individuals and employers are trying to recruit people from out of state and its going to be from developers, all people that say what are the hurdles and what are the solutions and we are going to focus on three pillars like we did in child care. Availability. Of those are the things we want to hear from renters and homeowners andan developers and community leaders, Housing Providers and anybody that has a future in the future of the w economic success of north dakota. If we dont all come together and create the right framework, we will sit here with unfilled jobs and end n up with a decling economy but following these sessions which will be inon collaboration with state agencies like the north Dakota Workforce housing and all the other agencies that we have working on this, we will work diligently to create a strategy and then that strategy we will bring to the legislature if there is a component that we need to put the vision is clear we e want to ensure every north dakota and has an opportunity whether it is for generations theyve been here where they move here but theyve got an opportunity to find a safe and affordable places to call home and raise a family. For the infrastructure to attract 21st century Skilled Workforce that is everything ive been talking about, Skilled Workforce, Healthy Communities, effective infrastructure. Yes mainstreet brings it all together. All the policies come together and we are so fortunate weve had such an uptick with 107 different communities across the state that have participated in the main Street Program and theyve engaged in a visit from state agencies and engaged in supporting building other communities and successes of the programs for the transformational change in all sides as of the communities and especially in rural areas. We know that creating the vibrant communities only happens when you have local leaders. Someone who grabs the rains and decides we are going to make the community a place where future generations want to grow and kids want to come back to raise families. We have examples of that happening in Western North dakota foror sure, an amazing example in southwest, originally from south dakota, shes making herea march on the state. She is the leaders of the Development Corporation and shes done that for nearly 11 years. She embodies the street of the building of Healthy Communities and whether it is hosting the fusion conference were serving on the statewide Rural Development council we know that she is changing the directory of southwest and north dakota with her passion and commitment. Its leaders across theac state that are attracting the next generation of north dakota is in the h communities and her effors deserve to be recognized. If you are here could you stand and let us acknowledge everything that you are doing . [applause] we will be launching the office of Community Development prosperity which builds the mainstream initiative and we are announcing that we are creating that today within the department of commerce. This office is going to pull together a number of things that will be essential for communication to try to maximize the impact of all the initiatives and focus specifically on empowering Rural Communities because we can streamline efforts and allocate resources more strategically. We can understand and attack the unique challenges faced by the communities who are supporting the Community Development. But we wont be doing this alone. This new office is going to work with community organizations, businesses, local governments and other state agencies to develop comprehensive strategies that are tailored to those communities. So excited about that as we are driving it even further into the rural areas. The first time in a long time that we are creating a new state park in north dakota. If youve never been, i encourage you to get there but i want to thank the legislature again they passed 27 million for the maintenance and upgrades to infrastructure and at the arvisitor experience across all4 state parks the soul near record visitation last. But still theres more work to be done to enhance these amazing state assets and improve the quality of life and one of the ways is with trails. Its also a key piece of infrastructure and weve got an extensive focus. They are already doing the first wide inventory would you have guessed that theres 200,000 miles of trails on 865 main trails in the state . The next is the last Mile Initiative and we could spend a little bit of money to make them more efficient whether its walking and biking, snowmobiling but this is an opportunity and when weve got recreational opportunities as, a part of norh dakota hunting, fishing, camping, whatever it is we also know that brings us back to helping to attract the workforce and so again i want to thank north dakota game and fish. Destination development, congress awarded a 25 million to help create new attractions or expand existing ones to help create destinations. What are the things what can you do there, what are the places to see . One g of those is the Dinosaur Museum that had a one Million Dollar grant from this new program and again if you havent been there, check it out. Theres morere than just old bones. There is exciting stuff. The theater roosevelt president ial library, this is an idea that started right here on this campus of having a library and come july 4, 2026 on the nations 250th birthday, we are going to welcome another attraction when the museum opens. Thend library is going to be a Global Institution right here in north dakota inspiring people across the globe to get into the arena. Just like inspired by of the north dakota landscape and way of life when he came here in the 1880s after losing his wife and mother on the same day. People get confused when we say Library Museum they think of an oooldstyle model where you got objects under glass thats not going to be this. You will not be stuck gathering dust. It will be a captivating experience for visitors and its going to be leaning heavily on the immersive storytelling and technologies. You can count on the fact your kids and grandparents are going to drag you to this library and want to come back again and again. It wont just be a place its going to be an experience and its going to become a tourism powerhouse in dakota. At the Roosevelt Center here has a strongas connection to the library even for me and of course the center is a team key part of the university and part of the Higher Education system. This iski the place theyve been working for close to a decade digitizing copies of the writing and newspaper magazine articles and speeches and photos and other materials, and this is closing in on im sure close to 100,000 objects this is the president that wrote more books anyone else. He wrote more letters than asjefferson, so the collection here has been digital and its been amazing. But today, there is an amazing announcement happening. Part of the mission of the president ial library and partnering with academicik institutions like the center is to advance the study and understanding. The most comprehensive, the most incredible collection of papers around that study is now coming. The theodore Roosevelt Center will be the home to the extensive collection of private research and memorabilia from pulitzer prizewinning historians, his wife and offer. Those are the works that transform the way a we think abt the 26th president. Its an impressive collection. 151 banker spots housed at the center to the generosity and supportive the owner and the chairman of the Idaho Forest Group and his wife the collection features an extensive assortment of notes and audio and memorabilia and information surrounding the books among the most wellknown of the hundreds of books written, the rise of Theodore Roosevelt and more and so right now this does not happen without the center working together. That collaboration and confidence led to this. Congratulations to all of those entities involved. This is an amazing collection. Its not going to harvard or yale. [applause] looking forward when we think about some of the Economic Opportunities i just want to know people are getting charged up. Whether you are in beach or bowman or dickinson. All of these are opportunities for us in mount rushmorert theye got faces on a mountain. Then what are you doing you spend the next few days going to private sector tourism opportunities into taking in all the other stuff. The opportunity for the private Sector Investment surrounding the National Park and the library with that as an anchor has never been better. Start thinkingit about it we ned more hotel rooms and restaurants and everything in Western North dakota. More opportunities. Go get them. The communities again worldclass amenities that are needed. We need that to make sure that weve got the stable Business Environment and the first step is that economic development. In the last years weve had leadership that understands the importance of building on the states reputation. When i say the last 30 years it goes back to Business Leaders as governors who understood how capital and talent come together to move the place forward and because the talent as i said earlier follows the Capital Investment that flows beyond the path of least resistance the way you get the capital flowing is making sure that we remain laser focused on creating the stable environment that attracts the capital and that talent and the success can be seen in the population growth of nearly 17 that we show earlier. We also set a goal we said we wanted to have the highest gdp per capita in the nation. How are we coming on that . We are in thee st top eight. But take a look at this list it may be a little hard to read on the screen but every one of the states on there is a blue state only red state if you can use those words. Biotech, washington, twitter, amazon, microsoft, california, silicon valley, connecticut and delaware close to the metro area. Colorado, i dont know maybe thats illegal marijuana. Im not sure. [laughter] new jersey, close to new york. Youve basically got tech and finance driving these high gdp said the state level. We are not to silicon valley, we are not in new york city and here we are in this list. Way to go, north dakota. We have an opportunity if we keep doing what wewa are doing with the publicprivate partnerships. Now 40 billion of capital trying to come to north dakota for the Value Added Energy project is never a number like that in our history. With that we have the chance to keep moving up on the list. So again all we ask is we keep leading with innovation and whats going to happen this spring in the oil and gas industry we are going to hit a huge milestone and produce 5 billion barrels of oil since the early 2,000s. Horizontal drilling was the key thing that accessed to be able to get to that strip of hard shale and turn that into a liquid. If you stack those barrels, it would go around the globe and the equater 100 to ten times. Thats what 5 billion barrels is like. The oil and gas activity generates over half of the tax revenues that we come into from highways, bridges,wa healthcare education, and of course it provides we know what it does that extraction production consumption is going to be happening in a world driven by consumer demand and that consumer demand you dont have to have an opinion or believe in Climate Change or not Climate Change, i cant explain to you why someone would buy organic milk for twice as much but theres demand for it. There are people that will pay a premium for less carbon intensive products like liquid fuel, building material, wrote material,ot steel, plastics. If you have less carbon intensive products youre going of it right now. There are market is pushing for that. Theres a secret recipe we talked about the gifts weve been given with all this oil and minerals and also the most unbelievable capability to deal with co2 storage and utilization. Whether it is the coal plant were our oil and gas, we are leading in the nation. This isnt a new thing. Weve been doing this for decades already in the state. Carbon capture sequestration is the process of capturing the co2 from the Energy Producing processes and then when we are making ethanol we can use them from the valueadded resources. Carbon is an extremely valuable commodity. It drives me a little nuts that people are saying its a waste product. We have people that buy and pay for the enhanced uses of agriculture and fire suppression, food processing, water treatment, metal provocation, that is the list that is so long theyve got building and road material they brought in a piece of 12 by 12. We could make better cinderblocks than those for building materials. Because carbon is so strong everyone knows you want a great lightweight strong product, by the bow and arrow. If you want, every kid knows carbon fiber is light and great and they are looking at stuff as thin as a human hair that could lift a piano. We want to continue to lead in this area because of all of the products that come from this and weve been given the gift of a tough underground space to store all the nations co2 for the next 50 years. I know some people said we cann store all of it. Theres 50 billion tons a year of extra co2 being produced. We c could store some of it and0 years from now we would be glad we got the extra co2. We have an advantage right now because we are one of the few that have been granted to permit our own wells and now there were two of us in wyoming and now there is a third competition coming but weve been busy actually permitting them and weve permitted six Storage Facilities with the capacity of 272 million tons of co2 and those encompass 43 square miles underground. Thank you, but is later. You define that space was owned by the land owners. Somebodyan else might own the minerals but they owned the pore space. How do you get in some of these cases over 90 of the landowners said yes to getting it checked for the co2 storage and then we have Companies Like danbury doing enhanced oil recovery and they built 105 miles of pipeline from the plant in wyoming through montana down into southWestern North dakota in bowmanhw county and they are bringing that in and putting that co2, they put it down a a while and it spreads and pushes. They are seeing increases in their Oil Production in these 1980s vertical wells where they are getting it back to like 80 of their original production and guess what, they put more co2 down then when you burn the barrel of oil and it comes up, so the production and north dakota is Carbon Neutral to carbon negative. They are greening. Thatat is the story that we need to tilted the nation before they try to keep going on this agenda where we are going to shut down the coal industry, the oil and gas industry. Thats the agenda right now if theer federal government. Its not a political its just something we face as a threat to the state and weve got to tell our story about how we can produce more energy, so quite simply the whole aspect of the carbon industry in the state is going to expand agriculture. Anybody that has anything to do with corn or soybeans is going to expand the market. If you care about the electricity in the coal industry which has been the backbone of the central part of the state for decadesce and decades, it wl save the coal industry and if you care about the fact that oil and gas right now is the golden goose thats funding all the things that you care about, the oil and gas industry can extend its lifeen by decades in both an increased production and in reduced carbon intensity. On top of that, theres more stuff coming. E the demand for energy is growing and weve got whether it is coming up by trenton or pig iron opportunities coming up to the central part of the state where wete have the lowest product gog in, it is unbelievable what can happen. People talkn about Energy Transition. There is no Energy Transition because what we need is energy addition. The world by 2050 is going to need a lot more energy than we have now. We can do all the renewables, although solar and the wind we want but thats got to be on top of what we are already doing to get to the demand flow that we will have. The prices will go up and killed manufacturing while we outsource the Energy Production to others who will do it and the environment will be worse. The best way to do it is to have north dakota thats got the best opportunity of any state to preserve, grow and enhance the good paying jobs in the communities we serve in the oil andga gas country and the farm communities. S. We have an opportunity to benefit more than anybody because of this and we will be doing that and helping the nation become more secure and proprg and help the environment because it will be done cleaner and safer here more w than anywherean else. So, since the beginning of the administration weve always prioritized this approach. Last year marked the significant milestone, incredible. Atrt the Heartland Hydrogen hub selected for the largest grant that north dakota has ever received in the federal government, 925 million from the u. S. Department of energy. I signed on with three fellow governors across the northern tier. We signed a Committee Development in the regional hub that could create jobs and help the carbonized the regional supply chains. And the erc is spearheading this effort with Marathon Petroleum energy and textile energy. Advancing agriculture is the nations demand for highquality lowcost food produced in an increasingly tight labor market so when you have a tight labor market we either increase workforce andit the other way we address the workforce issue is to increase the productivity in one way to do that is through automation and part of the automation is autonomous. So with the opening of the first dedicated to swabian plant in spirit blood and another in castleton, another on the heels we will be processing 75 of the Soybean Production right here at home as opposed to shipping the soybeans out. Thats what we talked about when we said valueadded agriculture. We add value here before it leads to the state. A soybean oil from the plant near jamestown is being shipped to dickinson and turned into Renewable Diesel at refineries. It is a fantastic example how its never been greater. The meal that is produced by the facilities is going to help us get back into the game on Animal Agriculture because what comes off of that swabian male is a fantastic input whether its for turkeys or dairy cattle or finishing. It can help us with our modernized farming laws to attract much more capital. Strengthening the status as the nation, we have invested as a state 130 million since we took office in december of 2016. Investments in the northern tests like to celebrate the tenth anniversary, the first in the nation, the air Traffic Control network for beyond the additional line of site operations for Unmanned Aircraft, these investments translate into innovation highquality jobs for the citizens and for talented the direction from across the country. You have a picture right here. You can see the dust blowing. Those tractors do not have drivers on them. Those are autonomous tractors perfectly down a field. Sometimes the answer is right under our feet and we know theres been discussion to shifting evs, you cant build batteries without Rare Earth Minerals. The nation did a study of where the highest concentration of rarest minerals are, guess where they are, in north dakota, economically we have the ability to extract those Rare Earth Minerals instead of relying on china who control 85 of Rare Earth Minerals. Lithium, cobalt, all of these and above, 20 different minerals, domestic supply is being mined in north dakota thanks to development. We can domestic supply chain when we extract the Rare Earth Minerals, guess what the coal burning cleaner. Helps coal power plants operate efficiently. This is the most powerfulnn example today innovation versus regulation. Others would say lets innovate, create great jobs here at home and decarbonize it so we can have base load. This project here with the Rare Earth Minerals would create new opportunities, new industries to locate. Help diversity Natural Resources and develop supply chain, all oa the things are amazing. North dakota can lead the way here again. Several other gamechanging projects. Half Million Dollar project. They are going to process nickel and other minerals for batteries, raw iron in minnesota and bring do the project here. Our Economic Future unbelievably bright and when we have that, we have the money to invest back intouc infrastructure. We need modern infrastructure and we will continue to invest. Four years ago at 2020 state of the state, we said we are announcing a tenyear infrastructure plan, but i wantt you to know since that report we dedicated with the support of legislature 463 million above federal aid program, most states only do infrastructure on what they get from the fed, fed plus state and thats making a huge impact in townships, roads, bridges across the state. Since the beginning of the administration we have invested over 3 billion into roads. 365 million into bridges and this creates Flexible Fund which supports state and local road networks. Theyve clearly made a difference. Ranked number 2 for infrastructure. People look at infrastructure ratings when they decide if they are going to put capital in a location. I want to thank ron and dot on the great job they are doing there. On the Water Infrastructure side unbelievable because of the wealth that we are investing back in our state in partnership with the legislature. Weve invested 2. 2 billion since 2017 for critical water supply, flood application and general water management. Wouldnt have been possible without transition of thean department of Water Resources under the leadership of our great director andrew, state Water Commission is supposed to allocate 6 million more on critical projects further easing burden on locals and making more resilient. Red river water supply, this is critical to onethird of north dakotas citizens. We are competing with water. We have western states that are trying, theres actually people planting, lets stick a pipe in the Missouri River and ship it to colorado so it goes to Colorado River and goes all the way to california because they are running out of water, we have got to as legislators nausse and red river. We have the get water to northern part of the state. We need to secure the water rights and get those goingoi before other states decide they want to come in and put a giant pipe into the Missouri River and start shipping out water west. We have to take care of business here in north dakota. And speaking and taking care of business, we want to make sure that our state is as friendly as possible when people when businesses interact with the state and so its citizens shouldnt have to come to a hundred different websites to find how to interact with each Different Agency and thats whyi work has begun in the gateway. First of a kind initiatived rather than forcing users to log in separately here for business registration, tax payments, over here for licenses, the business gateway, if a business is in north dakota, they are going to have a single finite. We know their address, we know who the contacts are, and we can make that, when we get done with the business gateway we will do the same thing for citizen gateway. Pay their taxes and dozens of other things they do, we want to make it as simple Consumer Experience for them as possibles red tape reduction i said earlier 50 bills signed by the last legislature, now we want to continue to keep tackling that and again we are launching and encouraging innovation. Again, citizens governormd. Gov. Theres red stape for family, student, business, send us your ideas. We will turn them into legislation. This legislature they did a great job of passing them last j year. P of course, we want to protect our citizens data. Its a moral obligation that we have to do that and thanks to the adoption of ai that we are doing through our team, weve dramatically increased our cybersecurity operation center, its one of the most sophisticated in the country. Theyre responding just last year in 2023 with 4 billion attacks, thats with a b. Automatically we cant take care of all those, 50,000 had to be handled with manual interaction. To be great stewards of citizens data and making sure team members and everybody working with them, we can make sure that we secure the privacy and integrity of the data. To better understand all the risks and benefits of ai the state has gone through partnership with private sector partners more than 60 team members and several agencies have taken part of this program to grow their understanding of ai and also to develop a list of viable project that is can be evaluated for deployment. Some are underway and we can reinvent government, cut red tape and be more productive because the free ai that existed to, some of the free tools speak 26 languages and they can code and i know some agencies said, hey, we didnt get all the ftes we want and every state member is a copilot that can sit next to them and write first drafts of reports, translate documents and help do coding solutions. I mean, the productivity capability and by the way did i mention thats all free. So this is not only create better experiences for citizens but reduce cost of government help. Os keep citizens dollars in their pockets by us being more efficient and delivering services. We want to make north dakota the most attractive place to live, work, play for all citizens. La and we know that whats good for the pocketbook weighs heavily on the decision and to stay here or go to place someplace else. Theyve constantly picked up the tab for decisions for local governments largely without restrictions. I just want to remind people because people are saying property taxes are a problem, the 68th Legislative Assembly buried in the state budget all the things that we already do,ud the water, the roads, the counties, the sewers, the 2 billion that goes to k12. K 5. 5 billion of the states total budget was directed where . To local political subdivision. That number continues to climb, on top of that 5. 5 billion we passed the homestead tax credit which is very popular. Legislature cannot fix north dakota im telling you now legislature cannot fix your local problem with a blanket approach to property taxes because theyre set at the locat level and they vary widely across the state. A mill in one county, one city is wildly different the value of one mill in a different state. We cant do a one size fits all because local valuations and local spending, some local school districts, Park Districts and cities are growing like crazy in terms of their breath,i they are getting wider and bigger faster than their population is growing. Ow they are increasing linear and property taxes go up and the solution is not for us to take someone elses tax dollars and send it to that city and say keep doing what youre doing, you know, you dont give people more of something when they are doing something thats uneconomic, you figure out a way to create constraints so the current and past proposals that socalled eliminate property s taxes, they are just redistribution schemes. They use someone elses tax money to pay another group of taxpayers but the people that are paying dont get to make a decision. Do we really think as a state that we want to have a local political subdivision to be able to order steak, lobster and champagne and somebody has to come and pick up 100 of the tab. Thats not north dakota. That makes no sense. We have begun discussions with legislators and have taken upon themselves to have an interim committee to study the issue. The issue is not subsidy or transfer. The is you want to reduce the hesize of government, design cities an design approaches that actually lower the cost. When we cut income tax in our c state we reduce the amount of money that comes into government and government has to respond by getting smaller. When we send 5. 5 billion to local political subdivisions they go wow, we can in some cases raise their taxes. We have people raising taxes locally right now because they think their taxes might be frozen in certain level. We have provers incentives where people are raising them right now. Any Property Tax Relief that the state does should be targetedie like the 159 million tax. Apply for the residents credit of 500 on your 2024 property tax. At the same time we should focus again what we can control. We can control income taxes. Last year i signed over half a billion dollars of this combined income tax and Property Tax Relief. It included the largest individual tax relief if state history, 358 million, fantastic, thats much income tax ue payers. Guess what, we aree competing, the incremental steps, we are going baby steps. Weve got the revenue, weve got the reserves, we have the ability to do it. We need workforce. Its time for us to say goodbye to north dakota state income tax once and for all. [applause] this is the one tax collected by the state and doesnt vary by county or district, its not relying on local assessments and not relying on political subdivision deciding how much they are going to spend on the edge of their city or new Park District facilities, it doesnt depend on any of that stuff. What their needs are, this is for citizens, this is putting money back directly in someones pocket not transferring money to a political subdivision. Wyoming, texas and alaska, 3 state that is we compete directly for for energy workers, we compete with them, we need to be on a level Playing Field with them. If we had more energy workers, we would have more revenue coming to the state of northou dakota from all or other sources. So that is something that we have to get to. In closing, i just want to state first of all, thank all of you,f i know this has been longer than usual but, wow, have we got we cut half of what people suggested we put in this thing. I left seriously. We did, we cut like 8,000 words the last 3 days, every agency is like this is theay amazing thing we are doing so i want to say thank you for listening through all this but thank you to all the people who submitted stuff that was amazing that we didnt have time for but im closing, i just want to say again north dakota is the best of america. The next time ive got something to ask of you. Implying we are too cold, we are too distant, too populated to make a difference, if someone says that to you, we have to take a different approach instead of us playing along with that, you know, false humility but incredible pride because we joke, oh, yeah, its really cold here but to ourselves they can never make it, we are way tougher than them. I dont even need a coat, its only 20 below. Best place to raise a family. I think we are on that because you know your kids are neverki going to be wimps. They will be able to stand up in the cold. We have to do more believing in ourselves. We have to believe more in ourselves. If you had the opportunity to see the looks around that katherine and i have its not brevada, we are the best in america. Teddy roosevelt said, believe you can and youre half way there. B we are in these dais of factchecking we think that he said that but this is idea of belief, the idea of belief. We are the place where neighbors help neighbors. We honored some of them today First Responders and we are the people where we back the blue and we support the military and we secure our border, we pay our taxes, we help our communities. We approach life in a way where everybody comes together and this really hit me last spring and i know ive got some friends here from slope county and friends and family members. I think they are here today but these are friends that have been friends for 50 years and Robert Hanson who just short of 91 years of age passed away. I was invite today speak at his Memorial Service and think of the 90 years he saw riding a horse to oneroom school and living in a place where there wasnt electricity growing up. All of tin ovation that occurs here that he had seen over his lifetime. And then i was there and they were having a service because big crowd and he had half of polk county was there which was 400 people. Big turnout was there at the slope countyy fairground and i looked back and saw the women that were preparing the food and recognized people from brandings that ive been at and neighbors that had been neighbors of roberts for their whole life and kids of neighbors and grandkids of neighbors and i thought all the Multigenerational Families running to ranches doing the work and coming together every spring during branding, theres so much that goes on in our state that theres no government solution required. Its just people that actually care about their neighbors andy then take action around that and when i look at all of that and i thought to myself when im standing up there and got emotional like i am now, i recognize friends and that i had my for most of my life, wow, this is really is the best of america. We do lead with gratitude because we have so much to be grateful but all of the innovation only when we drive curiosity. I read some on the internet and i know for certain. We have to have curiosity. Check your sources. If someone disagrees with you, be curious about what they think. Talk to people that think about things differently. I used to think that was true but that turns out it isnt true. We have to have some of that and some of the humility has to come for us to be able to heal. Wow, some of that isnt true and some of the things that we thought about, outsourcing our energy to all of our adversaries that dont have bpas and are the greater polluters in the world, hey, the solution is right here but gratitude curiosity humility and then we have to have the courage, theres so many people in this room that have had courage and courage toing on jump into the arena, courage too be able to to serve, to be able to take risks, to run for office, to volunteer, it takes courage to be a participant and in the infamous words of theater roosevelt which live all around us, you to have the courage to be in the arena and i want to thank all of you for that. When we thinkor about the purpoe statement that we set out that we designed when we 7 years ago is one about that we and we get up in State Government and all the people that w work with, state office, cabinet and others elected, people that get up every day, hey, our job as state of north dakota is to make sure that we are empowering people, we are improving their lives and, therefore, inspiring their success. Its been such an honor, this is not a goodbye, you 327 more days of me. This is not a goodbye, its not a farewell. You can count on us to keep chasing the purpose statement for the next 327 days because i know when working together we can empower people, we can improve lives and wepl can inspe success. Thank you, north dakota. Thanks for being here today. 3 years ago democracy faces greatest threat in the civil war and today democracy remains unbound and unbroken. Thursday march seventh, President Biden delivers the annual state of the Union Address during a joint session of congress to outline his priorities for the country, watch our live coverage beginning at 8 00 p. M. Eastern with our Preview Program followed by President Bidens state of the union speech, then the republican response and we will get your reaction by taking your phone call, texts and social media comments. Watch the state of the Union Address live thursday march seventh at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan cspan now mobile video app or online at cspan. Org. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more including buckeye broadband. Buckeye broadband supports cspan as Public Service along th these other Television Providers giving you a frontrow seat to democracy. American history tv saturdays on cspan2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story at 7 00 p. M. Eastern we continue with the series free to choose coproduced by milton freedman. The episode is titled who protects the worker. At 8 00 p. M. Texas Womens University history professor sander talks about the federal governments efforts to explore and control the American West from the early 1800s through the civil war. At 9 30 p. M. Eastern, president gives speech marking can 113th anniversary of Ronald Reagans birth, the former president s legacy and support of poland and the Solidarity Movement also at 10 30 p. M. Eastern on Historic Campaign speeches, first 2008 Campaign Speech by democratic president ial candidate Hillary Clinton at a rally at California State University followed by a 2016 super tuesday speech by republican president ial candidate and florida senator marco rubio in miami. Exploring the american story, watch American History tv saturdays on cspan2 and find a full schedule on your Program Guide or watch online any time at cspan. Org history. And now utah governor gives state of the state address where he talks about tax cuts, homeless and affordability. Hes seeking a second term in 2024. His address is about 30 minutes