Transcripts For CSPAN2 North 20240704

C 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 in the 1980s because we actually care and we got examples but we have a mentors and programs that help people. One of the reasons why its a best place to start a business is our failure rate is lower three out of four new startups actually survived thats way higher than other states. So wait to go north dakota. Thanks to conservative budgeting, efficient operations, strong revenues and a ton of investment by the private sector that creates all this wealth, guess what. Our state this in the best financial shape it has ever ever been. [applause] yes. [applause] on june 30 we closed out the 21 23 biennial record general Fund Ending Balance of nearly one and a half billion dollars for thats a billion with a b for people not familiar with the budgeting process, normally when you plan a budget you try to end the budgeting process with 58 million or 75 million. Have a little cushion in there. 1. 5 billion. That was our ending balance. We had an estimate it was going to be high. It ended up about 300 million higher than that. So when we were back in the special session mike you got this much cash round one of things you might say to yourself is hey, maybe we should give it back to tax payers through tax relief. Try to in special session had a bill the got through one of the chambers 91 million ran into a roadblock. We did not get it done but we should keep going. To be competitive and retaining an active workforce which is our number one job to keep her say growing and thriving to give our businesses open. To attract capitol. Workforce used to follow capitol. They would be like the company as an ounce for opening a big plant here are from one would move there to get a job there. Ive not been on the phone i was on that with the head they got 40000 employees and they operate in 80 Different Countries were just getting redding with the boards boardsapprove three to 50 millr soybean plant in jamestown. Im like what got this deal forgets on the phone with him he is can we hire 75 people in jamestown . We have a plan for having a hard time hiring there. Can we actually get workforce . Capitol follows workforce it used to be exactly the other way around workforce will follow capitol weve got to solve the workforce problem every possible way we can we solve it for the energy industry. We have more fracking crews all the numbers for the reserves assured it would be higher, a lot higher all of the companies that work in north dakota warily of 39 rigs operating right that we should have 60s workforce issue. We can celebrate the record high i want to make sure everyone understands we are not where we could be if we solve workforce we could be even higher. So to be competitive one of the simplest things we could do it without the money to do is get to zero income tax. Why does that matter . Part of it matters because were competing at states with zero income tax. These dollars and the ending Fund Balances think about like your Checking Account the end of the year we end up with more in our Checking Account than we thought. We have reserves think of those savings accounts and our reserves have never been higher. Get this, the Budget Stabilization fund and the strategic investment and Improvement Fund which i affectionately called Checking Account to general fund to we will have a proposal to make the whole thing go away and have the money going to the general fund we can get rid of the whole shift thing some people are plotting from the treasurers office. This is dollars that just flow in but look at this. Look at the scale of this compared to where we were we whenhe took office and this is a reflection. You go around too all the other reserves we have stacked up these are just a couple of them we have so much cash in so many different places its seven times more than when we took office. At in terms of trust funds because that slide right there and does not include trust funds including the legacy fund that did not exist 10 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 getting close attention be taken off the top. If you do not make income as an individual you dont pay income tax if you are a farmer and dont have an income you dont pay income tax rate you are an oil company we have 10 of your revenue not 10 of your income. It is a revenue taxes what we are doing. As long as we are producing theres money coming in every month and growing and growing. On the next summer of the legacy fund the Schools Trust fund sits at 6. 1 billion. Last year we were kicking 5 million of payment out of that trust fund for Common Schools that goes out to help reduce property taxes. That just happens without anybody paying attention. We do so much to reduce property tax already in our budget. But anyway we projectable and the current budget cycle in jund general fund balance of 518 million. After six months, through december we are running one or 54 million ahead we are 11 had forecasters to the First Six Months. Things are cooking along and that is great sprayed north north dakota we are hiring. We found out this morning just in today we are tied with a maryland for the lowest Unemployment Rate in america 1. 9 . Thank you to all of our private sector folks who are hiring. [applause] we talked about new business startups and a great place to start a business. This is how the economy stays vibrant. 8000 new businesses registered to open and north dakota in 2023. We are going to continue to have demand. We know when we talk about jobs and officially there might be 14 or 15000 jobs in service. The number always doubles, we know that if you have your Healthcare Organizations with survey they might post five nursing positions and then leave it posted forever versus paying to post 100 position at my most might have 10 or 20 times more open than what they are posting. So we have got this big workforce challenge. Im going to the whole thing to bring it to this point this is for the state of the state is. I went there almost every other governor this is our state of the state we are stronger unbelievably strong. The state of our state is under estimate that the state of our state. We are so good at so many things. We have never been stronger financially, economically, people wise weve never been stronger. The state of the states be under estimate by people externally. We have to change that. The way we get capitol and we get people to move your, people underestimate how beautiful it is. They underestimate we have great weather parade they. They underestimate everything about us. We have to tell our story differently because we are competing. We are competing with got to tell our story differently and better. Were going to shift gears right now. Something we want to do is honor those who served. We are honoring those americans we know in north dakota know that makes us best in americus we cherish our godgiven freedoms we honor those who risk their lives and preserve our liberty we do that right now not everybody in the countries during that this past year we were reminded that sometimes that service demands ultimate sacrifice. The whole state of north dakota stood frozen when they saw the news on july 14 the Fargo Police Officer jake was fatally shot. He was fatally shot when he was courageously taking action towards an assailant who had ambushed and critically injured two of his fellow officers andrew and tyler. Who i have had the honor of meeting along with a bystander correlate because we could just move to north dakota three weeks earlier to get her phd. When one person shot and killed two people have taken multiple gunshots down. We have a citizen that is injured seriously and officer Zach Robinson takes action, puts himself at risk to neutralize the shooter and saving countless other lives. The individual doing the shooting at 1300 rounds in his vehicle. The attorney general at wrigleyy knows all about this case. We came very close to having something that would put us on a much different level of national news. But in our state the best of america wow our men in blue responded. Last month sadly Mercer County was tragically killed by a vehicle crash when he was trying to protect his community from danger. If we moved to the military side is not a fatality but its a tragedy. On Christmas Day and army pilot suffered eight serious serious head injury on a oneway drone attack on a u. S. Military base he was not flying the helicopter at that time he was at a base. Taking incoming fire we are thankful has been transported back to the United States with that head injury he is breathing on his own hes opened his eyes i talk to his dad last night. Hes there at walter reed with his wife and mother and other family members. Was going to share with all of you today i just ask all of you join catherine and i and everybody and north dakota lets hold him in our prayers for a full recovery for these are people serving our country and fighting for our liberty. [applause] as wars erupt around the world we are reminded freedom is not free and we should be grateful not just on military honoring days not on memorial day, veterans day peace officer remarked that we to a great job and all that. We got to make sure we are doing that every day. Right now for anybody who has served any active military in the veterans anybody thats in Law Enforcement either past or present if you could stand right now and we want a chance to say thank you to you. [applause] [applause] have we have said in addition to our words and applause we want to make sure we are showing gratitude for Law Enforcement and military with our actions that is why the legislature this past year did such a great job. We are all in it together but we made huge strides towards reaching our goal in the most military friendly state in the nation. When you look at the percentage of people in this audience it stood up that are also serving in here because you are an elected leader that makes my heart burst with pride for all of you for continuing to serve in the way you are serving. We have taken steps over the last few years weve exempted military state income tax have expanded Tuition Assistance for guard members. We have cut red tape for military childcare providers at their dod license work they job to reapply redundantly and north dakota. And contributing to our Community North dakota is home to 13000 active guard and reserve Service Members who with their families make countless positive contributions to our communities. The National Guard and north dakota the model says always ready, always there. They are there when we need them in a crisis high performing highperformingorganizations ony have highperforming leadership. We are very, very fortunate leading our north Dakota National guard these past eight years Major General doorman. Whether it is soldier serving at the southern border who i have had the honor to our serving overseas. The leadership make sure they are welltrained and well well l prepared for their mission. Generals here and it went to see if i can see him and say thank you if you are here. Go ahead and stand up sir thank you so much. [applause] our dedication to the militarys unwavering progress could not have been accomplished without the work of task force in mind military issues and north dakota shared by none other than Lieutenant Governor tammy miller. Theres still more work to be done. We want to give the soldiers on top of our mind in the coming months we want to double down the months to be at the most military friendly state for our soldiers and families but also want to keep driving across other issues. We want to establish a cross agency military Friendly Working Group here at work with north Dakota National guard to support the task force mind developing proposal related to healthcare, childcare, licensure and more to have those ready for the next legislative session so we can keep moving towards being the most military friendly state in the nation. We will leave no doubt north dakota is and will forever be the place where this is the best place to be a military member. But one thing we have to do is we have to take care of the members after they are out of the military. This is 2024. Who want to make sure we are doing the right thing. Weve got a lot of work to do on the post traumatic things that happen. Every year, and our country, suicide completed suicides take the lives of over 6000 veterans and military members of the United States. Two actual combat. As often reminds us the veterans are often left without the Behavioral Health and medical support services they need to manage invisible but real scars. We signed a proclamation declaring 2024 is the veteran and military Suicide Prevention and awareness year for this proclamation is inspired by developed in conjunction with the American Legion, be the one program. It clearly connect with veterans are struggling with the thought of suicide. We are honored to have here today with as leaders of the north dakota American Legion commander clarence carol. Vice commander jacob and don. They are here along with other members of the three of you could please stand to be recognized. Thank you for all the work you are doing. [applause] we are looking forward to collaborate with the American Legion building up the governors challenge led by north dakota carrots and partnering with all military veteran organizations to leave no veteran behind. These individuals have answered the call for their country when they served the north dakota we know and if we need to know each veteran will know the citizens of our state and our government in this state is behind them and that we have their backs. One all do t right now to meet at te start raising awareness for our veterans and our citizens alike because weve got issues with nonmilitary Behavioral Health and suicide as well, but we need to expand the marketing of the 988 suicide crisis line. This is a valuable, accessible free resort which can be called a a text at anytime. Effective immediately what were doing across the Governors Office and every Cabinet Agency we have in the state were going to displace the 988 icon on the front front page ofag those webpages that will link people to the resources we need so we can just have awareness everywhere. People know what to do an emergency, to call 911. People do not yet know that 988 is a place to call if you know someone who is a need for a Behavioral Health issue. Even if youve got an inkling of the concern you could call this number. We want to encourage state agencies, Government Entities and businesses, private sector to proudly displayed this 90 date icon because its going to share that you care about the people in this taken care about our veterans, help raise awareness of and suicide. Lets destigmatize the fear of asking for Mental Health support because o thats when the probls we have. On the Behavioral Health side, the challenge of Behavioral Health are probably in all parts of society, not just in the veterans populations. Thats why weve 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 now we would be facing a crisis about with proportions that didnt exist then. In the last three years under joe bidens administrations features with a new record of overdose of deaths, and now weve passed through well past the 300,000 mark in the nation. We lost the equivalent of five the nouns Overdose Deaths in the last three years, over 120,000 in 2023. Dso over 300 a day we are losi. Its just unbelievable. What we are focusing on in north dakota one of the things we have focused on is free through recovery. It substantially increased Recovery Support services for individuals they got involved with the criminal Justice System, which we t talked about earlier, its the most expensive way to treat a Behavioral Health problem isnt incarceration. Sometimes its necessary if you get Violent Crime but there are times when what we t need to be doing is having services upfront the keyua people from getting in the situation with the got to conduct property crimes to pay for their addiction. This program that we have right now, free through recovery, currently has more than 7090 participants and serves nearly 6300 individuals through 57 care 57 care record data providers. What this is doing is reducing recidivism. If we can get people whove been in the criminal Justice System related to addiction get them out and help keep them out, help them, get a job come into place to live, get your drivers license, the the social determinants of health. Weve got more people connected with family and kids and was spending less money on the backend on incarceration. So its a win for everybody. Substance use disorder vouchers, 7000 individuals have access to the Substance Use disorder vouchers program. Thank you, legislature, 18 million to help support this. This iss a drop in the bucket compared to what we pay on the back end for d. O. C. Are and for all of the county and city jails around the state. The nr holds Justice System we talked about it could be 75 letter to addiction and Behavioral Health. We didnt have enough providers in our state. We have rural areas with this popular close to a enough providers or to the program that came up with lets take people with lived experience who can help others attain an state in recovery. Now we have 1000 pearson support specialist over half of them have gotten a criminal justice, interaction, a. K. A. Theyon are likely a fellow. Use people people that mightve been unavoidable and internetworking and have job keeping other people sober, keeping of people in recovery and keeping other people out of an expensive solution which is back at criminal justice. Recovery housing is not the issue because we are people say one thing s you can do in this country we sayay no discrimination. If you got it a felony, we can discriminate where you work, where you live. Theres no such thing anymore of hay, ive served my time and now pick my debts to society. Because if you got a felony, about 30 or 40 more things that they are felony then when i was a kid. You can get a felony pretty easily today in a lot of waste and you wind up with this thing when youre stigmatize your whole life. 670 people have been served through Recovery Housing assistant since may 22. 11 providers. 11 providers, 30 recovery homes. This is working help people help keep people back into productive way and be the better neighbors as opposed to trying to make better prisoners. Behavioral health workforce. Weve made Great Strides. We nor states beeper Health Providers arere increasingly challenged by workforce shortages. So in addition, the Peer Support Specialist Program were also working with theer coming months were going to work with the university leaders, thete healthcare system, private sector to absolve this critical issue. The office of recovery reinvented in partnership with north dakotans hh as will be helped by facilitating conversations and Strategic Planning efforts across the state regarding Behavioral Health workforce specifically, and expect legislator to see some new legislation coming to help solve that particular problem. Recovery reinvented, whunbelievable what this is don. Its made Great Strides to eliminate the shame and stigma of addiction in north dakota, and with surveys a addiction noh dakota, the statement of addiction. We know we made progress. More than 21,000 people have participated in recovery reinvented events over the past seven years, and joining this movement to helpp individuals find hope in recovery. And nowel its time to enjoy whn people seek help, theyve got the workforce in place to help them, like us back to the workforce piece. Theres one person that made a huge difference for this. With somebody who had the courage to stand up and share her story that people across the state and a consummation, and when she tells her story, it moves people. I watched it. I know that she has saved the lives and change lives by doing that. Shes going to be celebrating her 22nd. Recoveryer after decades before that of struggling with the disease of addiction, that her incredible tori drive policy and create Better Solutions for folks has been amazing. So again, if you could please help me welcome the most courageous first lady in america, katharine berg come. [applause] we know that addiction doesnt discriminate. It affects every family, every community and every sector of government especially Law Enforcement officers. They do with the farreaching impacts of addiction on every single shift. Just ask s any one of our highway patrol, as anybody thats in blue, that this is what theyre dealing with, thats the same as with the courts. Its important we support the men and women in uniform who protect our committees. We backed the blue with our words b but again backing with r action. We did that by expanding workers comp, providing timely and retention bonuses. We exempt and Law Enforcement retirement pay from state income tax and weve helped offset the cost of routine medical exams. Our efforts are not going to end their because in addition to Law Enforcement weve got other people in our state, in our rural state. We want to bring forward a plan to support all of Law Enforcementt officials across north dakota making this the premier place to work in Law Enforcement. Where Law Enforcement is respected. Other parts of the country are defending their police. Lets be the place where we respect the law and order and respect those people that do it, and lets get t those people to come good worko you. Lets make a profession that is respected. Every time someone in my family see some working Law Enforcement we say one thing. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Every time we see them weve got to thank them. Think about that, think about fargo last year. Someone might have thank them the next day they were going to be around to thank. They literally they really are the thin blue line. Weve got to extend this to emergency responders, ourpo firefighters, emts, ems, peace officers and others. We have neighbors who put on their firefighting gear, they drive and anglers, they buckle up a squad car. They they all deserve our gratitude. In order to cut it so much is volunteer still. In north dakota with over 3500 licensed Emergency Medical Services personnel. We have nearly, and a lot of them work in these rural locations for free. They are volunteers, nearly 7000 volunteer firefighters in our igrural firefighting, 7000. We only have 685 fulltime firefighters in the state. We have ten times as many people to t volunteer to go help save e neighbors. If youre a firefighter these days most of your calls are not fires. Most of your calls are ems related. Sometimes a zeiss 80 is medical related for firefighters, so were grateful for the service and if theres people who today, if theres ems personnel, if theres firefighters, if you have todayay or before volunteed for your local Fire Department stand at the lets just say thanks to interview because im of you here. Some [applause] here in stark county we have one of these incredible individuals in in a sort of the best of america kind of guy. Joe lander served as chief for the gladstone Fire Department for 45 years. 45 years volunteering. Serving the the citizens of this community and surrounding communities and putting others, you know, risking himself to put others safety head of his own. But as w with many heroes like e he didnt stop there. He was active in local homeless coalition, the eagles club, knights of columbus, lions club, other local and state organizations. S. Sadly, his family and the community lost joe to about with brain cancer last july, but not before he received the e stark county spirit of excellence award. We know joe is with us in spirit today and were honored to have you with us back in the center of the auditorium, we have got joes wife, renee, to back of the three children, jeremy and allison, their families, joes mother ruth. Theyre all here in audience today but as symbolically does not onlyy for joe and and e begin at his to gladstone but this kind of story happens over and over and over in our state. This is the best of america. Thank you wanner family. Thank you, joe wanner. Thank you all the volunteers, lets give them a hand. [applause] we want to take action on our ideas. Thats been the theme of this whole session. And we would encourage if youre a First Responder or youre related to one or you know, someones family member, if theres a better way for us, and i say us the State Government, the state legislature, theres a better way for us to support men and women in uniform. Whether its Law Enforcement firefighters, First Responders, please call, email, write the Governors Office. Were going to take your ideas, well share them with our legislative partners, well turt them into legislation if a needed to do and were going to keep doing what weve been doing. Ha well cut red tape, well get rid of the restrictions you need, and well pass laws that n will help support what all of you are doing. So keep those ideas coming. We want to, you know, support workers, not only for their physical health but also for the safety of the Overall Health of the community. And one of the ways that we do that, of course, is with accessible, affordable and quality child care, and our states strong Balance Sheet put us in a position to make these incredible strategic investments. And one of the biggest obstacles of workforce, which i talked about earlier and still remains, is child care availability, affordability and quality. 66 million alongside of the federal funds went into the north dakota child care initiative. This is workforce nfrastructure. Thank you legislature for doing that. Whats happening with that investment, now more than 4,800 working families have received help with Childcare Costs just in the First Six Months of this biennium, more than 300 childcare business have benefited from grants and incentives, helping their businesses. Think of that, close to 5,000. When we talk about trying to solve our issue with 30,000 jobs open, we put a huge dent in it with this child care thing because we got 5,000 people that maybe came back into the workforce. And other things were doing to support workforce, for the first time north Dakota Job Service budget included funding to support the h2a visa program for temporary ag workers. If youre in farming you know how critical and how important this is to support our farmers and ranchers. Some others may not know you can get confused and caught up, you know, in all this discussion about immigration but we have had in some cases for decades, h2a visa workers from countries such as south africa, like these guys pictured here, come to north dakota every harvest season and in an incredible 46 increase from just two years before, they come back. They work for the same family, same farm families. Youve talked to farmers across our state, we would not have gotten the crop off the last few years if it werent for the h2a workers. And so weve got to make sure that we keep that pipeline of people that come here and work seasonally, and have got the cdl, theyve got the equipment, they know how to drive the big machinery. Theyre key to what were doing in our state. And commerce this last year established the office of Legal Immigration to help attract international talent, because weve got a great pipeline of workers but we want to make sure that weve got the visa piece figured out and weve got a pipeline of people coming that can help our farmers and particularly our ag workers on h2a. So this office earned a coveted spot in the skilled immigrant inclusion program, which provides Technical Assistance from international experts. So thats off to a great start. Career academies. This is a big one, rich wardner and others fought hard for this stuff. Weve kept our word and making sure that funding would be available to keep construction on track for the 13 career academies where students will be able to pursue these high demand careers in the trades, healthcare and technology and others. One of those examples is right here, southwest area career and technical education, students from seven high schools around this region and dickinson state utilize the state of the art facility that helps students identify interests and build skills to identify and enter the workforce more quickly. We have one of those here today. But lance koskovich, senior at dickinson high, has been enrolled in the cte academies welding automotive tech and diesel tech programs and through these experiences, lance has developed valuable skills and identified his career path of becoming a welder, which we need. Were short of those all over the state. Last fall, he was placed with Fisher Industries here in dickinson to earn credit while on the job. Hes still getting his education, but hes getting paid and hes earning credit. To be able to build that relationship with a local employer and now hes gained the support to send him to north Dakota State College of science next fall to earn a degree in welding technology. So now hes got a local company, fisher, willing to help pay him to go get further education. But its working, these partnerships between companies and our Education System filling that gap between k12 and higher ed. And i want to just say thank you for him being here, lance is here, cte director Aaron Anderson is here. They represent more than 25,000 students around the state that are taking advantage of these things. Lance is right here. Lets give him a hand. I stand up, where are you lance, hes right there. [applause] transforming education is our next topic. But what lance story shows us is that what teachers and educators and use innovative approaches to create experiences outside the traditional classroom, students thrive, businesses win our economy wins and just over ten miles away, janice she was a music teacher at south Public School for 18 years, but look ats her unconstrained innovation. Her dedication to students and passion for her subject which happens to be music, she was just selected as one of the nationally one of 50 banding directors who make a difference by the school banding and orchestra Magazine National magazine one of the things that shes done is brought together 300 students from over 13 different schools to trade a massive marching band, and ill skim the story about me having to go to the music camp up at the border because i wanted to go to football camp and my mom wouldnt let me go to football camp unless i went to music camp save you that whole long thing but anyway theres a reason im not playing trumpet solo anyway but shes a fierce advocate for students such a cool idea that shes done that to bring together all of these schools. Shes here with us today where are you and congratulations on your go ahead and stand up National Recognition [applause] weve got a task force that we put together for retention recruitment of teachers we know that these careerses are rewarding that people that teach change lives they make a difference but we also understand the challenges that teachers are facing. And thats results in Work Force Shortage and last fall we created a Teacher Retention Recruitment Task force to bring proposals forward thats going ahead it is going to help support our you know support our leaders, support or teachers supports our students to help them develop and grow into the best versions of themselves so thats charging ahead and over the next several months, theyre going keep going that task force is going to engage with experts across educational landscape theyre digging into data. Our schools are the cornerstone of our communities, our teachers are critically important and so this task force has got an important thing because it is one thing to drive a teacher through education and get them into the School System teaching and then they teach for a year or two and drop out thats what were losing we can get peel to retain a little longer then that can solve our longterm pipeline for teachers. So this task force way to go keep it up and then our who we just introduced in all of our innovative teachers such as the teacher of the year Sheila Peterson deserve our deep gratitude they are dedicating themselves to help drive our future. The students represent, you know, 20 of our population but they do represent 100 of our future, theyre instrumental to our state success so if we have any teachers that are here today if youre a current or former educator if youve been teaching any level k12 please stand up let us say thank you to all of our educators. [applause] and my very first state of the state i talked about Education Innovation and how we have to change the status quo and progress has been made but theres more to do this week is School Choice week in north dakota. And when we talk about innovation and almost goes hand in hand with competition the best innovation come qhs youre competing such as our first in the nation cybermadness competition for high school and middle school students. A grade innovation and as a fantastic experience thats going to continue expand. But School Choice has become this debate a political debate about oh, it is about a Public School versus a private school or Religious School it shouldnt be centered around that at all. School choice and competition is about how to be centered around students and their experiences and personal learning goals and School Choice could include ideas like how do we expand ct programs that lance has been involved in how do we do that . Weve set the table we have created a set of rules and ranges cut tape where every k12 district in the state has an opportunity to innovate and rei invent learning environments for students weve done that. We have got schools Like Northern kas taken every bit of flexibility weve given them and driven innovation they won a half a billion and they have not adopted one of the pieces of flexibility that weve given them to during interim legislature is engaging in School Choice study thats fantastic we support that. Theyre going to be looking at a full continue from open enrollment to educational savings to vouchers to look at everything and we look forward to working with that to bring a comprehensive proposal that puts innovation and students first to help make sure we can keep driving k12 education forward in our state well have our govern summit on innovative education on june 17th in business mark invite you to be there mark your calendars as it has been all of the years its been incredible with keynoters and speakers great ideas have come out of that we would love to have more legislators join us not just the great order of education educators that come but shifting to Higher Education thats always been part of Higher Education students can decide where to go and tuition theyre unrestricted do i want to go online and work on this thing stay home or go far away here across our University System guess what, every university in america is facing these Unstoppable Forces Technology Demographics culture, economics, which are blowing up the traditional Business Models and forcing campuses to become more economic, more inno vatsive more anymore to believe meet these demands is going to require not just alumni donors but partnerships between the private and Public Sector to identify wheres the demanding for graduates and if we create student opportunities that lead into careers, youre going bet more support from the private sector cant all just come from checks from the state of north dakota. State universities theres got to be a private sector component that north dakota Career Builders scholarships created in 2019 that happened, loan repayments to north dakota students who went on to fill high demanding careers that were identify as part of the program. And we encourage all employers to consider participating in the successful Public Private partnership. When we look ahead to future of Higher Education, one thing ive got to ask the legislature, i mean, we were joking earlier about maybe theres some infrastructure in this particular hall that weve got to focus on. But where the bulk of our additional money has done into higher ed it has gone into buildings 414 Million Dollars gone into buildings across our campus we have the money we did it. That alone is not going to drive success but some of the places where we put 150 million enrollment is down New Buildings arent going to drive the success we need and University System has to continue working on their vision for 2035 were urge each of the nine study groups to focus on future Business Models an how thats going to shift we focus on how we get more corroboration system ride to duplicate and make ourselves more competitive and make sure that we accept realities of the forces that are actually changing changing higher ed is not going to be back to where it was. The days of the students coming to a campus out of high School Spending hours a day sitting in seats listening to lectures in auditorium those days over we need our institutions from the inside to drive new things speed the degree completion a nonstate university you marry, theyre offering people come here play sports, and, and youre going to get not only undergrad degree but a masters in four years that speed a degree and getting people more value for the same level of time theyre there provide flexibility and schedule and ensure delivery models so we have to keep innovating in higher ed. One thing we need to do across our back k12 all students maybe adults as well we have to ensure that our students are well versed in Financial Literacy theres a survey that survey students that attest that and we do not this is one area were not best in america only 37 of north dakota adults feel confident in their own knowledge of their finances and today were setting goal here of making north dakota the most financially literate state in the nation by 2027. Thats a goal were putting stake in the ground suggest of public instruction state treasure thomas beetle right down here in front leading this effort coordinating with the bank of north dakota a great entity to be working with also the Governors Office, the Securities Team led by karen tyler cruz other state agencies announce a full plan in april of this federal literacy month but thomas, thanks for your leadership this is a fantastic program. But we need to keep driving prtdz on that. On the housing side question of to continue to grow work force as weve talked about to ensure everyone has access to safe and Affordable Housing like child care housing work force and competing with talent as ive said and Housing Market is fundamentally a private activity but theres gaps and hidden subsidies and personalities that are abilitying how communities are developed and if that affects families that affects comupghts it affects employers. And some priewngt Public Sector can make a difference in sthofg problem. To serve our citizens attract New Residence again, i gave the example earlier about a family not moving back because because they couldnt find child care. We know at the state of north dakota weve given job offers to people to try to move here to our state to take a job with a state and part of their search is they come and they look around and say can i afford to get a house in this community and if they cant upgrade their houses might say no to a job. Hey, the job pays ten or 20 grand but housing costs are higher im less better off than if i stay where im at and low interest mortgage getting home if i sell that and move to north dakota high Interest Rates now i cant move so it is causing some some stickiness but we have to make sure north dakota is a better place to work and play by addressing housing challenges that many of our communities face statewide Housing Needs assessment for 20 to 25 predicts we need 9,000 Additional Units of housing just through now through 2025. In the next ten years 9,000 more units and fortunately weve already got a blueprint out there on how to address these issues and that blueprint is what we did to get to starting line on child care historic 66 million package that was as a result of 14 months of corroboration public and private stakeholders across the child care spectrum so what were announcing here today is were going to do the same thing were going put together a series of listing sessions held across north dakota, and coming months it is going to be a platform for north dakota as individuals, employers are trying to recruit people from out of state its going to be from developers, it is going from all people saying what are hurdles and solutions and focus on three pillars like in child care affordable can you find and stability can you keep it and hear from renters, developers and housing providerring anybody who has a future in the future of the economic success of north dakota if we dont all create the right framework were going sit here with no jobs and falling economy and following corroboration with state agencies like like our north dakota Work Force Housing and all of the other agencies that we have working on this. Were going work diligently to create a strategy and then strategy were going to bring to legislature if theres a component we need to be there but again vision is clear to ensure every north dakota has an opportunity whether old been here for generations or they want to move here. That theyve got an opportunity to find safe affordable and a place to call home and raise a family. The best place to work live and play from the beginning on our main Street Initiative it was focused on supporting healthy vibrant communities with smart efficient infrastructure that sound like everything im talking about Skilled Health force effective infrastructure, yes, main street bring it is altogether all of these polls come together and were so fortunate that weve had such an up tick we have 107 different communities across the state that have participated in the mainl Street Program and engaged in visits from state agencies and theyre engage in in supporg out their communities and success of the program demonstrated a potential for transformational change in all size communities especially in rural areas and we know that creating vibrant community only happen when is you have local leaders it is key when somebody grabs rings to mac sure it is a place where future generations want to grow or kids want to come back to you to raise their families and weve examples of that happening in Western North dakota for sure weve got amazing sample right here in southwest door from south dakota shes making her mark on the state shes the leader of the bauman county cooperation done that for nearly 11 years el bodies main Street Initiative whether it is hosting the fusion conference in bozeman or serve on statewide World Development council we know that taryn is changing the directory not just of bauman but southwest north dakota with her passion and commitment it is leaders like taryn across the state that are attracting the next generation of north dakota their communities, and her efforts certainly deserve to be recognized taryn if youre here could you please stand and let us acknowledge everything that youre doing. Thank you. Great to see you. [applause] taren if youre here, could you please stand and let us acknowledge everything youre doing . Thank you, great to see you. It well be launching the office of Community Development rural prosperity which builds upon momentum of the main Street Initiative, and were announcing that were creating that. Were not making that announcement today, were doing that within the department of commerce. And this office is going to pull together a number of things. Its going to be a central hub for communication. Were going to try to maximize the impact of all the initiatives and a focus specifically on empowering Rural Communities. Because we can streamline efforts, we can allocate resources more strategically, we can understand and attack the unique challenges faced by Rural Communities who are supporting Community Development. But we wont be doing this thing alone, this new office is going to work with community organizations, businesses, local governments, and other state, agencies to develop comprehensive longterm strategies that are tailored to those communities. So excited about that as were driving the msi even further into rural areas. Fun announcement, yall know were moving ahead. This is the first time in a long time, but were creating a new state park in north dakota, our newest one pembina gorge. Its one of north dakotas most scenic treasures. If youve never been to the gorge, i encourage you to get t there, but i want to thank the legislature again. They passed 27 million for maintenance and upgrades to infrastructure and the Visitor Experience across all of our 14 state parks, which saw near record visitation, last year they had record visitation and the year before that, but still theres more work to be done to enhance these amazing state assets and improve the quality of life. Ts and one of the ways that we can enhance them is with trails. Trails, is also a key piece of infrastructure, and we got with an extensive trail focus that the parks thing, is theyre already doing a first ever statewide trail inventory. Would you have guessed that there are over 2,200 miles of trails, on 865 named trailed in this state . Well, the next phase that we want to focus on is the last mile initiative, because a lotiv of these trails are disconnected, and we can spend a little bit of money and connect trails to make them more efficient. Whether its for walking and biking in the summer or snowmobiling in the winter. S but this is an opportunity and when weve got recreational opportunities as a part of life in north dakota, hunting, fishing, camping, whatever it is, we know that also that brings us back to helping to attract workforce. And so again, i want to thank north dakota game and fish, north dakota parks and rec, the great leadership there. Jeb, cody, everybody thats doing that, and were making great progress. Destination development. New initiative passed by the legislature, congress awarded 25 million in matching grants to help create new attractions or expand existing ones to help create destinations that would be. Answer the question, what can i do in north dakota . What are the things . A what can you do there . What are the places to see . One of those is right here in dickinson, the dinosaur museum. Got a 1 million grant from this new program. And again, if you havent been there, check it out. Theres more than just like really, really, really old bones there, theres some really exciting stuff. The Theodore 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 our nations 250th birthday. Were going to welcome another world class attraction when the Theodore Roosevelt president ial library and museum opens in medora. The tr library is going to be a global institution. Its going to be rooted right here in north dakota, inspiringi people across the globe to get into the arena. Just like tr was healed and inspired by the north dakota landscape and the way of lifend when he came here in the 1880s after losing his wife and his mother on the same day. People get confused when we say library and museum, they might think of an old style model where you got objects that are glass, thats not going to be this, its not going to be stuff gathering dust. Ri its going to be a captivating digital experience for visitors. Its going to be leaning heavily on immersive storytelling andec new technologies. You can count on the fact that your kids and grandkids are going to drag you to this library and theyre going to want to come back again and again. The tr library like trs incredible life wont just be a place. Its going to be an experience, and its going to become a tourism powerhouse in Western North dakota. The Roosevelt Center here at dsu has a strong, strong connection to the library even forming. And of course, the tr center is a key part of Dickinson State University and therefore part of our higher Education System. This is the place where theyve been working for close to a decade digitizing copies of roosevelts writing, newspaper and 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 than anybody else. Any other president. He wrote more letters than jefferson. So the collection here has been digital and has been amazing. But today theres an amazing announcement happening, part of the mission of the tr president ial library and partnering with academic institutions like dsu and the tr center is to advance the study and understanding of tr. The most comprehensive the most incredible collection of papers around that study is now coming, the Theodore Roosevelt center at dsu will be the home to the coveted and expansive collection of private research and roosevelt memorabilia from Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Edmund Morris and his wife and authorwi sylvia jukes morris. Those are the works that transformed the way we think about the 26th president. Its an impressive collection 151 bankers boxes, its being acquired by the president ial library, 1 housed at the center through the generosity and support of marc brinkmeyer. Hes the owner and chairman of the Idaho Forest Group and his wife vicki. The collection features an extensive assortment of notes and audio and memorabilia and information surrounding the three books that are among the most well known of the hundreds of books written about tr, theodore rex, the rise of Theodore Roosevelt, colonel roosevelt and more. T and so right now, this does not happen without dsu, without the tr center and without the Theodore Roosevelt President Library all working together, that working together, that collaboration, that confidence led to this donation. Congratulations to all of those entities involved with this. This is an amazing collection coming, its not going to harvard. Its not going to yale. Its coming to dsu. [applause] and looking forward when we think about some of the economif opportunities here, i just want to, i know that people are getting charged up, you know this constructions going all winter long on the library thing, but whether youre in beach or bowman or dickinson or watford city, all of these present gateway opportunities for us. Down in mount rushmore, they got faces on a mountain, they get 3 million visitors a year. And youve all been there you go there to take a picture 45 minutes youre out of there. Ex and then youre out, what are you doing . You spend the next two days going to private sector tourismt opportunities, eating in restaurants and taking in all the other stuff. The opportunity for private sector investments surrounding the Tr National Park and the library, with that as an acre has never been greater. Get your hats on, start thinking about it. We need more hotel rooms, more restaurants, more everything in Western North dakota, more opportunity. So go get em. Vibrant communities, again, world class communities and amenities, those are needed. We need that to make sure that we keep up with our burgeoning economy and it creates a stable business environment. And the first step is that, you know, is economic development. In the last 30 years in north dakota, weve had leadership that understands the importance of building on our states reputation. When i say the last 30 years. It goes back to ed schaefer, john hoeven, jack dalrymple. Weve had Business Leaders as governors who understood how capital and talent come together to move to a place forward. And because the talent, as i said earlier, now follows capital investment, capital flows along the path of least resistance. The way you get capital flowing to our state is making sure that we remain laser focused on creating the stable tax and Regulatory Environment that attracts that capital and that talent. And the success can be seen in our population growth of nearly 17 that we showed earlier. N seventh fastest in the u. S. We also set a goal we said, hey, we wanted to have the highest gdp per capita in the nation. How we coming on that . Well, we moved up, we are in the top eight here, but take a look at this list. That might be a little small to read on the big screen, but every one of those states on there is a is blue state. Were the only red state, if you can use those words there. New york, wall street, massachusetts, biotech, washington, you know, twitter, amazon, microsoft, california, silicon valley, connecticut and delaware, close to the new york metro area, colorado, i dont know, maybe thats legal marijuana. Im not sure. [laughing] new jersey, close to new york. F i mean, so you basically got you know, you got tech and finance are the things that are driving these high gdps you know, at the state level, but were not tech. Were not silicon valley. Were not finance. Were not in new york city. And here we are on this list, and way to go north dakota. Were making this happen. We have an opportunity if we keep doing what were doing, keep driving forward with this private Public Partnerships and making Smart Investments. We do that and with the industries we have in the state and with now 40 billion of capital trying to come to north dakota for valueadded ag and valueadded energy projects. Never a number like that in our history. Aha when we have that, we have a chance to keep moving up on this list. Absolutely. We do. So again, only happens with the private sector. Le weve got to keep leading with innovation, and whats going too happen this spring . Here in our oil and gas industry, were going to hit a huge milestone were going to produce our 5 billionth barrel of oil since the early 2000s. Since the advent of innovation,0 horizontal drilling was the key thing that accessed, to be able to get to that 30foot strip of hard shale, and turn that into a liquid. If you stack those barrels endtoend, 5 billion barrels, it would go around the globe at the equator 110 times, thats what 5 billion barrels is like. The enormity of this industrys impact cant be overstated. Its oil and gas activity generates over half of the tax revenues that come in. Its used to fund government, everything from highways, bridges, health care, education, and of course it provides. We know that what it does that extraction, production, consumption is going to be happening in the world that is 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 as regular milk, but theres demand for it. There are people that will pay a premium for less carbon intensive products of every kind, liquid fuels, Building Materials, road materials, steel, plastics, and if youve got a less carbon intensive product, youre going to sellsi more of it right now. S the market is pushing for that. North dakota has the secret recipe. We talk about the gifts weve been given, we were given all the soil, we were given all the minerals, weve also been given the most unbelievable capability to deal and benefit with co2 storage and co2 utilization. And whether its our coal plants or whether its our oil and gas, were the leader right now, were leading in the nation. This is not a new thing. O weve been doing this thing for decades already in our state, carbon capture, utilization and sequestration, or ccus. Its a process of capturing the co2 from these Energy Producing processes. And then when were making ethanol or making coal we can store them underground or we can use it for valueadded resources. Carbon is an extremely valuable commodity. It drives me a little nuts that people are saying its a waste product, not a waste product. We have people that buy and pay for it today, carbonation for beverages, enhanced uses in greenhouse for agriculture, fire suppression, food processing, water treatment, welding, metal fabrication, thats just getting going. You go up to the eerc, theyve got a list thats so long. Theyve got building and road materials. I was in an ndic meeting last week, they brought in a piece of 12by12inch thing and im like, oh, thats a cool granite tabletop, thats very cool. They said, no that is a manufactured product and 30 by weight of that countertop has got embedded co2 in it. And we can make better cinder blocks than cinder blocks for Building Materials that would sequester co2. Lo we can use it to put asphalt on roads. Thats better than and stronger than cement because carbon is so strong. Everybody knows you want a great, lightweight, strong product . Buy a carbon fiber bow and arrow. You want a lightweight, strong bike . Carbon fiber. Every kid knows that carbon fiber is strong and light. Theyre working on stuff up at the eerc thats as thin as a human hair that can lift a piano. So we want to be continuing to lead in this area because of all the products that can come from this. Ea and weve been given this gift of having enough underground Storage Space to safely store all the nations co2 for the next 50 years. And i know that some people said oh, we cant store all the co2, were not gonna be able to grow crops. Theres 50 billion tons a year of extra co2 being produced, we can store some of it, and 20 years from now, when weve got all these products, well be glad that weve got the extra co2. Weve got an advantage right now because were one of the few states thats been granted primacy by the epa to permit our own class vi wells. And now, there was two, us and wyoming. Now theres a third, so competition is coming, but weve been busy, weve been actually permitting them. And weve permitted six Storage Facilities with a total capacity of 272 million tons of co2, that those six things encompass 43 square miles underground. Thank you, legislature. You defined that that pore space underground was owned by the landowners. The landowner owns the land, y somebody else might own the minerals, but they own the pore space. How do you get in some of these cases, we had over 90 of the landowners say yes to getting mailbox money, getting a check for the co2 storage. And then weve got Companies Like denbury doing the enhanced oil recovery. Theyve built a 105mile co2 pipeline from a plant in wyoming through montana down into southWestern North dakota and in Bowman County, and they are bringing that in and theyre putting that co2, they push it down a well, it spreads and it pushes more oil up. Theyre seeing increases in their Oil Production in these 1980s vertical wells down inin Bowman County where theyre getting back to like 80 of their original production. And guess what . They put more co2 down than you burn when the barrel of oil, when it comes up. So denburys production in north dakota is Carbon Neutral to carbon negative, theyre greener than patagonia producing a barrel of oil. Thats a story we need to tell to the nation before they try to keep going on this agenda. Were going to shut down the coal industry, were going to shut down the oil and gas industry, thats the agenda right now of the federal government. Its not political, its just something we face as a threat to our state. And weve got to tell our story about how we can produce energy cleaner, safer and smarter. So quite simply, the whole aspect of a carbon industry in our state, its going to expand agriculture. T anybody that has anything to do with corn or soybeans, biofuels or ethanol, its going to expand your markets. If you care about baseload electricity and the coal industry in north dakota, which has been the backbone of a central part of our state for decades and decades, it will t 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 life by decades both in increased production and in reduced carbon intensity. And on top of that, theres more stuff coming. The need, the demand for energy, is growing and weve got, whether its cerilon coming upe by trenton, whether its pig iron opportunities that are coming to the central part of the state, where we could be having the lowest carbon intensive product going into steel in the nation. Its unbelievable what can happen. People talk 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 what we have now. We can do all the renewables, all the solar, all the wind we want, but thats got to be on top of what were already doing, to get to the demand load that were going to have. If you dont meet the demand then the prices are just going to go up, and well kill manufacturing, well outsource all of our Energy Production to other countries who will do it less cleanly and the environment will be worse. So the best way to do it is to b have, north dakota has got the best opportunity of any state to preserve, grow and enhance the good paying jobs and the communities we serve in coal country, oil and gas country, in our farm communities. We have an opportunity to benefit more than anybody because of this. Ie and well be doing that, well be helping our nation become more secure and more prosperous not only by being energy independent, but energy dominant, and well help the environment because itll be done cleaner and safer here than anywhere else. So since the beginning of our administration, weve always prioritized this all of the above energy approach. Last year marked a significant milestone. Ti incredible, Heartland Hydrogen hub, selected for the largest grant that north dakota has ever received from the federal government, 925 million, fromom the u. S. Department of energy. I signed on with three fellow governors across the Northern Tier here. We signed an mou committing to the development of this regional hub which can create jobs and help decarbonize regional supply chains. And eerc is spearheading this effort with marathon petroleum, tc energy and xcel energy. Td advancing agriculture, as our nations demand for energy grows, so does the demand forr high quality lowcost food, produced in an increasingly tight labor market. So when you have a tight labor market, we either increase workforce, the other way we address the workforce issue in north dakota, is to increase productivity. One way to increase productivity is through automation. And part of automation is autonomous. And so with the opening of our first dedicated soybean plant in spiritwood, and another crushed plant coming in casselton, another one falling on the heels of that in grand forks, wellsoon be processing 75 of the state Soybean Production right here at home, as opposed to shipping those soybeans out. Thats what we talk about when we say valueadded agriculture. What we grow, we add value here before it leaves the state. The soybean oil from the green bison soy plant near jamestown is being shipped by rail to dickinson and turned into Renewable Diesel at marathons refinery in dickinson. Its a fantastic example of how the synergy between ag and energy has never been greater. The soybean meal produced by these facilities is going to help us get back into the game on Animal Agriculture, because what comes off of that soybean meal is a fantastic input, whether its for turkeys orl dairy cattle or finishing beef. It can help us with our modernized farming laws that this Legislature Passed last time, attract much more capital. In terms of uas again, strengthening our status as them nations proving ground for uas. We have invested as a state, 130 million, just since we took office in december of 2016. Investments in grand sky, the northern test site which celebrated its 10th anniversary, the first in the nation, the vantis air Traffic Control network for beyond visual line of sight operations for Unmanned Aircraft. These investments translate into innovation, high quality jobs for our citizens, and for Talent Attraction from across the country. Ag tech, we can be right behind that north dakota has long been the leader in ag tech. When we take a look at the major manufacturers, case ih and john deere and others, that that came to north dakota, bought companies, and invested here because they were interested in precision agriculture and the innovation was occurring here. That continues today on autonomous farming through the Uas Technology being developed in grand forks and in fargo at ndsu, grand farm, think of grand farm as the next grand sky. That initiative continues to expand with a 10 Million Investment from the state, and you got a picture right here, you can see the dust blowing, but those tractors do not have drivers on them. Those are autonomous tractors tracking perfectly down a field. We dont have to look beyond the skies or on the ground to think about diversifying our economy, sometimes the answer is right under our feet. And we know theres been a lot of discussion about shifting to ev. You cant build evs without batteries. You cant build batteries without Rare Earth Minerals. The nation did a study of where the highest concentration of Rare Earth Minerals are, guess where they are . Theyre in our coal in north dakota. Theyre in the coal that the Current Administration and prior administrations wanted to stop developing. Economically, we have the ability to extract those Rare Minerals instead of being reliant on foreign sources like china, who control 85 of the Rare Earth Minerals that go into not just our batteries for cars, but your phone, your other electronic devices. Lithium, gallium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, all of these and above, over 20 different minerals. A domestic supply for Rare Earth Minerals is already being mined in north dakota in our abundant lignite coal, thanks toed Technology Developed at the und college of engineering and mines. We can have a domestic supply chain. When we extract these Rare Earth Minerals from lignite coal, guess what . The coal burns cleaner. It helps coal fired power plants operate more efficiently. This is the most powerful example today of innovation versus regulation. Some people want to regulate the lignite coal industry out of business. Others would say lets innovate, to reduce our dependence on foreign supply choices, create great jobs here at home and decarbonize it so we can have stable baseload and not have brownout and blackout bills, like our neighbor minnesota is passing. This project here with the Rare Earth Minerals will create more opportunities, new industries to locate here, help diversify our Natural Resources and develop a supply chain. All of these things are amazing, north dakota can lead the way here again. And were on the cusp of againn several other gamechanging projects which i alluded to, cerilons multibillion dollar natural gas to liquids plantec near trenton, talon minerals nearly half billion dollar project, theyre gonna process nickel and other minerals for batteries for raw iron ore mined in minnesota, bue theyre gonna bring that and do that project here. Our economic future, unbelievably bright. And when we have that, then weve got the money to invest back into infrastructure. We need modern infrastructure. And were going to continue to invest. Four years ago at the 2020 state of the state we said were announcing a 10year y infrastructure plan. The list of projects on that never shrinks. We dont ever get it completed. But i want you to know that since that report, weve dedicated, with the support of the legislature, 463 million above the normal federal aid program. Most states only do infrastructure on what they get from the feds. Ours is feds plus state. And thats, you know, making a huge impact in townships and counties, roads, bridges across the state. 463 million went into roads and bridges. Since the beginning of our administration, weve invested over 3 billion into roads, 4655 million into bridges, and this includes creating the new flexible fund, which supports both state and local roadex networks, supporting infrastructure in cities, counties and townships. So theyve clearly made a difference in north dakota. Now were moving up. Were being ranked number two for infrastructure. People look at those infrastructure ratings when they decide if theyre going to put capital in a location. So i want to thank ron and everybody in dot for the great job theyre doing there. On the Water Infrastructure side, unbelievable, because of j this wealth that we have, that were investing back in our state. Again, in partnership with the legislature weve invested 2. 2 billion since 2017. For critical water supply, flood protection and general water management, it wouldnt have been possible without the transition to the department of Water Resources under the leadership of our great director andrea travnicek. This biennium, the state Water Commission is supposed to allocate 600 million more towards critical and high return water projects, further easing the burden on locals and making them more resilient. Red river water supply, this is critical to onethird of north dakota citizens, and were competing with water. We have western states that are trying, theres actually people planning, saying, lets stick a pipe in the Missouri River and ship it to colorado so it goes in the Colorado River and goes all the way to california because theyre running out of water. To we have got to, legislators, weve got to complete naws and red river, weve got to get water flowing out of the missouri to the northern part of our state and to the eastern part of the state. That was the vision of the garrison diversion project which started in 1960. Were at the cusp of finally making that happen, but we need to finish those projects, secure those water rights and get those going before some other states decide that they want to come in and put a giant pipe into the Missouri River and start shipping that water west. Weve got to take care of business here in north dakota. An and speaking to take care of business. We want to make sure that our states as friendly as possible when people with businesses interact with the state. And so its citizens shouldnt have to come to 100 different websites to find how to interact with each different agency. And thats why work has begun ow the business gateway. Its a firstofitskind initiative, rather than forcing users to log in separately here for business registration, there for tax payments, over here for licenses. The business gateway, well, if a business is in north dakota, theyre gonna have a single sign on. They sign on once, we know whos they are, we know their address, we know who the contacts are. And we can make that. And when we get done with the business gateway, were going to do the same thing for citizen gateway, so that a citizen doesnt have to have a different place for a hunting license, a drivers license, aa boat license, and pay their taxes and the dozens of other things they do. We want to make it as simple a Consumer Experience for them as possible. Red tape reduction, i said earlier 50 bills signed by this last legislature, now were we want to continue to keep tackling that and again were launching and encouraging innovation with the launch of red tape production 2. 0. Again, citizens, governor. Nd. Gov. If youre frustrated with how youre interacting with the state of north dakota, and youre like, hey, ive got an idea on how to improve that Customer Service experience, theres red tape in our way for a family, for a small business, for a student, send us your ideas. We want to know that, well turn them into legislation. This legislature, they did a great job of passing them last year. And, of course, we want to protect our citizens data. Weve got a huge commitment to do that. Its a moral obligation that we have to do that. E and thanks to the adoption of am that were doing through our ndit team. Weve dramatically increased our cybersecurity operations center. Its one of the most sophisticated in the country. Theyre responding, this last year in 2023 to 4 billion attacks. Thats with a b, 4 billion attacks, automatically we cant take care of all of those, but some of those, 50,000 of those, had to be handled with some element of manual interaction. But ai helps us speed through all of those, again, to be great stewards of the citizens data. And to make sure that our team members and everybody were working with, that we can make sure that we secure the privacy and the security and integrity of that data. To better understand all thean risks and benefits of ai, the state has gone through partnerships with private sector partners. More than 60 team members and p several agencies have taken part of this program to grow their understanding of ai and also to develop a list of viable projects that can be evaluated for deployment. Some of these are already underway. And this is a way where we can reinvent government, cut red tape, be more productive, because the free ai that exists today, some of the free tools speak 26 languages and they can code. And i know that some agencies said hey, we didnt get all the ftes we want, but every state team member now has a copilot that can sit next to them, that can write first drafts of reports, translate documents and help do coding solutions. Free. Not only create better expenses for citizens to reduce the cost of government to help keep citizens dollars in their pockets by asking more efficient delivering services. We want to make it north dakota the most attractive place to live, work, play for all citizens. We know its good for the pocket but weighs heavily on these. Whether to relocate or stay here the legislatures weve constantly picked up the tabs for the decisions for local governments, largely without restrictions and i just want to remind people. People are saying that property taxes are a problem. The assembly buried in the state budget all the things that we already do, the water, the roads, the counties, the sewers, the two billion that goes to k12. 5. 5 billion dollars 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 local level and they vary widely across the state. I dont have time to put up a slide to show you, but a mill in one county in one city is wildly different than the value of one mill in a different place in the state. We cant do a one size fits all thing because the wild disparities, both in local tax rates, local valuations and local spending. Some local school districts, park districts and cities are growing like crazy in terms of their breadth. Theyre getting wider and bigger than their population is growing. Theyre increasing linear feet for their infrastructures and the property taxes go up. Its not our solution to take someone elses tax dollars and send it to the city and say keep doing what theyre doing. You dont give people something when theyre doing something ineconomic, and for constraint. The proposal, is a scheme to pay another group of taxpayers. The people paying dont get to make a decision. Do we think as a state that we want to have a local political subdivision to order steak, lobster and champagne and somebody else has to come and pick up 100 of the tab . Thats not north dakota, that doesnt make sense. Legislators have taken upon themselves to study the issue. The issue is not a subsidy or a revenue transfer. If you want to reduce the size of government and reduce a citizens tax bill, then design cities and approaches that lower the cost. When we cut income tax in our state. We reduce the amount of money that comes into government and government has to respond by getting smaller. When we send to local political subdivisions, they go wow, we can in some cases raise their tax. We have people raising their taxes locally right now because they think that their taxes might be frozen at a certain mill level. Weve got perverse incentive people are raising them right now. Anything that state does targeted like the 159 Million Dollar homestead tax and made it more affordable, apply for the residence 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 and it includes the largest individual income tax tax relief in state history. 358 million, fantastic. Thats how much taxpayers, eliminates taxes for three out of five in our state. Thats going to help people, reduces the amount of revenue collected by government, but guess what . Were competing, youve heard me say that. Weve been going baby steps. Weve got the revenue, weve got the reserves, weve got the ability to do it, weve got the work force. Its time for us to stay goodbye to north dakota state income tax once and for all. [applause] this is the one tax collected by the state, controlled by the state, use my the state, it doesnt vary by county, by district, its not relying on local assessments, on some other political subdivision deciding how much theyre going to spend on the edge of their city or new park districts facilities. It doesnt depend on any of that stuff what their needs are. This is for citizens, this is putting money directly back if someones pocket in the transferring to a political subdivision. So i challenge the 69th legislature to take that final step. When you look at them, wyoming, texas, alaska, three states we compete directly for for energy workers, we compete with them. We need to be on a level Playing Field for them. If we had more energy workers, wed have them coming from other sources. Thats something to get to. In closing, i just want to thank all of you. 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. Seriously. [laughter] we did, we cut like 8,000 words the last three days. Theres like every agency is like, this is the amazing thing were doing so i want to say thank you for listening through all of this, but also, 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, the next time you hear someone underestimating our state, or significant that, oh, north dakota, you know, implying that were too cold, were too distant, were too sparsely 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, were really cold here and to ourselves they could never make it, were tougher than them. I dont need a coat, its only 20 below. Look at them. And raise your family because you know your kids are never going to be wimps, stand up and be tough in the cold. We are so blessed with all of those god given resources, but one resource we have and weve got great people, but the thing, the challenge i want to do for every north dakotaen, weve got to do more of 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 just bravada. Its the best in america. Teddy roosevelt said, believe you can and youre halfway there. Or in these days of fact checking, we think he said that. But its the idea of belief. We are the place where neighbors help neighbors. We honored some of them today, First Responders and police. We are the people where we back the blue, we support the military, 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 theyre here today, but when these are friends that have been friends for 50 years and Robert Hanson who just short of 91 years of age passed away last spring, lived his whole life in range township and slope county and i had an opportunity, to speak at his memorial service, and think of the 90 years that he saw, you know, riding a horse to a oneroom school. Living in a place where there wasnt electricity when he was first growing up, the whole arc of all of that, to all the innovation that occurs here that hes seen that he had seen over his lifetime. I was there and theyre having the service, a big crowd and yet half of the county was there, and i guess it was about 400 people, actually, but you know, big turnout was there at the county fairground and i looked back and saw the women preparing the food and you know, recognized people from brandings that i had been at and neighbors that had been neighbors of roberts for their whole life and kids of neighbors and grandkids of kids of neighbors and all these Multigenerational Families running the same ranches and doing the work and coming together every spring to help each other out during branding. You know, theres so much that goes on in our state that theres no government solution required, its just people that actually care about their neighbors and then take action around that. And when i look at all of that and i thought to myself when i was standing up there and i got emotional like i am now and looking out at the crowd and seeing faces and friends ive had for most of my life and going, wow, this really is the best of america. And so, when we talk about the core values that we really drive toward in our administration, that we drive to in the last day, we do lead with gratitude because we have so much to be grateful. The innovation only comes if we drive curiosity, i read something on the internet and know for certain no, weve got to have curiosity, check your sources. If someone agrees with you, try to people try to talk to people who think about things differently. Have the humility, i used to think that was true, but turns out that isnt troupe. Some that have humility has to come through right now for our country, for us to be able to heal. Weve got to say, wow, some of that isnt true. Some of the things that we thought about, you know, outsourcing our energy to all of our adversaries that dont have epas and the biggest polluters in the world may not help the world environment. Maybe we can be humble about that and say, the solution is right here. Gratitude, curiosity, humility. We have to have the courage and there are so many people in this room that had courage and courage to jump into the arena. Courage to be able to serve, to be able to take risks, to run for office, to volunteer, it takes courage to be a participant, you know, in the infamous words of Theodore Roosevelt that lives around us. You have to have courage to be in the arena and when we think about the purpose statement that we set out, that we designed when we seven years ago is one that about that we really believe and we get up every day and say government. And i know at that all the people that i work with in the office and the cabinet leaders and other elected weve got people that get up every day and they say, hey, our job in the state of north dakota is to make sure that were empowering people, improving their lives and therefore, inspiring their success. Its been such an honor. This is not a goodbye, youve got 327 more days of me, so its not a goodbye, its not a farewell, but i do want to say that you can count on us to keep chasing this purpose statement for the next 327 days because i know what working together, we can empower people, we can improve lives, we can inspire success, and if we believe in ourselves and we learn to tell our stories, we will no longer be that blank spot on the map in peoples minds. They will understand who we are and what we do and how we feed and fuel and protect the world and how in our state where freedom reigns, thank you, knot dak, thank you for being here today. 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