The Weekly Top 3
The Weekly Top 3
The Weekly Top 3 (12.16.2024)
Welcome to The Weekly Top 3 — our look at the top 3 things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets — for the week of December 16, 2024, our last show of 2024.
This week, our top 3 issues are these: 1) we explain why, by completely ignoring an important statute, Dunleavy is failing in his responsibility to “protect the economic stability of the state” (2:25), 2) we discuss our big takeaway from the Fall Revenue Sources Book: while producers clearly are benefitting from SB 21, the statute is failing miserably to allocate a fair share of revenues to the state (19:48), and 3) we look at recent developments in the Cook Inlet, where Enstar is openly seeking a state subsidy to reduce its gas costs but Chugach Electic commendably is moving forward with market solutions (37:56).
And as befits an end-of-year show, after we finish those, Michael and I add one more segment to briefly summarize what we see as the biggest issue facing the state at the end of 2024 as we look ahead to the beginning and upcoming session of 2025 (55:35).
The Weekly Top 3 is a regular weekly segment on The Michael Dukes Show. The Show broadcasts on Facebook and YouTubeLive as well as via streaming audio from the Show’s website weekdays from 6–8am. We join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday’s show, from 6:25–7am, for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues.
Hi, this is Brad Keithley, managing Director of Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Welcome to the Weekly Top Three the top three things on our mind here at Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets for the week of December 16th 2024, our last episode of the Weekly Top Three this year. The Weekly Top Three is a regular segment on the Michael Duke Show. The show broadcasts on both Facebook Live and YouTube Live as well as via streaming audio from the show's website weekdays from 6 to 8 am. I join Michael weekly in the first hour of Tuesday's show from 6 10 to 7 am for a discussion between the two of us about our three issues. We post the podcast of our discussion following the show on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets Facebook, youtube, soundcloud, spotify and Substack pages. Also on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets website, as well as the projects page on national blog site mediumcom, you can find past episodes of the weekly top three also at the same locations. Keep in mind that, in addition to these podcasts during the week, you can also follow and participate in the discussion with us of these and other issues affecting Alaska's fiscal and economic condition by following us on the Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets Facebook page and through our posts on Twitter.
Speaker 1:This week. Our top three issues are these First, we explain why, by completely ignoring an important statute, governor Dunleavy is failing in his responsibility to protect the economic stability of the state. Second, we discuss our big takeaway from the Fall Revenue Sources book. While producers clearly are benefiting from SB21, in the current environment the statute is failing miserably to allocate a fair share of revenues to the state. And third, we look at recent developments in the Cook Inlet, where NSTAR is openly seeking a state subsidy to reduce its gas costs, but Chugach Electric is moving forward with market solutions. And now let's join Michael solutions.
Speaker 2:And now let's join Michael. Let's get started, because Brad has got a ton of stuff to dump on us from a great height. Let's get started. Brad, you did a preview last week of the governor's what you thought the governor's budget was going to look like, what you thought the full revenue was going to look like, and uh oof, it could be even worse. Let's get started here. Number one of the weekly top three the problem with Dunleavy's budget. Let's uh be gentle with me, brad, be gentle.
Speaker 1:I can't be gentle, michael. It's going to be lumps of coal. It has been lumps of coal. Yeah, it has been for years. Yeah, it's going to be lumps of coal. It has been lumps of coal. Yeah, it has been for years. Yeah, to some degree, to some degree. To me, the fall revenue forecast and the fall budget and the 10-year plan are Christmas, and this year for Christmas it was just a giant dump of lumps of coal.
Speaker 1:Let me start by reading a statute, and this is AS 3707020. It's in the. The title of it is Duties of the Governor. It's in the fiscal section of the Alaska statutes entitled Duties of the Governor. This is 3707020B. In addition to the budget and bills submitted under A of this section, which is the annual budget and the budget bills, the governor shall submit a fiscal plan with plan must balance sources and uses of funds held while providing for essential state services and protecting the economic stability of the state. And the purpose of this statute is to have a 10-year forward look at where the state's fiscal situation is headed and, if it's, and the governor has a responsibility to provide for a balanced budget, essentially for those 10 years forward, so that the administration, the legislature, citizens, permanent fund board, everybody can have a look forward at where the state is headed and what it's going to take over the course of those 10 years to protect these are key words protect the economic stability of the state.
Speaker 1:You know Dunleavy's fond of saying well, the governor in Alaska has great power, he's managed not to use it. But Dunleavy's fond of saying the governor in Alaska has great power and he does. I mean it's recognized throughout the nation that Alaska has one of the most powerful governors in terms of his line item, veto power and other things. One of the most powerful positions, gubernatorial positions in the state. But with great power comes great responsibility and in this statute the governor has the responsibility must balance sources and uses of funds while providing for essential state services and protecting the economic stability of the state.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the governor's got to lead. The governor's got to lead. The governor's got. He doesn't have to actually do anything. He just has to put together a plan that shows what it's going to take in order to preserve the economic stability of the state. Key phrase preserve the economic stability of the state. All he has to do is put out a plan. He doesn't even have to lobby for it. He doesn't have to push it, he doesn't have to do anything. He just has to put out a plan that shows what it will take to preserve the economic stability of the state.
Speaker 1:So the governor's 10-year plan comes out last week, released on last Thursday, and this is what it shows.
Speaker 1:It released on last Thursday and this is what it shows. It shows a deficit this year, a deficit next year, a deficit the year following, a deficit the year following that, following that, following that, following that All 10 years of deficits and it relies on the CBR draws from the CBR which, frankly, at this point, the CBR has just passed PFD cuts that have been stuffed into the CBR by Burt and Company along the way. It's not really savings anymore, it's just additional PFD cuts that got made. He relies on the CBR to balance the budget, to preserve the economic stability of the state. But guess what? You look at the 10-year plan and it runs out of the CBR in three years and in the fourth year fiscal year 2028, this is a 10-year plan. It goes from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2035. In the fourth year fiscal year 2028, the CBR doesn't have enough to cover the deficit anymore. The CBR goes into the red and it stays in the red until FY35. There's no plan to preserve the economic stability of the state.
Speaker 2:That doesn't sound very stable to me, brad. I mean it doesn't sound very stable. It's like there's a hole in the boat and we're not patching the hole, we're just bailing. And the hole is getting bigger than we can bail. That sounds very stable.
Speaker 1:And Michael, this isn't discretionary. I mean, dunleavy and others are fond of saying, you know, the word on the PFD is shall distribute. This isn't discretionary. This is a statute that says this is a responsibility of the governor. That's what the title of the section says Responsibility of the governor must submit a plan that must balance sources of uses of funds while providing for essential state services and protecting the economic stability of the state.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't do it. I mean, I don't know what impeachment is for, but if a governor just blatantly ignores a statute that says must in it that he must do something, and it's not even action, it's just give a plan that shows how you at least think about preserving the economic stability of the state. And his plan shows he doesn't. He's just, you know, give me three more years, get me through by term, and then you know we talk about Gary Stevens legislating for his last two years and then he's out of here. And so you know what's he doing? Well, dunleavy's doing this exact same thing, except he ran for an office that has the responsibility of proposing a plan that preserves the economic stability of the state. And he doesn't do it these.
Speaker 2:But he has the power to do it right. He has the power and the responsibility to do it. He can do it. I mean, once he's done it, he's done his duty. They have to fight over it. At least he could provide a plan that was actually workable and stable and fiscally responsible exactly right, michael.
Speaker 1:I mean he could, he could show cuts in here and I mean he could show cuts and that would at least be a plan that balanced. He could show all sorts of things and that would at least. But he doesn't show any of it and these numbers are staggering, staggering. The deficit this coming year is $1.5 billion. This is Dunleavy's own plan and we know the spending levels that he includes in this plan aren't going to be realistic spending levels. The legislature is going to pass more and he's going to sign more.
Speaker 1:The deficit in his plan, with artificially low spending levels, is $1.5 billion this coming year FY26, then $1.2, then $1.5, then $1.7, then $1.8, then $1.7, then $1.8, then $1.7, then $1. You get the idea. The total over the period, the total deficits he runs over the period are in excess of $12 billion or in excess of $15 billion. Actually, the total, the level of the CBR that he relies on to balance the budget over this period, to show that he's preserving the economic stability of the state, the balance of the CBR at the end of the period is minus $12 billion.
Speaker 2:Wait, isn't the CBR supposed to have like $1 to $2 billion in it just for cash flow purposes? Dona just mentioned that. How can you draw it down and then still have the state operate?
Speaker 1:Well it does. This plan is useless. Useless. It's a violation of his statutory obligation. It's a violation of his responsibility and abdication of his responsibilities. Governor.
Speaker 1:I don't know about others, but I voted for Dunleavy originally in 2008, because he talked the talk on bringing fiscal responsibility to the state, being a fiscally responsible governor, and, yes, in his first year he tried that through cuts, but, you know, the legislature rejected the cuts. The governor, you know, caved and didn't make the cuts. And, yes, he didn't get the cuts done, but that doesn't mean he somehow, magically didn't become governor anymore. He stayed governor and he got reelected as governor, running as a fiscally responsible conservative. He is anything but, and you know, the additional thing that gets me about this is the lack of outrage in the legislature. I mean, we've got conservatives in the legislature who say that they're fiscal conservatives and who say that we're there for a balanced budget. We're there for taking care of business. We've got a house majority that's been cobbled together that says one of our four principles is a balanced budget. We're going to preserve it. Neither one of these guys, neither one of that, neither one on either side, in either body, have I heard significant complaints about the governor's failure even to live up to his responsibility, to have a plan to preserve the economic stability of the state for the last, for the 10-year period covered by the plan.
Speaker 1:It is an abdication of responsibility, it is a violation of statute, it is just. It's being the captain of the boat, the captain of the ship. I got elected captain of the ship and we're headed right for the iceberg. And I don't want to be captain anymore. I just, you know, I want to keep the title of captain, I want to, you know, go on hunting trips. I want to pal around with the president, I want to do all, but I just don't want to actually run the boat anymore, you know. And so it's headed right for the iceberg. You can see the iceberg, you can see that there are ways to avoid the iceberg. He just doesn't want it and I and I, I cannot.
Speaker 1:I'm trying you're trying to hold it together yeah, I mean no, no, I cannot express how frustrating, how disappointing, how how horrifying it is not to even show a plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fiction, it's 100 fiction. At this point, I mean, it's just pretend numbers that you throw out there and you know, not even, not even a balanced, objectively balanced, in any way it's not.
Speaker 1:It's not. It's not fiction, it's actually. The problem is it's actual truth. It's not even the real. It's not even as bad as the truth is in terms of where these deficits are headed. Because of, because of its, because, because he represses the spending levels. It's not even as bad as as as as as the actual truth is. He's not even trying. Fiction would be. I mean, a couple years ago, what was the carbon credits? The carbon credits were going to save us, right? Yeah, that was, that was fiction. That was fiction. Okay, all right, I got it.
Speaker 2:That was fiction. This, this is total abdication. I mean, brad, it's, you know. What I don't understand is that you know, know, he's a lame duck, he can't get reelected. So who is he afraid of making mad? I mean, why doesn't he just put out a reasonable, responsible, hey and, and you know, we've got to cut, we've got to do this, we've got to do that. Now it's in your hands. I've given you the working blueprint, now it's. Why hasn't he even done that? I mean, he's, he's, he's not like he's going to get reelected for that. I mean, is he so focused on the bigger offices that he just doesn't want to make people mad? I just don't understand it at all.
Speaker 1:You know, a couple of years ago, a couple of years ago, when he got reelected, we we had a segment where we sort of talked about how Dunleavy views use the future and we said there were we. We said there were two different ways to sort of view it. One was to to to become jay hammond, to set a policy for the, for alaska's future. To be a statesman, be a, be a, be a policymaker and be remembered as the guy who put alaska back together again after bill walker built sean barnell and bill walker tore it down. Well, sarah Palin, sean Barnell, bill Walker tore it down and and be remembered as the guy who really brought us back together again.
Speaker 1:The other was the other road was he's going to run against Lisa and he's not going to do anything that that impedes that run against Lisa and setting him up for the run against Lisa. He may have actually chosen the third, third road, and the third road is just to destroy your reputation, cause I wouldn't vote for the guy for Senate Now. I wouldn't vote for him against Lisa. No, I mean, come on, we want to send a guy who can't even fill out a spreadsheet with a plan. We want to send him to the United States Senate. Nah, I'm done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean it's very frustrating. I mean there was high hopes that he would look at this and understand. His previous three 10 year forecasts all showed these deficits. We could see it. We could see what was happening. We knew what the outcome of the election was. So we knew that energy production was going to ramp up, which meant fewer dollars for oil. I mean, we knew all these things were happening.
Speaker 2:Why wouldn't you have a contingency that said you know, here's what it is. And again, I've said this from time, he has got the worst messaging of almost any governor that I've seen in the country. Definitely one of the worst messagings of any governor in the state, in state history. But he just cannot put that stuff, he can just not get his ideas across. And you know, the worst thing he did was when they fired Donna because she was at least trying to hold them to reality on this part. And he's just, and he's just like. Ever since then he's like just divorced himself from it and said no, I'm not going to go through that again. Um and again, he's, he's lame duck.
Speaker 2:What does it matter what you want to? You want to stir up. You want to stir up the conservatives. You want to stir up the people who are for smaller, more limited government, who were, who were his base? Why don't you show them that you have the chops to do it? And again, all you had to do is present the plan. You didn't have to drag it across the finish line, you know you let the legislature fight it out and take the heat on it, but now who knows what's going to?
Speaker 1:happen. He could have come up with three plans, michael. He could have come up with this is how we're going to fill it from a revenue standpoint, this is how we're going to fill it from a cut standpoint. And this is what happens if we don't do either of those, which is crash, totally crash and burn. He could have provided alternative plans and that would have satisfied the statute. This doesn't, but he could have provided alternative plans. He could have said look, this is the future. We're at an inflection point. This is the future. We either have to have additional revenues and this is my proposal for fiscally responsible, conservative cuts, or this is this is where we go if we don't and we don't want to go there, because that is not taking care of Alaska's economic future, that's not maintaining the economic stability of the state. He didn't do any of that. He just said let's go to the crash and burn. Yeah, and it's just.
Speaker 2:And and it's just, it's infuriating. I can, I mean Brad, I can see you're vibrating. I mean that's it's, I mean you, you, you look at it and you go. How, how can you, as an adult, say this is okay? It's the same question I'm asking all the legislators. How can you look at this and go? This is fine, fine, just fine. The house is on fire around you. This is fine, fine, just fine. The house is on fire around you. How can it just be? Just fine. It can't Welcome back to the program. The weekly top three continues. We have to peel Brad away from number one. Don't leave these problems with the budget because, oof man, but Brad got a chance to take a look at the fall revenue book, the forecast and everything else that the governor supposedly has built this plan off of, and he has found some things. He's got a big takeaway here, brad.
Speaker 1:He has built it on the fall revenue sources book, which is, which is revenues keep revenues keep going down and and and he's he's at least at least had that reality. It just shows that the state's crashes and burns If you, if you, if you keep going, you keep going down that reality. It just shows that the state crashes and burns if you keep going down that road. There is one big takeaway from the Fall Revenue Sources book. There's a lot of information in the Fall Revenue Sources book. We'll be talking about it for shows and shows and shows, I'm sure. But there's one big takeaway from the Fall Revenue Sources book and it's one that I had really, you know, had seen coming in previous sources, in previous revenue forecasts, in last year's fall revenue forecast and in the spring forecast. But I thought when we added an additional year, we might be turning the corner and we might be seeing something different. But we're not. The succinct version of this segment is SB21 is a failure. Sb21, going forward in the current economic environment, is a failure, and the reason for that is this SB21 was to do three things. The first was to attract additional oil and gas investment into the state, and that was the first purpose. The second purpose was, through that investment, to build up production in the state oil production in the state. And the third purpose from that increased oil production was to have increased state revenues to strengthen the economic stability of Alaska's state base going forward and to re-inflate the role that oil revenues traditionally had played in Alaska state revenues. It achieved the first purpose. It achieved bringing additional investment to the state. It has achieved the second purpose, which is to increase production. If you look at the new fall revenue forecast, production increases between 2024, using fiscal year 2024 as the base the last year for which we have results as the base and fiscal year 34, looking 10 years. Over that period. It increases production 20%. Over that period it goes from 461,000 barrels a day to 657,000 barrels a day by the end of the period. It goes from 461,000 barrels a day to 657,000 barrels a day by the end of the period. It achieves that purpose but it does not in any realm, does not achieve the third purpose which is, through the increased investment as a result of the increased production, as a result of the increased production, increase state revenues from oil. In the same period that production is rising by 20% from the 461,000 barrels a day in 2024 to the projected 657,000 barrels in 2029, in the same period it's doing that revenues from oil, from oil production which is really two parts production tax and royalty revenue from oil production drops over that same period. That production's increasing by 20%. Revenue from oil production drops 23%. It goes revenue from oil production goes from production tax and royalty combined goes from $2.1 billion down to $1.6 billion over the period by FY34, revenue from oil is at $1.6 billion, a 23% decline.
Speaker 1:And the problem is in the way SB21 operates. There's a lot of particulars about it. I can go into it at some point. I'll probably go into it in a column in the landmine. Well, I have gone into it in a column in the landmine over the last few months. I'll probably go into it again more deep. But the problem is the way SB21 operates in the current environment. Sb21 operated well, frankly, in the last decade attracting investment, maintaining, stabilizing production and beginning to build for future production. But in the current environment it is operating abysmally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that slide shows it. On the left is the increase from production. Actually, the change in production itself is 42%. The change in gross revenues accounting for oil price, the increase is 20% and you can see where the problem is. Royalties stay relatively stable over the time period. They decline a little bit as we move from state lands into federal lands. Revenues from royalty decline by 5%. It's the production tax that's cratering over that period and production tax. You can't excuse that by saying we're going into federal lands, because production tax applies both to state lands equally, both to state lands and to federal lands. So it's not the move into federal lands that's causing the reduction in production tax, it's the problems that are is increasing but revenues are going down is because of the decline in oil prices.
Speaker 1:Well, when you adjust on the producer side, when you take production times, oil price to determine gross revenues, you can see that the increase in production is outstripping the effect of the fall of the drop in oil prices and revenues from oil. Gross revenues from oil are going up dramatically over the period 20.4%. But the state's take, the state's share of that revenue, is dropping dramatically over the period. Production tax drops by 44%. Overall UGF revenues from production tied to production production and tax and royalty is declining by 23% a compound annual growth rate or negative rate of 2.6% over that period.
Speaker 1:This ties back to the first segment of the governor doesn't have a plan for how to close the deficits. This is telling you. The fall revenue forecast is screaming at you, telling you part of the plan is go in and adjust SB21 so that the third leg of the purpose of SB 21, which is to increase state revenues as production increases, so that that third leg operates, so that Alaskans get a share of the benefit of the increase in production that SB 21 is producing. The fall revenue forecast is screaming at you that that's part of the solution. Here's what I think is happening.
Speaker 1:You know, in pre-2017, when we started drawing into the permanent fund and started PFD cuts in order to supplement the state budget, if we had seen this, we would have said God, we got to fix the oil tax.
Speaker 1:We got to fix the oil tax. We got to fix the oil tax situation Because look at the decline in revenues relative to the increase in production and the increase in gross revenues that the producers are receiving. God, we got to fix this. What's happened since 2017 is this problem with SB21, which we've seen coming now, over the last three revenue books, four revenue books, which we've seen coming. This problem is masked by the ability of the legislature to do PFD cuts. Because what's happening is, even though SB 21 is becoming a disaster over this period and we can see it's becoming a disaster over this period Nobody's doing anything because they know they'll be able to cover it through additional PFD cuts. And and they're masking the failure of the state to to, to achieve the constitutional obligation of ensuring that the state's, the development of the state's resources, resources is for the maximum benefit of the people. It's masking the responsibility of legislators and of the governor to go correct this problem because they're saying, well, we'll just cover it through additional PFD cuts.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say. The worst part about this is that we could see that we're at a 23% 10-year change 23% reduction in overall revenues. And yet the one thing that's not on this chart for people who can't see it on the radio, but the one thing that's not here is that we know in that same 10-year period that government is going to grow at a minimum of $150 million a year. So not only are we going to be, in 10 years, a billion and a half dollars further into the hole than we are right now, we're also going to be twenty three point four percent less on the revenue side from oil, which will have to be made up somewhere, right, I mean somebody that's got to be paid for somehow.
Speaker 1:And we're a billion and a half dollars more in the hole somehow and we're a billion and a half dollars more in the hole. And you can look the the the right hand column, uh on the on the chart is the total state revenues, uh, ugf revenues from production tied to production, production tax and royalty. And you can see that the change in the actual number, the change in the in the revenue number from fy 24 down to fy 34 is about 500 million dollars. So we know, we know there's five at least. 2024 was not a stellar year. I mean, we already have problems with SB21, you can see in 2024, but let's just take that as the base. Even using FY24 as the base, we're $500 million down Down. That's not adjusted for inflation, that's nothing. That's just $500 million less in revenue from oil production by FY34.
Speaker 1:So you can see, that's part of the solution. It's screaming at you. If the Fall Revenue Sources book could speak, it would be screaming. This is part of the solution, gang. You're going to have to piece a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit over there, but this is part of the solution, gang. You have to piece a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit over there, but this is part of the solution. I mean it's telling you production's going up, gross revenues from production are going up. The drop in the price of oil is being overcome, more than overcome by the increase in production. Production's going up, gross revenues are going up and yet state take from those revenues is going down.
Speaker 1:I did a calculation. This is going to be Friday's column. I did a calculation that showed we're at about 12% production taxes, about 12% of gross revenues Currently. It's less than 9%. No, it's less than 7% by 2035. It's just we're giving away. The state has assets right and we're monetizing those assets to support state government and we're essentially giving those assets away at a discount price because we will not correct the problems.
Speaker 2:A finite asset, an asset that's not going to renew. I mean, once you give it away, it's done, and that's part of the problem. If you want to see all these charts and Brad does we put charts up for folks who are watching on Facebook and YouTube. You can always go back and watch the show on those channels and take a look at the charts there, and I'm sure Brad will also include these charts in his Friday column in the landmine as well. I think Jeannie has got a new. She's got a new branding statement for us the charts, oh doom. The charts, oh doom. That's a. It's kind of where they're at. Although I did love Anthony, I think he wins the internet today. He said ha, seeing which way the state is moving forward. That's like sitting in the passenger seat of a runaway truck on fire and headed off the side of a cliff asking the unconscious driver where are we headed, bud? That's kind of where we're at right now. I mean, that's just kind of the. It seems like that's the answer, brad. Nobody knows, nobody. Fred.
Speaker 1:Nobody knows, nobody cares. Charts of doom. That's Dunleavy's chart, I'm with you. I mean, that's the 10-year plan is doom. He has no plan other than to run us off the road. And you know, with the responsibility of coming up with a plan, no, I'm not going to go back to do segment one again.
Speaker 2:He wants to, so bad.
Speaker 1:He wants to, but it's just. I mean, Michael Dunleavy is showing where we could go. He has the responsibility to show us the alternatives to that, how we survive where we're otherwise at. He doesn't do that, but there are ways out there that get us over this hump, that strike a way forward for the state that enables it to survive Part of it's spending cuts, but part of it is going back in and fixing SB21, fixing that third leg of SB21, ensuring the state gets a share of the benefit. I mean the states essentially paid a piece of this in terms of reducing oil taxes so that investors would come and so that investors would build up production. But the third part of that was once investors build up production, once production build up, the state would benefit. And now we're seeing clearly that under the way SB21 operates in this environment, that's not happening.
Speaker 2:And is there the will? Do you think to even talk about oil taxation? I know some of the Democrats want to, but I know people like Chuck Kopp, who's part of the majority in the House. He's said oh no, we can't. You know he's got clients that you know he wants. So I mean, is it even going to be a talking point?
Speaker 1:Maxine Diver is in an interesting spot. Maxine Divert is in an interesting spot. Maxine Divert is going to be chair of house resource, co-chair of house resources with Robin Burke I think it is from the North Slope who will be the other co-chair. But Maxine Divert's in an interesting spot. She talks about her district is a district that is middle and lower income. Her district is working Alaska families. She talks about wanting to take care of working Alaska families and redeveloping the state that takes care of working Alaska families. She's in a key spot. House resources is where this should start. House resources is where we should start digging into SB21 and fixing SB21. That's where we fixed ACES. That's where the efforts of fix ACES started in house resources. That's where we fixed ACES. That's where the efforts of fix ACES started in house resources. That's where it should start. And if she's truly concerned about working Alaska families, she should be at the cutting edge of this.
Speaker 1:But here's the problem. The problem is the oil companies will push back and the legislators will go. Do I want to take on this battle when I've got you know, still got PFDs out there? I can continue to cut and mask this problem and mask this giveaway through additional PFD cuts, and both the House majority and, to some degree, the House well, to a large degree, the House minority are just letting that happen. Is letting that happen? They're letting this situation with oil go on, and on, and on, and on and on, because they know, at the end of the day, they can mask the problem by through additional, through additional PFD cuts. It's a long answer is no.
Speaker 2:I don't think there is the will, because they're using PFD cuts to cover, right, but that's eventually I mean again, it's eventually going to go away. I mean, you know, $500 PFDs next year. I mean maybe, depending on what's going on, we're a billion and a half dollars plus in the hole 1.6, maybe close to 1.7 by the time we actually get there and we figure out what the supplemental is going to be from 2025. From 2025, that could be. I'm hearing rumors that could be upwards of $200 million. So we're already upside down. That means they're going to take more of the PFD. I mean, how many more years does this continue, Brad, have you done an estimate of when the PFD if at the current spending rates and with all the things and bells and whistles they want to add in, have you done the math on when that PFD would essentially run dry?
Speaker 1:I've done some calculations on it. It sort of assumes about sort of depends on what you assume the growth rate of the permanent fund is. If the permanent fund gets back up and going and gets rolling again, it can throw off. It'll throw off enough cash in terms of the POMV that it can keep the state covered for a while longer. If the permanent fund doesn't, the permanent fund stays sort of stuck where it is, then by the end of the 10-year period we're definitely through the end of the PFD.
Speaker 2:Rick says Brad, you need to tell all this to the governor, or maybe you should be governor and straighten all this mess out. Brad Keithley for governor. You heard it here first. Folks, that'd be educational. That would be educational for sure. Brad Keithley continues with us Alaskans for sustainable budgets. We're into the final weekly top three of 2024. Yes, that's right, I'm giving you a reprieve for the rest of the year. Why? Because it hurts so bad. I mean, he doesn't mean it to, but sometimes the truth hurts. That's what it's all about. Number three of the weekly top three has to do, of course, with South Central Gas, and we've got some problems here. Nstar continues to dither and do some theater-type stuff and everything else. We talked a little bit about that last week with their new contract with HEX, and Brad, I'm sure, is going to touch on that. But also Chugach seems to be doing the right thing, chugach Electric. So we've got dueling utilities here, one doing the right thing, one not necessarily stepping up to the plate. Brad, go ahead.
Speaker 1:So N-Star has this new contract with FURY or HEX or yeah, fury.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, it was FURY, not HEX, my bad.
Speaker 1:Fury is a subsidiary of HEX, so it's the operating subsidiary of HEX, so you can use the two terms interchangeably and the new contract was touted at a House Resources Committee meeting Was that last week or this week? They're all running to get out last week at a House Resources Committee meeting as being part of the solution to the state's gas problem. Nstar has entered this new contract with FURY and it's going to provide a significant share of gas. All of which is true if Fury actually comes up with the gas, if it actually finds gas. But all of which is true. But my focus is on the price.
Speaker 1:Fury has made a big deal out of the fact that it needs royalty relief in order to produce. You know it has to have royalty relief and they pushed the legislature to have statutory royalty relief, notwithstanding the fact that DNR already has the authority to give royalty relief. They wanted to sort of bypass DNR because they had to actually show numbers to DNR about why they needed royalty relief. They can just go to the legislature, they can just get away with it without having to show the numbers to DNR. And so they've made this big push for royalty relief. My point all the way along is we shouldn't be subsidizing. The state shouldn't be subsidizing the cocculent producers. Nstar has the perfect ability to provide the economics sufficient for Fury to develop these resources by paying more If it costs more to produce the gas and Star should pay more to get the gas. We should have true price signals coming through from the production end to the consumer so the consumer knows how much it's costing to produce the additional gas the consumer wants. And if the consumer says that's too much, they can push back our NSTAR or they can invest in other methods to reduce their obligation or reduce their payments for gas. They can do conservation approaches, invest in conservation. But my point has been we need to have this true price signal. We should not be subsidizing.
Speaker 1:So NSTAR enters into this contract with Furey and the contract with Furey, they say, is for $12.30. But when you read the article that is in the Anchorage Daily News describing what this contract really says, here's what the end of the article says Fury's price for gas would be $13.69 without royalty relief under the new contract. Sims said, and Instar's willing to pay, that Instar's entered into a contract that says we will pay you $13.69 for your gas if you don't get royalty relief. Fury's price would be blended with prices for Instar's full gas supply. If Fury receives royalty relief, then the price would fall to $12.30.
Speaker 1:Essentially, what's going on is, while Fury is the one claiming that they need royalty relief, the beneficiary of royalty relief granted by the DNR would be NSTAR, because it would drop Fury's price from the price that NSTAR is willing to pay of $13.69. It would drop that price, the full royalty relief. You can do the calculation and see it. The full royalty relief would be flowed through to NSTAR and reduce NSTAR's price from the $13.69 per MCF down to the $12.30 per MCF. So the royalty relief that DNR is being asked to give FURY is actually a subsidy, is going to end up being a subsidy to NSTAR's rate payers. Who's going to pay that subsidy? The whole state. It's going to come out of additional PFD cuts, right, right. So?
Speaker 2:people in Fairbanks, people in Fairbank, people in Dillingham, people in Nome people in Bethel are going to be paying a portion of the subsidy to make MSTAR's price cheaper. Yeah Well, and the one thing that you didn't mention was that the current price I mean even at $12 and 30 cents, which would be the price with the subsidies I mean that's still a 35% increase over where they're at right now. I mean, it's just like it's, you know. And if all that, all that subsidy and royalty relief, only drops the price by a buck 30, I mean, how much are they going to start asking for to make it equal? What the what the you know what the market price is? I mean, come on, this is it's, it's insane. You can't just and here's the other thing that got me real quick on this contract.
Speaker 2:I know you want to go on with this, but what killed me was that they mentioned early on in the article Cook Inlet only has a 9% success rate in drilling exploration wells that have actually yielded commercial gas discovery. Nine different wells here in the next. I mean you're betting a lot on luck at this point. You're betting a lot on luck If you're going to get one in 10 and you're drilling less than 10 wells.
Speaker 1:You better hope you hit a gusher somewhere in there. Here's another thing, michael that $13, the true price, the $13.69, the price before subsidy, before statewide subsidy, the true no-transcript higher than the LNG, the imported LNG, to the projected imported LNG price. So not only are we paying more for Cook Inlet Gas, we're paying more than we would with imported LNG. Nstar just doesn't want to face up to reality and they want the state to subsidize their ability to avoid reality by the state taking on a portion of the cost of this additional supply. You, me, people in Nome, people in Bethel, people in Dillingham, people in Fairbanks, people on the North Slope they want people statewide to take on the cost of some of this additional supply that they're getting Now. So that's NSTAR, subsidize me, subsidize me, subsidize me.
Speaker 1:Against that, we've got Chugach and Chugach Electric and Chugach, the leadership, the executive leadership, arthur Miller and Mark Wiggin wrote an op-ed in this weekend's ADN. The title of it is Planning for South Central's Alaska Natural Gas Supply Future and Beyond, or this winter and beyond. And it's refreshing in the sense that we actually have somebody. We don't have a governor who's dealing with reality. We don't have a legislature that's dealing with reality. We don't have NSTAR who's dealing with reality. It's just subsidized me, give me more government money. It's refreshing that Chugach, at least at this point, seems to be dealing with reality itself In the article.
Speaker 1:Here's the key paragraph we need a bridging fuel supply for the 40% of our natural gas, chugach's natural gas supply that comes from our Hillcourt contract and that fuel one sentence, and that fuel is imported liquefied natural gas, the best LNG solution, and confidential negotiations with potential partners and suppliers are ongoing, with decisions expected soon. They'd stepped up to reality. Instead of saying bail me out, bail me out, bail me out, give producers money, give the AKLNG project $10 billion to build their white elephant. Instead of saying bail me out, bail me out, bail me out, they're stepping up the reality, saying cook in on supply isn't there. If it is there, look at Hillcorp. It's even more expensive than imported LNG. We're going to use imported LNG as our bridging fuel. Thank you very much. Period, end of statement. And go on and deal with light. And I got to say that's refreshing to see a utility stepping up and saying we're going to deal with reality, as opposed to pleading for somebody else to bail us out of our problems it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know and it is. It is great to see somebody actually embrace this idea, and we talked a little bit last week about why you thought maybe NSTAR and John Sims was not dealing with it. He may have bigger aspirations for public office and doesn't want to be the guy that imports LNG, yada, yada, yada. But at some point you got to be like, hey, we got to do what we got to do. You can't just keep kicking the can down the road and spend a whole nother legislative session. The governor's already said he's not a fan of subsidies on this stuff, you know, I mean, he's a fan of subsidies, just not on this particular one, I guess. So do you spend the whole session doing it and then in May find out that he vetoes it? I mean, you've got to get on it now. 2027 is when the decline is projected to happen. We got less than two years to get LNG imported and get things stood up, and again at least Chugach is stepping up to the plate and acknowledging that this is the problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am hopeful that the legislature this session will say, ok, yeah, there is a solution. Chugach has identified it. It's a market solution. It's a solution that is within the control of the utilities. They're the ones on the front lines to deal with it. Chugach is dealing with it, fine, no need for additional legislative interference. My concern is we're going to have people go down to the legislature and get on their soapbox and say, oh, my God, we got to have Alaska gas, so've got to subsidize the Cook Inlet, as we've already seen NSTAR asking for. We've got to subsidize AKLNG, as we've already seen AKLNG asking for. We've got to do this, we've got to do that. No, the market's actually taking care of it, guys, and particularly for Republicans who claim to be free market fiscal conservatives, let the market take care of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, chugach is taking care, chugach has stepped up and let go of those emotional bonds, let go of the emotion of the moment and just do what's right for Alaskans at this point. You know, brad, I have been asking every legislator that I could get a hold of and get my hands on here on the show and off the show about this idea of you know. Have you and this is before the governor's budget came out have you seen the 10 year forecast? Do you see that we're in deficits and they all go? Oh yeah, we're all you know it's.
Speaker 2:So you know it's, and I'm like how do you address that in the legislature? You're, you're, and of course, the short answer is PFD cuts, obviously. But then my question becomes more education spending, more you know different and and bolstered retirement plans for defined benefits and and and maybe a subsidy for the how, how do we pay for it and how is it sustainable and what, what is? And just nobody has an answer. It's kind of like this shell shocked well, you know it's going to be what it's going to be, and somebody's got to be the adult in the room down there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, chugach. Fortunately Chugach is becoming the adult in the room in the cookie land and my hope is I mean Chugach is pursuing a market solution. My hope is that the legislature lets the market work, that they don't try to interfere with the goddamn market with all these subsidies. They let the market work and Chugach is showing the direction that goes In terms of. I will bet you, I will bet you, if you ask the same legislators to name the top five issues or the top three issues, out-migration would be one of those issues that they would say, oh, we got issues. Out-migration would be one of those issues that they would say, oh, we got to solve out-migration. And then, when you ask them on the fiscal stamp, from the fiscal perspective, how are you going to resolve these budget deficits? And they say PFD cuts.
Speaker 1:What they're doing is they're undercutting the very people that they're trying to attract. They are taking money out of the pockets, diverting money out of the pockets of the middle income Alaskans that you're trying to attract, or trying to retain and attract in order to deal with the out-migration problem. You're taking money out of their pockets. You're making that out-migration problem worse, that out-migration problem worse. So they think they're solving one problem with PFDCUS. They think they're about to bounce the budget for a while and they'll solve it through that way, but they're making another and potentially an even bigger problem in terms of out-migration. They're making that problem worse with the solution they're coming up with for the fiscal problem. We don't have people who are thinking economically. As much as Republicans like to say they're a free market, as much as they like to say they think about the economy, as much as they like to say the economy is the driver, they don't think about it. They think in segments that ultimately result in undoing the economy.
Speaker 2:You really hit the high point though there in the moment when you said, oh, they think they can just cut the PFD to basically keep it up for a while, and that's the problem. Are they not looking beyond what happens when that money runs out? I mean, this is the Alaska legislative disease kicking the can down the road. It's a problem, but that's a problem for future me or future other legislator I don't have to deal with. As long as everybody gets happy while I'm here, I'm okay. They're not thinking about what does it mean in five years, in 10 years, in 20 years? What you know? What are we going to have to do to get our fiscal house in order? And I do.
Speaker 2:I have to laugh when they talk about this out migration. You are contributing to the out migration. You know we talk about the doom loop right of a set number of people. You know spreading the cost and burden over a set number of people until they somebody breaks and part of them leave, and then the circle gets smaller and that same amount or more is put on a smaller group and then somebody else breaks and it it just shrinks down and down and down, and that's. You want to know why people are leaving.
Speaker 1:That's why yeah, exactly right, michael, and, and and you know, that's what the 10 year plan, that's what that statutory obligation to have. A 10-year plan that balances sources and uses of funds over the 10 years shows what we're facing and shows solutions to it. A solution to it, a governor proposed solution to it, the canary in the coal mine. To show where we're headed if we keep going down this road and what it's going to take to avoid keep going down this road. And the governor's failure to do that, the governor's failure to comply with the statutory obligation to comply with the responsibility title of the statute responsibilities of the governor, the governor's failure to comply with that responsibility is just responsibility, is staggering because that's undoing the very thing that the legislature set up to force us to deal with these issues, to force us to look at these issues a little bit longer term and to see what we need to be doing now to avoid hitting, hitting the rocks.
Speaker 1:The governor's, the governor's stepping away from the wheel of the boat, or you know, the, the, the, the control, controls of the plane, or whatever analogy you want to do. The governor just walking away from it and saying, yep, the ones are toward the rocks. Too bad, I'm I'm gonna go, you know, talk to trump today. Um, that the governor's failure to follow through on that statutory obligation, on that responsibility of his office is is staggering. I mean, I would, I would actually vote for impeachment because of the governor's failure to comply with that statutory obligation.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I mean, I see it as definitely one of a main failing. I mean, he's the one that's supposed to steer the boat right and point us in the direction, and if the direction that he points us is mediocre or, in this case, destructive in the long run, that's a problem. Brad Keithley Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. It's a weekly top three, Brad. Thanks so much, Michael, as always, always thanks for having me. Folks, hour two is dead ahead. We'll see if we can talk. Brad is sticking with us, maybe for a minute We'll give him a rant. It's the end of the year, Brad. I give you one more rant at the top of the hour. If you want. You give me your final thoughts for the year and upcoming session.
Speaker 1:Well, I can do that. It's going to be largely it would largely be a repeat of the rant I started with. Well, that's fine.
Speaker 2:That's fine. We got new listeners coming in at seven o'clock, so it'll be good Tuesdays. We just finished up with Brad Keithley for Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets, but because it is the last Tuesday of the month and Brad was very passionate about some of the stuff that he had in hour one, I thought I'd give him another chance. This is the extra edition. This is the weekly top three extended edition. I wanted to give Brad one more chance, one more bite at the apple, since we are here going into this new session with a deficit with all this other stuff, and so I thought I would give him final thoughts here for his final top three of the year, and so we'll do that here in this first segment. We welcome back Brad Keithley from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Brad, welcome back to hour two, my friend.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Michael, for all the listeners who didn't have to put up with me in the first hour. You thought you got away.
Speaker 2:I know, really, I just thought I was out. They pulled me back in, right, I mean, that's where he's at. So, brad, I know this could be a recap of one or all or just kind of a summation of what the problems are we're facing in the coming year and, you know, just kind of your final thoughts for 2024, going into 2025, in this new session thoughts for 2024, going into 2025, in this new session.
Speaker 1:Michael, I think the biggest issue the state faces, as you look at it from the end of 2024, from the end of a major election year, and you look at it from the standpoint of beginning 2025, beginning to look at the last two years of Dunleavy's term and certainly beyond that I think the major issue the state faces is that we are running up on a huge fiscal hole, a long set of deficits ahead of us, without a captain at the rudder trying to steer us through it. Those who listened to the first hour listened to me talk about the 10-year plan, and the 10-year plan is a statutory tool that's set up by the statute and requires the governor to every year, as part of the budget cycle, to develop a plan that looks forward 10 years and come up with a plan that balances sources and uses of funds while providing for essential state services and protecting the economic stability of the state. And that last phrase is key to me. I mean, if you look at a budget that is strong, that is balanced, that balances inputs, revenues with spending, and you're looking forward with a budget like that, then you feel confident in a state, you feel confident in investing in a state. You feel confident in living in a state. You feel confident in doing business in a state that has a forward tool like that. It shows economic stability in the state and that's what the governor is supposed to show in this 10-year plan.
Speaker 1:What Dunleavy has chosen to show in his 10-year plan that he just published last week as part of his budget cycle, what he shows is huge deficits ahead for the state, huge periods where state revenues and spending are way the heck out of balance, with the result being huge deficits facing the state. If you look at the 10-year plan and I would encourage everyone who thinks about the state to go to the Alaska OMB Office of Management and Budget website and look for the FY26 10-year plan and read through it and look at the numbers If you look at this 10-year plan, it's red all over the place, deficits all over the place. It shows deficits, state spending deficits, state budget deficits In FY26, the fiscal year the legislature is going to be dealing with when they come back it shows a state budget deficit of $1.5 billion, more than a quarter of spending in deficit for FY26. And then it just shows a continuation of deficits on out to the end of the 10-year period through FY35. $1.5 billion $1.2 billion in total more than $15 billion of deficits over the period.
Speaker 1:In the past, in the 2010s, when we did this, we had savings, we had a constitutional budget. We first had a statutory budget reserve and then a constitutional budget reserve. That could pad that, that could cover those deficits and that gave you some sense of stability. But when you look now at the 10-year plan that Dunleavy's proposed, we run out of the constitutional budget reserve, we run through the constitutional budget reserve in three years. It only covers two years, plus a little bit of the third year of those deficits and then we have nothing. It shows red in terms of spending uncovered by anything, not covered by revenues, not covered by savings Nothing. It goes red throughout the period from 2028 through 2035. So when you think about the economic stability of the state, when you think about people thinking about investing here, doing business here, living here, being part of Alaska, they want at least a stable economic environment from the standpoint of state government. That's not what this governor is showing and this governor is not doing anything about it.
Speaker 2:Right, he has the opportunity, right, I mean, he has the opportunity, he has the responsibility to put forward a plan that is balanced not on savings, not on PFD cuts, but on a true plan. And he had the opportunity here and he just whiffed it.
Speaker 1:Well, he's walked away from the bridge. It's the captain of the Titanic seeing the iceberg in daylight. I mean, change the Titanic story. Sees the iceberg in daylight, knows your boat's heading for it, knows there's ways around it, but on the current course your boat's heading right forward. Captain of the Titanic, sitting in the bridge, running the ship, giving the orders, has a responsibility to identify ways around the iceberg.
Speaker 1:It's as if the captain of the Titanic just walked away from the bridge and said I'm going to go on a hunting trip or I'm going to go hang out with, and said I'm going to go on a hunting trip or I'm going to go hang out with Trump, or I'm going to go do something else rather than put together a plan that gets us around that iceberg. And he's leaving the boat adrift in a way where it's headed straight toward this iceberg and is not doing anything about it and has a responsibility to do it as a responsibility to come up with a plan that shows a way of avoiding that fiscal iceberg, and he's not doing anything about it uh, the governor, of course, has that responsibility, but then it gets passed over to the legislature.
Speaker 2:So how confident are you that the legislature will do something right here? I mean, how confident are you that the legislature is going to see the same things that we're seeing, that anybody who can pull up a spreadsheet and look at the red and see what's going on, how confident are you that somebody there is going to have the wherewithal to point out the emperor has no clothes.
Speaker 1:It's not a high level of confidence. I mean, one of the things that has really struck me this past week, after the governor came out with this 10-year plan, is the silence from legislators in terms of where we're heading. You know, you got Republicans who say we're fiscally conservative, fiscally responsible. We are going to, you know, take control of this state and we're going to steer this state to the right, fiscally responsible result. They've been silent. This is anything but fiscally responsible. This is the most fiscally irresponsible thing you can do to put out a plan like this and not have a plan for dealing with it. Republicans have been silent. Democrats they've been silent as well, because they know they're just going to keep taking the PFD. They're going to cover it through additional PFD cuts. They're going to keep taking it away.
Speaker 1:Taking money out of the pockets of working Alaska families. Taking money out of the pockets of the very people that they claim to want to protect. Taking money out of the pockets of the people who are leaving or were failing to attract the cause of the out-migration problem. Taking money out of the pockets of the people who are leaving or were failing to attract the cause of the out-migration problem. Taking money out of their pockets to cover this so they can keep spending. Everybody is abdicating. I mean, it's like the bridge is full of the governor and his first officers, or the admiral and his first mates, or whatever analogy you want to use. Everybody can see this coming. The 10-year plan is absolutely clear that this is coming and everybody walking off.
Speaker 2:They don't want to swing the boat, brad. They don't want to swing the boat. Somebody in first class might spill their drink if they change directions. So they don't want to. You know they don't want to spin the boat, and that's the thing. No-transcript. All things being equal, you said it looks like within 10 years there will be no PFD.
Speaker 1:You can already see that if the legislature is going to rely on PFD cuts, there's no way they hold to the 25-75 split that the legislature has said, or the Senate at least has said. That's their bottom line, that's their red line. They're not going to take more than 75% of the POMB. They can't hold to that without additional revenues or without significant cuts to spending. The numbers show at these deficit levels you're in the 80s in terms of the level of POMV you've got to take and start approaching the 90s. If the permanent fund doesn't produce the type of returns that the permanent fund corporation is projecting, then you go through the 90s and you go into 100%. You're more than 100% of the POMV you got to take to address the kind of deficits that are in the governor's 10-year plan. And one thing I suppose I should say is the governor's 10-year plan is a little bit fantasy because he represses the spending levels in order to show that attempt to claim he's being fiscally conservative. The governor represses the spending levels from what they're likely to be. So the deficits we're looking at are bigger even than what's shown in the 10-year plan because the spending levels are likely to be bigger than what they're shown in the 10-year plan.
Speaker 1:There are solutions to this. If you look at the fall revenue forecast, you can see a scream in the fall revenue forecast that SB21 is not working as anticipated. That SB21, at the time that we're having huge growth in production volumes, huge growth in gross revenues to producers, that state take is going down by nearly 25% between the beginning of the period and the end of the period. At the time that everything is coming up roses in terms of production, in terms of gross revenues, state take is going down. You can see solutions to this problem, but this governor is just walking off the bridge and letting us continue to head toward the iceberg, and he's not. All he has to do is look at the fall revenue forecast and he sees part of the solution, but he's not even doing that. He's just walking away and saying, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Final thoughts Brad. Final 90 seconds, two minutes here.
Speaker 1:Well, this, to me, is the biggest issue that's developed in 2024 without being addressed by the legislature. It's the biggest issue the state faces going forward and it's not just a legislative issue in terms of the economic stability of the state, which is what this 10-year plan is supposed to provide some direction for in terms of economic stability of the state. Some direction for in terms of economic stability of the state. It is saying the governor is saying to Alaskans, saying to investors, saying to people who want to live here, or people who think about living here look what this 10-year plan says we're going off the edge, we're hitting the iceberg and I've got no plan to deal with it. So the message you're sending to investors is like the message Kenya sends, or the message that Angola sends, or the message that the old Soviet Union sent. It's like too bad, we're hitting the iceberg and we don't have any plan for dealing with it, but bring your money here.
Speaker 1:Invest here yeah.
Speaker 2:And you wonder why, and you wonder why we have this outflow, this out-migration problem in the state of Alaska. I mean, like you said, that's one of their top things, right? Oh, out-migration is a huge problem. Well, when you make it harder to live here, you ignore the private economy. When you're, you know, taking money out of every middle and lower working class person's hands and use it to spend it on government instead, there's your problem, there's the issue right there for sure, and you have no plan to address it.
Speaker 1:You're just saying I don't have a plan, I don't want a plan, we're just going to hit the iceberg.
Speaker 2:Well, brad, here's hoping that 2025 brings something better. I guess is the look. Let's hope that something better is coming along in 2025. Brad Keithley Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Merry Christmas, my friend. I hope you and your mom and the family have a great holiday. I hope you get the chance to go enjoy some great music, and we'll be talking to you again in 2025.
Speaker 1:Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, Terry and the family, and I look forward to picking it back up on the other side.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be. It should be interesting let's say that to say the least here.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a wrap for another week's edition of the Weekly Top Three from Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. Thank you again for joining us. Remember that you can find past episodes on our YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and Substack pages, and keep track of us during the week on Facebook and Twitter. This has been Brad Keithley, Managing Director of Alaskans for Sustainable Budgets. As we said at the top of the show, this is the last for 2024. We will be off for two weeks and then we'll look forward to you joining us again on January 7th for the first of 2025's Weekly Top Three. Thank you.
