 I hope you've all enjoyed your dinner. We're going to get started with our program. And I want to start by thanking you all for being here this evening and for a remarkable day of conversation. Bringing together this extraordinary group of thought leaders and innovators really gives me great hope that are in our ability to shape a sustainable and prosperous energy future. As we consider the challenges that we face today and the future we hope to create, I'm particularly excited not just by the conversations we've had during the day, but also by the conversation that we're going to have this evening. The evening will start with Senator Lisa Murkowski, who will offer her perspectives on US energy policy and outlook. And then after her speech, it'll be followed by a conversation between Senator Murkowski, Secretary George Schultz, and Professor Arun Majumdar. Before we begin with this, I want to take just a few moments to introduce all three of our participants to you. Senator Murkowski, of course, is the sixth US senator to serve the state of Alaska. She joined the Senate in 2002. She's been a strong advocate for Alaska on important issues, including energy, health care, education, veteran affairs, and infrastructure development. She's chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which of course is directly germane to today's conference. She also serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where she is chair of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee. She's also a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and a senior member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Prior to her appointment to the Senate, Senator Murkowski practiced commercial law and anchorage and was elected to three terms in the Alaska State House of Representatives. She's now in her third full term as Alaska's senior senator after being re-elected in 2016. Now following her remarks, Senator Murkowski will be joined for a conversation with Secretary George Schultz. Secretary Schultz is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution here at Stanford. He has, of course, a distinguished career in government, academia, and business, which is well known to you. He's had held four different federal cabinet posts. He's taught at three universities, and he was president of Bechtel Group, a major engineering construction services company. He was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Nixon in 1969 and subsequently served as the first director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of the Council on Economic Policy. He also held two key positions in the Reagan administration. He was chair of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board and, of course, Secretary of State. In that position, he played a key role in implementing foreign policy that led to the successful conclusion of the Cold War, a remarkable accomplishment, as well as the development of strong relationships between the United States and countries of the Asia-Pacific region. The conversation between Senator Mikowski and Secretary Schulz will be moderated by Professor Arun Majumdar, who is the co-director of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy here at Stanford. Before coming to Stanford, he was appointed by President Obama as the founding director of the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy. He also served as the acting undersecretary of energy. In 2012, he joined Google as vice president for energy in this role. He led an effort to create the technology and business to provide electricity access in remote regions of the world. At Stanford, his research focuses on a molecular-scale understanding of how to convert methane, water, and carbon dioxide into liquid fuels and chemicals, environmentally benign cooling and refrigeration, and a new effort to re-engineer the electricity grid. I know we're all looking forward to a lively conversation between Senator Mikowski, Secretary Schulz, and Professor Majumdar. But first, please join me in giving a very warm welcome to Senator Lisa Mikowski. Good evening to all of you. Thank you for that welcome, President Tessier Lavigne. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you this evening and to be part of such a distinguished gathering over a couple of days. I will tell you that the worst part of being a United States senator and being in the position that I am and occupying this energy space where we can come together to develop great energy policies is that I'm invited to really substantive discussions that go on for two days. And I get to be here for all of four hours. So you are all sucking up this great inspiration and innovation that is going on around you. I'm counting on you to then take that and feed it back to me. But I am truly, truly pleased and honored to be here with such a distinguished group at this inaugural Global Energy Forum. I think that that's my cue that we need to be talking about energy resilience and how we keep the lights on. Or maybe it's just a reminder to you all that for so many of my constituents, when the sun goes down, it's dark. And in order to keep your lights on, it costs a lot of money. So we can serve fuel by using candlelight. So thank you for whoever cued me for that. I want to thank our hosts here tonight. And to particularly thank Secretary Schultz and Secretary Rice. I've seen Secretary Chu, Secretary Perry. There has been a great deal of encouragement for me to come and join you this evening. And I so appreciate that. But I also so appreciate your leadership and the leadership of so many that have not only provided distinguished service to our country, but who continue to give back in so many substantive and key and critical ways. So we thank you for your continued service. So as was mentioned, I'm chairman of the Energy Committee, but I have been the chair or the ranking member on the Energy Natural Resources Committee for almost a full decade now. And I see my friend and my former chairman, Jeff Bingaman here tonight. And I had the great privilege of being able to serve alongside my friend from New Mexico. We worked some good energy initiatives and to see him here as, again, part of that ongoing service to our country when it comes to the energy section. Jeff, thank you for your contributions as well. Good to be with you. And I think we would certainly, Jeff would recognize, but you don't really get to choose when your time in these roles began, whether it's chairman or his ranking. But in fairness, mine has coincided with some pretty dynamic and very impactful years for our country. When you think about everything that has changed over the past decade, we've seen our energy mix here at home evolve as production of oil and gas and renewables have all grown significantly. And we've simultaneously increased our influence on the world stage, particularly when it comes to oil and LNG. And think about how this has all come about at a time when we have seen some pretty dramatic shifts in our national politics. I don't need to talk to you about what's going on on the news. We're not going to talk about the elections necessarily, but I think we all know that we're in the midst of one of the most politically divided times that we've seen in a long, long while. And despite all of this, despite all the political turmoil that we've been going through, we have managed to secure some real victories on energy in this Congress. We've seen funding for research and development at DOE increase. We've seen increases in funding for outstanding programs like ARPA-E. So I know, Arun, you're very happy to know that, given how you had so ably led that at the beginning. We've greatly expanded the tax credit for carbon capture and sequestration. We've enacted bills that are focusing on our renewables, whether they be hydropower and innovation, nuclear. We've opened up an area in my home state where limited responsible energy development is going to benefit Alaska, other states like California, global markets in general. But we've really pushed out in so many different areas over this past decade. So as we're in the midst of all the discussion about elections, the question that I've been asked a lot is what's going to happen? Well, I don't have a crystal ball, so I'm not going to give you anything that's great deep inside secret that you're going to be able to go home and say, we know what's going to happen. I don't know necessarily what it will mean for the world of energy, for the gains that we've made, and for the policies that we might still want to advance. I can't tell you which party is going to control Congress after the election. I can't tell you what levels of interest there will be in working together, working across the aisle and across the chambers to modernize our reform and our federal policies. It may be months before any of that becomes clear. So you may be saying, well, if you don't know what you're going to say, why are you even up there, Lisa? Well, let me tell you this. It shouldn't matter who is in charge. It shouldn't matter who takes the lead here in elections. There should be a few hallmarks, a few lasting hallmarks that I think should define our nation's energy policy. And the first one, and I think the most compelling one, and what so many of you are involved in, is it should be a strong and abiding commitment to energy innovation, to innovation so that we remain the first. We remain the best at pioneering new energy technologies. And we know that we are capable of it. We have been doing it. America harnessed the autumn for use in peaceful nuclear power. We turned hydraulic fracturing into a shale revolution. You look at our national labs and all that they have led on. You look at universities, such as this one here. And the private sector, they're really the incubators that continue to take these ideas and turn them into world changing developments. And we've all seen the significant benefits that accrue as a result of innovation. But I will suggest to you that there has never been a need for it or such intense competition for the people that are capable of pursuing it as compared to what we are facing today. And that's why it has to be a sustained national commitment. It has to be sustainable. It has to be a national commitment. And this is where, this is how we're able to move from one administration to another, is if you have that sustained national commitment. So the importance of innovation then leads to what I believe should be this second hallmark, that we can't leave things on autopilot and just hope that everything is going to turn out OK. We've gotten this far. Let's just let it go along its course. Frankly, folks, it's been well over a decade now. And those of you who follow what's going on in the Energy Committee recognize we've been talking about this for 10-plus years, since the time that Jeff Bingaman was running things on the committee. It's been 10 years since we updated our energy policies. And that's simply too long. We were talking at our table earlier about, well, what's the impact of failing to update your policies? Well, think about it. Think about it. Some of the component pieces within our energy policy reform have been cybersecurity, grid resilience. We weren't talking about cybersecurity 10 years ago. We should have been, but we weren't. Grid resilience, it sounded like a good thing, but what did that really mean? Sometimes the innovation that is going on, I walked in with some of these great innovators with Weave Grid or whatever, what was your group? Who's the Weave guys? What's the name of it? Weave Grid, I was right. I mean, you all, as these great young innovators making exciting things happen, sometimes the ones that are holding us back are your government at the state and local level, the federal level. We need to be there to help incent you rather than hold you back. So we've got to be active, we've got to be engaged in confronting the challenges of our time. And so what we're talking about is cybersecurity, as I mentioned. We're already working fairly well together to protect the electric grid and other infrastructure, but we're seeing, we're seeing the attacks become more and more sophisticated. How do we stay ahead? How do we stay ahead of those who want to bring us to our knees when it comes to our own energy generation? It also means mineral security. Mineral security, because if we're gonna make the advancements that we need in our renewable energies, we know that mineral security has got to be a piece of this picture. Our foreign dependence right now is a threat to our ability to manufacture just about everything, including clean energy technologies. Right now, here in this country, the United States imports 50% of 50 different mineral commodities, including 100% of 21 of them. So for as long as that continues, we're gonna be in a situation where quite simply, we will have traded away our foreign oil dependence for an even more consequential dependence on foreign minerals. So we've got to keep that in mind. I also mean, when we talk about those things that we need to update, 10 years ago, where were we? Where were we when it came to the issue of climate and climate change? So we have got to address within our energy policies, within our national policies, the threat, the impact of climate change, which is real. It is real. It is increasingly harmful, and it's demanding, it's demanding of greater solutions than we have been able to agree on thus far. I come from a state where we don't talk about climate change in the abstract. This is not some theoretical thing that science and climatologists are talking about. We're living it, we're seeing it. We're seeing it, and it is a reality. And it's not just the sea ice. You see that, that is, that's, it's a very apparent visual. It's not just the sea ice. It's the glaciers that are receding. It's the wildlife. It's the fish migration patterns that are changing. When you have habitat that moves further north, well, the animals that graze on that, that the people that subsist on it, they move further north. So what does that mean from a food security perspective? Erosion and rising seas are forcing our villages, several of our villages, to relocate from their homelands. So we have to recognize that the changes that we are seeing, the human drivers of those changes, are real, and we have to be working together to find the practical ways to continue to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. So the third area that I think needs to be that constant as we move from political structures one to another, we have to remember the importance of security and affordability. We cannot ignore the forecasts of growing global energy demand. We cannot block needed domestic infrastructure because that's how we wind up dependent again on foreign oil. That's how you get into a situation where Massachusetts is importing LNG from Russia. That's what happened this past winter in the dead of winter. That's how we wind up with energy prices that hurt families, that hurt businesses, and that hurt our economy. It doesn't serve anyone well to ignore supply or the importance of security and affordability because the approach doesn't deliver the intended outcomes. It simply weakens our economy, our ability to respond to problems as they arise and our influence on the global stage. To me, there's no question that this is the direction that our energy policy should go towards cleaner energy with a continued emphasis on reliable and affordable. And that should really be the case, no matter what happens next week or in any other election for that matter. And as someone who has been pushing a broad bipartisan energy bill for the past four years, only to see it still pending on the Senate calendar, you know my complaint about that, I know that we've got our work cut out for us. I accept that, nothing is assured here. But that's why we need to keep focus on building consensus, working towards good, timely ideas that are capable of drawing that strong support. You know, we were kind of reminded when the lights went out here just for that brief flicker of a moment, but there is a very compelling picture. We have all seen it. It's the image of a planet Earth taken from space at night and it just so clearly captures the state of our world. The economic centers, they're all lit up, they're bright and they're interconnected. You can kind of feel the buzz of everything that's going on there. And then you have these areas of darkness that in fairness, you think there's nothing there, but in truth, there's still more than a billion people, more than a billion people in this world without reliable access to electricity. And there's no street lights. There's no refrigerator. There's no air conditioning. It's harder, life is shorter. It's just a consequence of not having energy in your life. And I think we should take that as a challenge. I think we should take that darkness as a challenge that has to be addressed, but also an opportunity for that innovation, for that development. But as you're thinking about how you can help those dark places on planet Earth, don't forget, these are not just in distant lands. There's a lot of dark places in my beautiful state of Alaska. There are way too many places in my state where we still lack modern infrastructure, where families are spending more than half of their incomes on energy, where families are reliant on diesel fuel that is barged into their village twice a year, once in the spring, once in the fall. You hope you hit it right because if you don't, the only way to get that fuel in is to fly it in 50 gallon barrels at a time. And imagine what that costs you. You're already paying $7, $8, $9, $10 a gallon for your fuel. And it's not only what keeps you warm in a cold place. This is what allows you to be able to subsist and feed your family, to be able to fill up your skiff with gas, to be able to fill up your snow machine or your four-wheeler so you can go out hunting. So this is a very real reality in this country today. And this is why we're working so hard in Alaska. And I'm hoping that in the conversation back and forth, we'll have a little more opportunity to discuss some of the transformative things that we're doing in the state of Alaska. You think of us as the oil producing state. Well, we do that and we do a darn good job at it, we believe, but we are also pioneering, innovating in those small spaces. We are leading the country when it comes to micro grids. And we're not doing it because we have the sharpest people in the country, although we think we've got some really great and innovative people, we're doing it because of necessity because the high cost and the lack of options are driving us to be innovative with the assets that we have on the ground where we are. Whether it's a couple wind turbines and a little bit of solar in a cold, dark place, but maybe we've got some small, small run of river. Maybe we've got a little bit of biomass. Maybe we've got some storage and we knit it all together and there's a lot of duct tape here. And boom, we're off of dirty, loud diesel. And it may not be 100% of the time, but we're getting there. We're innovating, we're pioneering, and we are taking charge. And that's what makes it so exciting. My state is ground zero for climate change, but we are also a proving ground for new technologies that we believe will not only help us solve our energy challenges, but others solve their energy challenges because if we can make it pencil in a high cost state like Alaska, we can make it pencil in other places as well. We can be that solution for these small, islanded communities that are relying on diesel right now, whether it's Micronesia or Puerto Rico. We can be that innovative test bed that can help transform something in African nations that too are without basic infrastructure. So we're pioneering, we are making all things possible. So last thing I wanna leave you with before we move to the more interesting discussion is another major priority in this space as we're talking about energy and energy innovation is ensuring that we have the best educated workforce in the world because I think we know that in certain spaces, we are losing that edge. We are losing that edge. There is no reason that we should lose that edge. And so we have to do more to encourage our young people to be entering these fields, whether it's in the math or the science or the engineering to inspire them to be these great innovators, these great pioneers with responding to the tough, tough, tough questions that we're dealing with right now. So that's why I'm very pleased that I'm here at your invitation, here at Stanford where many of you are leading the way through institutes like pre-courts to ensure that the best and brightest are really pioneering to make this happen. So delighted to be with you, but so looking forward to the engaging conversation that I know we will have with true leaders in the energy space. I'm honored to be with you. Well, first of all, thank you, Senator Markowski, for coming here. I know how busy your schedule is. Delighted to have you here. And for me, it's a particular honor to have both you and Senator Bingaman out here because both of you confirmed me for a Senate hearing. I don't know how you let me in to Washington, but I can speak for all the former DOE and even some current DOE. Thank you for your leadership. So let me turn the first question to Secretary Schultz. You have been involved in the field of energy for the last 50 odd years since you were in the Nixon administration, and the Ford administration, and in the Reagan administration. And you've had so this vast experience in government, in the private sector, and of course in academia. Based on that experience, given what you're seeing today, in terms of the challenges that we face, and frankly, the opportunities that we are offered, how should we think about the future, and what should we do? Well, first of all, if you're trying to get policy done as a member of an administration in Washington, the first thing you should do is go and talk to the senators. We had an approach in the Reagan period. We said, if you want me with you on the landing, include me in the takeoff. So we consulted, and you learn something by talking to the senators and the congressman. So our 1986 tax act passed 97 to three in the Senate. Our INF treaty was confirmed 93 to five. So it wasn't bipartisan, it was nonpartisan. And I think that's the trick that you were talking about. To get these areas moved into the category where there's stuff to argue about, but it's not partisan argument, it's on the merits. And once you get there, you can construct something. But I think, as I look back, a key is listening to what's going on. I remember in mid-eighties, a lot of scientists thought that the ozone layer was depleting. There were people who doubted it. And I talked with President Reagan a lot about it. And he became, the scientists who were worried were right. So, but there were some that didn't think so. So what did he do? Nowadays, if somebody disagrees with you, you're trying to destroy them. He put his arm around them. He said, you don't agree with us, we respect you, but you do agree if it happened, it would be a catastrophe. So why don't we take out an insurance policy? So that didn't get them on our side, but it got them off our back. And the result was the Montreal Protocol. And I think looking back, people say, you know, the scientists who were worried were right, and it came along just in time. So I think we have to work to create those situations where even people don't agree with us, get off our back. Now, I don't know how in Washington right now, you get an administration off your back. They seem to be a problem. But still it seems to me up to the Senate on a non-partisan basis to be sure we support energy R&D. As you pointed out, that works. A track record, all these things we see, solar's less expensive, wind and so on, that's all because of R&D. As you said in your opening comments. So strong support for R&D. Then I'm a great advocate of a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Because you've got to put a price on carbon and then people have to react to that price. So I push that and I would make it revenue-neutral. So there's no fiscal drag connected with it, as you pointed out. And so also, you make it a progressive tax. And every once in a while you get a little check as your carbon dividend, what's not to like about that. Some might even be popular. Senator Murkowski, given that the proposal is there in terms of an innovation in the policy sector of revenue-neutral carbon tax, and one of your staff members sent me a question, and I could you not. I'll blame it on them. What do you think Congress can complete by the end of the year? So do you think we can get this by the end of the year? Mr. Secretary, it probably won't happen by the end of the year. I mean, it's a fair question about what we can expect in a lame duck. My expectation, we've completed three quarters of the appropriations bills. We've got to address the last bit of it, which is a substantial increment, but that must be done. I'd like to get some of our energy initiatives through. We've got a public lands package that we would like to be able to advance, but we also have some of the component pieces within the energy bill that I have talked about. And Mr. Secretary, you mentioned some of the successes that came about with high bipartisan support. When we moved our energy bill across the Senate floor in the prior Congress, we gained 85 votes in support of that, which is pretty impressive for an energy package at a time when sometimes energy policy can see those partisan divides. So I think that there is a possibility there. We have some more nominations, I think that will need to be packaged up and moved through, but in terms of substantive policy, as I mentioned, I don't have that crystal ball. I don't know whether the House flips on this. And then that means that there's more incentive by the Republican majority to advance things now while we can. If that's the case, I would fully anticipate that our Democrat colleagues would want to thwart as much of that as they possibly can. So there you have it, there's Congress in a nutshell. We don't know what's gonna happen, but if I can just take you up on the Secretary's comments about some of these substantive policies when that relate to energy. I am one who says that these types of truly substantive initiatives need to have that not only organic support out there, but we in Congress need to be talking openly whether it's in committees, but speaking about some of the challenges. How could you craft something that would look like this that would be acceptable for somebody in my state who says, well, wait a minute, we wanna make sure that we have policies in place that are gonna reduce our emissions, but if I'm paying $8 a gallon for fuel in Aniac, which is a river community in the middle of the state on the Yukon River, and you're gonna tell me I'm now gonna go from $8 to $10, and I'm gonna get a dividend, but I don't know when I'm gonna get that dividend, but wait a minute, right now I'm having to make a decision as to whether or not I buy formula for my infant, or I'm gonna buy five gallons of home heating fuel to keep my home warm. I actually have a receipt from a woman in Aniac who gave me her dilemma, and said I want you to keep this to remember what it means to me, so I wanna make sure that we're able to work through the details, the guts of this, and how we do it is through a good, honest discourse and dialogue that debate that we need to have in the Congress that is open and fully fleshed, not afraid to use the words tax. I'm gonna be hung out to dry as a Republican here. A fee. A fee, okay, now we're gonna call it a fee, but I mean this is my point, this is my point. How we talk about it I think is going to be important because we need to be able to have that honest debate at a time when honest debate has been very, very challenging because you're right, you try to call it for what it is and you get called out and people get cowed and then we can't move forward. You have to have the conviction in the policy and the direction and we just stand up and speak out and talk together but we gotta be able to talk together. Well I have a suggestion. Okay. I think it's up to us out here in California on the sticks to show that we care and visible about it. And a few weeks ago we had in San Francisco a meeting of people from all over the world came, Governor Brown organized it and we talked about the climate and we talked about things to do and so on and it was a genuine supportive event and a lot of substance and I had one poignant experience because I got talking to a woman who was the president of the Marshall Islands and as a Marine in World War II we fought over those islands. So I had to think they were important. So when I was Secretary of State and I was in Asia I would always stop in one of them on my way home and she said, I remember when you stopped in Kwajalein. So we had a little talk and then I said, well, what are you doing now? She said, we are buying property in the mountain region of the Korean Peninsula. Why are you doing that? Because our islands are going underwater. Anytime there's a storm we're swept out. We're losing our homes. And it tells you something is happening and it's very serious and it affects human beings and it's a global phenomenon. So we have to do things here and we have to lead the way and show that things can be done. And I think this is where the R&D is so important because it is accomplishing things and a lot of the stuff that's happened is right out of R&D and it deserves strong support. And you were mentioning that so I know you agree. Well, and I was also out in the islands and met with the president, first woman president, I might add, which was nice to be able to visit with her. But we also recognize that in addition to all of the families that inhabit the islands, the United States has an incredible investment. As you know, as former Secretary of State, an incredible investment in our military out on places like Quadruple. And so if you're just looking at it from an investment perspective, as opposed to the human portion, not portion, but the human reality, we have a great interest and I believe leading on so many of these issues and how we can as a nation, as a nation of innovators, as a nation who really should be pioneering and leading in some of these spaces, we've got an opportunity to engage in a way that can make meaningful difference. And I think we're seeing much of that play out already. We have seen our emissions reduced in this country because of some of the policies that have been put in place. And again, some of the ways that we have innovated and led. And so how we then share that, how we help others advance with their technologies as well I think is an important part of our role as a global leader. So when you look at, for example, I mean you talked about some of the real issues that you're facing, that your constituents are facing in Alaska and that's real. These are things that people have to deal with whether it's to buy baby food or not. Or their community possibly being eroded away. That's right. So that's on one hand. On the other hand, we also realize that if you are to address energy reliability or affordability or address carbon emissions issues, the business community, which is very much involved in this have to get a long-term signal of some kind predictable signal. And the question is, we know that there needs to be some price on carbon in the future. My question to you, since you're in Washington right now, you understand how things are shaping. What is the roadmap for our nation? How should we be creating this dialogue? And how do we move forward towards some kind of policy that's a long-term predictable signal that helps the constituents in Alaska and all across the country, and as well as the business. So how do we align all that? Well, I am a big believer in dialogue. I'm a big believer in constructive dialogue. And I will share a quick little story. I have high school interns that come and spend a month with me. They've just graduated from high school. Two years ago, I had a group and I give them an assignment at the beginning of their one-month tenure there. And this particular group, I said, I need to be able to create a safe space to speak to those who are not entirely embracing climate change. I need to be able to talk to people about how we move forward with constructive solutions on the issue of climate change. So I want you to think about it for a month and then just before you get ready to go, we're gonna visit and you're gonna give me your advice as an 18-year-old Alaskan. Sit down, I said, okay, what's your answer? One young man, 18 years old says, well, the first thing you have to do is you have to stop calling one another names. And just think about that. We laugh because that young man is right. Think about how we approach a dialogue. If I call you out, Mark, and I say, well, you're a denier and you're like, I'm not a denier, you're a pie in the sky and now neither one of us are gonna be able to get anywhere because we have already decided where you are and I'm not gonna be able to be constructive in my discussion. So how we kinda stand down from where we are is a challenge to us. And so I think we need to be thinking about how we talk with one another about these issues. I think as an Alaskan, I come from a very interesting perspective because I don't engage in the science. I'm not a scientist. I don't pretend to be. But I engage from the perspective of I listen to the elders when I go out to a village and I ask them what they have seen over their years. I see, as an Alaskan who travels all over the state, what is happening in these communities that are experiencing coastal erosion where their water and sewer infrastructure is threatened and their water supply is threatened. I'm talking to walrus hunters who are saying, it used to be that the walrus that sit on the ice and that shelf were close in and so filling up my skiff to go out and hunt was something that I could do and provide for the community. But now it's costing me so much money to put fuel in my boat because I have to run so far out and now it's in open, dangerous water with higher waves. And I'm fearful for my safety and my crew's safety, but I have to feed the village. These are not, these are real life situations. These are people that I work for. This is my home. And so I am compelled to be part of a dialogue that is going to help them. Because if I just go back home and say, this is too hard, the politics are just too steep and deep, what happens then when that crew and that skiff doesn't return home safely? I wear that. And so for me, it becomes personal, how we make it personal. I'm not entirely sure, but I will tell you, I think about those families that have been impacted by these recent storm events that have been horrifying, that wipe out parts of the Panhandle of Florida that are inundating North Carolina. And people are saying, what is happening? And when they say what is happening to me, they then turn to those of us that are in policy-making positions and saying, how are you gonna help? And that's where our obligation is. That's where our responsibility is, is to the reality of the people that we serve. Both of you are big supporters of innovation, technology innovation, you mentioned that. And Mr. Secretary, you have been a big supporter of R&D for innovation. From where you sit and you look out and see what's going on, what excites you? What is exciting to you that will really be a game changer for Alaska and frankly, for the international community? Well, I'll start with a couple. We do cool things in the energy committee. I, if any of you are bored at any point in time, tune into the energy committee. We're doing like quantum information science. We're doing the block chain. We did a hearing on Blackstart. We are just cool and geeky and that's fun. But from Alaska's perspective and where we're making a difference right now that is exciting, we are leading the world in microgrids. I don't know if we're leading the world in microgrids. We're definitely leading the country. We've got over 200 microgrids in the state of Alaska right now. And these are communities that are saying, we're not part of anybody else's grid. We're probably not gonna be part of anybody's grid because there's no transmission lines to hook me up. It's too far, it's too expensive. So what are we gonna do utilizing the assets that we have on the ground? So again, as I mentioned, it's a little bit of wind, a little bit of solar, a little bit of biomass, a little bit of run of river, a little bit of hydro, a little bit of storage and piecing it together and being innovative and pioneering. So we're kind of taking the country by storm when it comes to microgrids. So look to us for expertise. But the microgrid is one of the best answers to the cybersecurity threat to the grid. You're innovating something that we could use more broadly. So true, that grid resilience that we talk about. Mr. Secretary, what excites you from what you're seeing today and looking out in the head? Well, I think there is a growing and very much needed broad conviction that the climate issue is a existential issue. I think there are two things that could wipe out our world. I have six great grandchildren. I look at these kids, they're wonderful, they're curious about everything. And I say to myself, what kind of a world are they gonna inherit? And what can I do to make it better? One is to work on the climate change issue because it can wipe out the world. And the other that really worries me is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They can also wipe out the world. And why we withdraw from the INF Treaty and the START treaties, it's awful. These are things that are important. They had a momentum of doing something about it and we're turning our back. And people lose talk about using nuclear weapons. It's ridiculous, it's scary. So we gotta get people back in line to realize the threats to humanity. These are not just little things. Threats to humanity from the climate problem or the nuclear weapons problem and do something about them. And there are things you can do. That's the big message we get. We see the R&D, we see what's happened in the past. We see that things can be done. You mentioned little villages that can put up their own little micro grids. They're doing something about it. And that's what we've gotta get into our heads. Identify things that can be done and do them. Senator Markowski, we are almost out of time but I have to give you the last word. There are lots of students out here. You are at the university. If you have to give them maybe one or two words of advice, what would you say? Don't ever be afraid to take risks. Risk is what motivates you. It's an important part of moving. So don't ever be afraid to take on a little bit of risk. Move outside that comfort zone. Every refrigerator I have, makes it sound like I have a lot. I have two refrigerators, okay? I'll just, I'll confess to it right here. Both of my refrigerators have the great refrigerator magnet that says you gotta live on the edge of your comfort zone and taking on a little risk is a good thing. On that high note. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.