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The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Oh, yeah, live around the world on the Internet at MichaelDukesShow.com. And across the state of Alaska on this radio station and or FM translator. Good Monday morning. I know a little too early for that. Sorry about that. Good Monday morning to you. It is just another beautiful day here in paradise on top of the world and beautiful Homer, Alaska. Just a blistering 14 degrees outside.
which compared to last week, that is blistering. It got cold here, man. It was a little chilly. But now we're feeling good, and we're diving into it today. I got a treat for you. It's a treat just for you. We call it Montalpano Mondays. Why? Because we love alliteration.
And it just sounds good. It sounded so good, in fact, that she appropriated that name without paying the copyright fees, I'll tell you, to her Substack page. And so we're going to talk with Sarah Montalbano here in just a hot second. She's hanging out.
Apparently in Chris Chang's house, because that's the same house that he sits in when he does his video. Anyway, we're going to talk with Sarah Montabano here in just a hot second. I want to give you the quick preview, though. We're going to talk with her about the president's executive orders and the.
impact on energy because now she's got a whole new gig. She was our education expert working for the Alaska Policy Forum, and now she's doing energy policy for another fancy think tank, which I have just... Just boom. I just slipped my mind exactly what it is. She's going to tell us about that in hour one. In hour two, oh, baby, are we going to talk about some education stuff? Because everybody's crying about education.
everybody's got the same story. And what if I told you that the majority of it's all theater? What if I told you That we should actually we should ask Sarah during one of the breaks about this, because what if I told you that it's all theater to get your attention and to pressure you into funding more of the same? which according to the latest report card, 51st. We are 51st out of 53. That includes the territories, in case you can't count. 51st!
I mean, it's a whole thing. We're going to talk about that in hour two. All right. So first, before I get carried away here and get a big old head of steam, let's get over here and talk to one of our favorite people, Sarah. Montalbano for Montalbano Monday. She joins us this morning. And, uh, does Chris know you're in his house? That's what I want to know. First things first, does Chris Chang know that he's, he's you're in his house hanging out.
Sarah Montalbano joins us this morning. By the way, you're rocking those earrings. I just want to say that. It's, you know, live long and prosper and all that. All right. Sarah Montalbano joins us. Sarah, I apologize. I totally forgot what is the name. of the new think tank you're working for out there. So give us your official title this morning. What are we talking about here?
Thank you. Yeah, I am an energy policy fellow at the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment. So yeah, we're doing Minnesota-based issues, some in North Dakota as well. So talking a lot of oil and gas. as well as mining. There's a lot in...
all the energy executive orders to be really excited about for all of these states. Right. But we can't take the Alaska out of her soul. So she's here giving us the details of Alaska and the impact on us. Because, you know, Sarah, the big thing about this kind of... of energy policy, and we saw this during the last Trump administration as well, is even though some of these new energy policies are fantastic in the big picture for the country.
for Alaska as a state, the revenue for the state government and everything else. Sometimes these policies have an adverse effect on the people because of costs and everything else. But give us the rundown here. Let's take a look at this and start from top to bottom and dive into what's going to be the big picture. Give us the first overview, and then let's dive down into what these executive orders do.
Yeah, absolutely. President Trump unleashed just a ton of executive orders about energy in his first couple of days. And I think one of them is actually specifically for Alaska. So there's a number of issues there. I am personally always wary of governing via executive order. I think. So much of this needs to be figured out by Congress. But Congress has largely abdicated its responsibilities and so many of these issues. So I understand coming from this angle where you start.
repealing previous executive orders from the Biden administration where you start directing your executive branch agencies to review some of these actions. So that is largely what these executive orders do.
They repeal a number of harmful policies like the offshore oil and gas leasing ban that would affect Alaska, as well as a bunch of issues regarding uh anwar ambler uh npra um and a host of other areas in alaska well and that's always been the problem right that's the problem with executive orders is that they You know, they can immediately be flip-flopped. And we have a history in this country, obviously, of swinging back and forth, the pendulum swinging from one side to the other.
And what we need is we need a Congress that will actually do its job and rule and make laws based on some of these things so that it can't be overturned at the next go around. And that's actually Nick Begich is on the program here. couple weeks ago, and he said that is actually the priority. You only got about an 18-month window here before the midterms.
And we know that it will probably, the pendulum will probably swing in the midterms. It usually does. And so you've got a very finite period of time to get some of these things basically baked into law before. before it's over because we don't know who the next president could be. They could come around and do exactly the same thing. And so we're tired of being on this seesaw. We need to find some balance.
Exactly. And I think that these executive orders, if nothing else, are going to be a really important guidepost for where this administration's thinking. But we do have to get some of this actually legislated. One of the big parts of that is going to be permitting reform. We need to make permitting faster and we need to make it more certain because right now it is litigated to years, decades. We know, you know.
projects like the Pebble Mine and Ambler Road. All of these things have been litigated for decades. So that is what I'm hoping to see coming out of these things. There's a policy put in place in these executive orders to try to expedite permitting, to look for areas to make that faster and more certain for developers. But that is ultimately going to need Congress to do some reforms.
So let's talk about I mean, maybe we should deal with the overarching executive orders before we get to specifically into the Alaska one. So let's talk about the overarching. You know, he wants to drill baby drill. Right. He wants to expand American. self-reliance and self-dependence. Now, it mirrors what he did in his last term.
America went a big way towards becoming self-sufficient and independent. We started exporting more and more gas. In fact, I think we're now in the top, either top one or two as far as exporting gas across the world. So this would help, again, with that exploration, that discovery. What does it mean for the country as a whole? Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a really interesting...
group of executive orders. The first is the unleashing American energy order which has some interesting definitions. The first that I would point out is that you know energy resources in this order are defined as you know crude oil natural gas coal uranium critical minerals actually but it's not including wind or solar
So I think that's an interesting positioning from the administration, and it really shows where the focus is going to be. It's going to be moving away from these intermittent sources of electricity towards the kind of things that we can export, that we can... use baseload power 24-7 around the clock. So I think that's a promising sign, frankly. There's so much going on in these orders. The second most important one is declaring a national energy emergency.
when we really look at that like what are those emergency powers that he's going to want to use i think that one's going to face some scrutiny in the courts and i'm personally not quite sure how i feel about it but i think we do have a lot of evidence that um Energy demand is growing, and it's growing for the first time in a decade. It's really been this AI boom, this artificial intelligence boom. We're seeing actually data centers taking up a lot of electricity.
And demand is actually rising for the first time. And it's made worse by subsidizing the intermittent wind and solar. So yeah, he also repealed the moratorium on offshore oil and gas leasing. um unpaused the uh export projects permitting for liquefied natural gas um gosh he withdrew the u.s from the paris climate agreement right um
Yeah, there's an incredible number of things, too. One thing I noticed that he didn't include was a temporary waiver for the Jones Act. That would have been one thing for Alaska, which would have been a good thing to allow us to get.
natural gas from the u.s if we needed to but uh that i digress i guess no it's it's crazy and the jones act is really one of those things that i think should be getting more attention here and i'm kind of amazed that it's not um but we shall see yeah we shall see you we talked you mentioned that they didn't have anything for the renewables and the green we had a conversation last time you were on about how
There's some farcical stuff going on with the renewables. And the problem is, of course, is that it is not a baseload energy product. It is a subsidy. It's not steady. It only adds to a baseload. And if we don't have a proper baseload, we can't get it. done this hopefully opens some of that up. Exactly, exactly. I truly think the main product that wind and solar produce are subsidies. And that is simply because they're getting so much of their construction costs paid for with federal government.
in the production tax credit and investment tax credit. And I would say also that the executive orders pause a lot of this Inflation Reduction Act funding to review more of the impacts of those subsidies. Sarah Montalbano, our guest, she is talking with us today about the executive orders and the effect on Alaska. We're coming up on the break here, so I don't want to give me a quick tease here, Sarah, before we go to break on what what Alaska can expect from its specific executive order.
I think it's a really promising place to do business now. I think there will be a lot of opportunities to look at leasing areas that would previously be put off limits by the Biden administration. And I think this is the end of Alaska being. one big nature preserve. All right. Sarah Montalbano is our guest. Montalbano Monday.
We like that. You can check her out on her Substack, by the way, if you want to follow over there. She writes some good stuff. Not always pertinent to Alaska, but it's always interesting to see how it works. Go over and check it out on Substack. We return in just a moment. The Michael Duke Show. Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show.
Okay, we are in the break right now. Sarah Matabato, let me unmute her there for just a moment, is back with us. Sarah, I will sidebar for just a second. Have you been following this whole education debate in the state right now? I know it's kind of your first love there with what you were doing here, but have you been following some of this stuff?
I'm pleased to say I haven't read the legislation, but I've read a lot of the news reports, and I can probably guarantee that it's exactly the opposite of what the news reports are saying about it. I mean, I find it so amazing that these. School boards, administrators, superintendents are shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that they're in this deficit. We don't know how it happened. I mean, it's only been going on for a dozen years, but they still can't seem to figure out.
It's like one of those young couples. that got their first credit cards and are waiting on that new pay raise that they were promised. And we're just going to keep spending like that pay raise is coming. And we know that it's going to, and we hope it's going to come in two years later, they're a hundred thousand dollars.
credit card debt and they can't figure out why they got there, but they refuse to cut back on their lifestyle. That's, I mean, it's shocking to me. The COVID relief funding dried up and they weren't. Thinking about it. They weren't prepared for that. Even though the one time that the federal government actually was smart and said, please don't use this for anything other than one-time funding. And they're like, sure, sure, whatever you say, Dad. And then they...
You have all these staff positions you can't afford, and a lot of them are administrative. Well, that's the big thing, the administrative part. And what are we hearing now? We're going to get into this in hour two, but all we're hearing is about, oh, we're going to have to cut teachers and music programs and sports programs and more teachers and no administrative, no discussion about the administrative overhead or this or that or the other thing.
It's always about the teachers because they want to hit you right where you live. It's theater, right? I mean, at this point, this whole budget cycle thing where... The schools all are required by contract usually to have their budgets in place, usually a month and a half, six to eight weeks ahead of when the legislature is going to be done with their stuff. And so it's all. built purposefully to put pressure on the legislature to increase the funding. I mean, am I seeing this wrong?
No, and the legislature last year passed one-time funding that really did a lot to fill in that gap. I think the goal of this is not to not increase funding. It's to show some accountability for your outcomes while we increase your funding. So I'm very curious to see where this goes. I've not been following it closely. Which they're staunchly opposed.
to they're staunchly opposed to any accountability measures but again this whole idea that this whole system is built to deceive us the whole system with the timing and everything else every school district's budget has to be done before the legislature is done so then they can because it's required by contract to issue pink slips to teachers who may not be retained the following year because then they
could put on their red shirts and wave their pink slips and say, I'm going to get fired if you don't increase the education funding over the last four or five weeks of the legislature. It happens every, it's all purposely built to become theater. to increase the funding that's what it's all about oh yeah yeah oh i understand and and i think um
The seizures unions have a large portion of that responsibility, frankly. I think it's working as intended, don't you? I think it's working as intended. Yeah. No, it's crazy stuff. That's got to be a bit of a relief to be able to go. Now I can step out. Not my circus, not my monkey. That's right. Now I can talk about energy. I mean, you know, now I can talk about energy, which has its own issues for sure.
Yeah, that's a new circus. Yeah, that's a new circus with a handful of new monkeys, all of them on crack. I mean, that's exactly what it is. Monkeys on crack. So we're going to get into that. All right. Sarah Montalbano is our guest. We're about to continue the Michael. duke show common sense liberty based free thinking radio please like subscribe ring the bell do all that stuff and uh let's uh let's get things going on don't forget to check out our sub stack
Which is Montalbano Mondays. What's the website address? Montalbano. It's right there. sarahmontalbano.substack.com. See, she was smart enough to put it on the screen. I wasn't smart enough to read it. All right, here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Let's do this thing. Here we go. Four seconds. Three, two. Public Anima number one.
Oh, wait, sorry. Enemy. Public enemy number one, which makes more sense. On the other hand, he's a little bit of a pain in the Michael Duke show. That's not true. Sarah said I'm a perfect angel. Perfect angel. That's right. That's right. You missed it in the break. Exactly. Sarah Montalbano, our guest here on the program, working for the American Experiment out of Minnesota, talking about energy.
And other things, you can find her writings at sarahmontalbano.substack.com. That's her Montalbano Monday sub stack. Let's go on here now, Sarah. You were just telling us and giving us a little bit of a tease about the executive order that was specifically targeted at Alaska. So run us through it. What does it do? How is it going to help us? Also, like I said earlier, sometimes these things...
They hurt us a little bit in the short term because it has effects on the economy, et cetera, et cetera. But walk us through how this executive order is going to affect Alaska. Yeah, so the Alaska-specific executive order, unleashing Alaska's extraordinary resource potential.
I thought that was a really nice title for it. And what it mostly does is a policy stance towards actually being able to do some development here. I think it recognizes that Alaskans know how to conserve our environment very well. well, and that we take a lot of pride in doing that, that we're not, you know, despoiling the environment in order to, you know, just export all of this oil and natural gas.
It's not for that purpose. We know how to responsibly manage our resources. And what I think Senator Dan Sullivan is fond of saying is that, you know, we've seen at least 70 executive actions by the Biden administration. suppress oil and gas exploration and development. So among very many other things. this trump executive order walks back the cancellation of uh anwar leases the arctic national wildlife refuge um and it rescinds the biden rule that
places more than 40% of the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska off limits. I think that's more than 40. I think the final rule was actually about. more than 40% as a special area that can't be considered for development. They are prioritizing development of Alaska's potential to drill and export liquefied natural gas. It talks about the Alaska LNG pipeline in particular as kind of a national security issue. Like, look at the economics of this. You know, I really do think the...
Biden administration has failed to listen to a lot of Alaska Native communities on this. I know no project is going to have unanimous approval, but there's been a lot of picking and choosing of voices to listen to.
kind of debates um also it talks about the ambler road um you know that this um access to the ambler mining district is important to them for critical minerals uh purposes so that is a oh and the tongas national forest um i wrote about this a couple years ago in the wall street journal about the roadless rule that has been flip-flopped back and forth a couple times. And so Trump has flip-flopped it back to where there will be some ability to build roads and do some minor logging in the Tongass.
which is a very small amount of actual. road building and logging but right it was entirely off limits before right and this again goes back to now that the president set this up now we need to get congress involved in uh you know, in solidifying these and making these rules permanent. Let's talk for a minute here about the... About the designation of the gas line as a national security issue. Now, I have suspected that at some point the president may propose.
federal funding of an alaska gas line for under national security auspices now that would be the right now that would be the only way that we could really get a natural gas pipeline from the north slope because otherwise the economics of it i mean i know the governor's announced this do you i mean have you looked into this whole thing with glenn farn and the whole thing with them
saying that they're going to partner with ADEA now and the Gas Line Development Authority and do all this. And now, all of a sudden, they're going to make it work, even though the...
the economics, the Wood Mackenzie report with the rosiest, with an 80% subsidy, put gas at something like 35% higher than market value with an 80% subsidy. So, I mean... do you think that that's what this means are you can you read into this a little bit read into the tea leaves and tell me what you think it means for alaska for an alaska gas line Yeah, I think you would be probably right to say that something like that's coming down the pipeline. I don't really suppose.
I think the ROI needs to be right to actually build this project. I think a large question will be how much is being exported and how much is being used here at home. You know, it could be a very interesting situation. But I think what the executive order has largely done is let me see if I've got the quote, actually. It requires the agencies permitting the project to give due consideration to the economic and national security benefits of transporting Alaska LNG to other U.S. states as well as.
allied nations within the Pacific region. So I think what this executive order is actually doing is directing agencies to look more closely at their actual permitting process for this line. So again, this comes down to what Trump can actually do in executive orders, which can be somewhat limited, but directing executive branch agencies to look.
at this more closely, I think is the crux of the order. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I would be, I'm with you. I'm not sure that a federally funded solution for the gas line is the correct answer.
I have some real concerns about that. But at the same time, if you... everybody's so emotionally tied to making sure that we use alaska gas and alaska homes i mean that that's in a perfect world that's a great idea but otherwise it just does not pencil out um for the financials right for the economics of it it just doesn't pencil out for private industry to get involved in a multi-billion dollar pipeline that won't deliver uh you know that the deliverable cost is well above market value
Right, right. And I think the guiding North Star of energy policy really ought to be that we... scale back subsidies and tax breaks for everything, not just the wind and solar. And maybe that makes me sound a little crazy, but
You know, all of these technologies need to be competing on an even footing. And I think if we were really looking at this carefully from an economic perspective, there's... a lot of these things that don't make sense and it's not just the wind and solar uh so we need to actually you know look at the math of this one and i i am
hopeful that it goes through permitting and it understands exactly where the environmental risks and benefits would be, and then see if we can actually get the funding. Because I think a large portion of the lack of interest is... for not just this project, but all of them from any private investors is the uncertainty in the permitting process. That's absolutely a problem for every kind of project. The mines in Minnesota are facing the same thing.
Yeah, no, I mean, again, the stumbling block, and you mentioned it earlier, the litigation, that's where it gets us. I mean, we've seen this happen. We saw this happen specifically in France where they were doing a lot of... They were creating a lot of their power using nuclear energy. And it was like they would wait to the last minute.
When they were just about to break ground on a new plant and that there'd be a whole slew of litigation and it would tie it up for another 10 years. And and so there's got to be some kind of point where there's a hold harmless on some of this stuff that once you.
done the reviews and the eis's and everything else now you're locked in and it can't be you know it's got to be at some point you you can't hold people hostage in that way exactly under the national environmental policy act uh there's a it's the regular u.s statute of limitations on it it's i think seven years uh so you know you can
Most environmental groups don't do this because they're usually ready and raring to go and start litigation right away. But you could get all your permits, start construction, maybe even be done with it and then have this litigated under the way. that things currently work. So what are the impacts of some of the other things? I mean, the Tongass, the roadless rule, like you said, I mean, that thing's like a wiffle ball. It just keeps going back and forth across the net. But what does it mean?
to be able to i mean i think the biggest thing is is something like that you have to act on it because then it makes it harder to flop it back the other direction so what is what are we looking for in the tongas here that would allow them to to utilize this. Is it actual logging? Is it clearing? Is it making a transition between so that people can transit it? What's the push here?
Yeah, so the roadless rule is a really interesting rule. It was passed in 2001, and it is essentially, it was passed, it was an executive order in 2001 that is largely blocking off, not just in the Tongass. It's about half of the Tongass that's affected by the wordless rule and a large portion of other national forests as well. So, you know, the Trump administration first paused this, took it back for the Tongass.
Biden administration reinstated. Now we're back to having this paused while they review the effects. And when the first Trump administration had loosened those restrictions, it was only about 186,000 acres, more acres, open to consideration for timber harvesting and only about 50 miles of new roads. And that that probably. sounds like a lot, but here's the context.
That's over the next 100 years. So the U.S. Forest Service has a lot of planning that they do when they're actually picking the parcels that might be suitable for these purposes. And 50 miles of road. across the next hundred years is not all that much. And most of that would be for access to timber areas. And the Tongass National Forest is, you know, 16.7 million acres. So that's a large portion of land and a very small amount that's actually open to these kind of harvesting issues.
Personally, don't see it reviving the southeast timber industry. It's not really going to be clear cutting. It'll be very select parcels. But we'll see if investors really capitalize on that. They didn't really have a chance because it was towards the first. the tail end of the first Trump term, and then the Biden administration immediately pulled it back. So we didn't see any economic effects from that one. And the other, the opening up of the, you know, the reversing of the 40%.
of the NPRA and things like that. Now, that doesn't necessarily help Alaska because, again, it's federal land, so we're not getting a lot of monies or royalties. But there is knock-on, obviously, with workers and people like that. So what is the effect there? And do we have time to take advantage of this new policy? Yeah. So again, this ends up being a kind of interesting... the phase of this executive order because it's pulling that back so anwar lease cancellations are uncancelled basically
They have to go back and look at this. But all of these things still have to go through the permitting process. So in the NPRA, these special areas are no longer...
special area designation, which means that they're open to consideration for leasing. So I'm hopeful that this will mean some more interest for oil and gas companies. Anwar had a pretty... awful lease sale where there was no commercial interest right before the Trump term because the Biden administration was legally required to hold that lease sale.
But they put up the minimal required acreage and put a lot of stipulations on it. And some of the news reports were saying, look, we're waiting to see what the Trump term does with this. We don't want to accept leases under this really restrictive. And I think that's more of the attitude is we're looking to do some exploration before we figure out.
what projects we might actually want to do in these areas. Yeah. I mean, it was a, it was a woeful, woeful lease period. And in fact, I think it was only, I think the state was the only one that ended up doing anything with some of that. But, again, this is, again, part of what we were talking about, this badminton shuttle going back and forth across the net because nobody wants the uncertainty. Nobody wants to pour millions of dollars into development.
or test drilling or exploration of an area that in two years, three years, you may not have access to, or there may be more stumbling blocks or hurdles. Although if you were already in the middle of it, it would be a lot harder to... justify some of the reversals right i mean so maybe we can get something started and it would make it harder
Yeah, I mean, the general approach here needs to be that now that these things are set in motion, we need to make the permanent process more concrete for people. We need it to be less litigatable. It needs to be. that we figured out the science, we figured out that we can do this safely with limited environmental effects, and then we do it. All of these things have been dragged out for many, many years, and that really harms our competitiveness as a state.
All right, Sarah Montalbano is our guest. Montalbano Monday continues. You can, again, find her over on her sub stack, and you should go over there and subscribe. I get email notifications all the time every time she posts on Mondays. SarahMontalbano.com. Substack.com for that discussion. When we come back, we're going to get her final thoughts here on the overall effect on this and what she sees for the Alaskan economy here.
in the future under these new executive orders what does it mean is it the godsend is it a mixed blessing is it much ado about nothing we'll see what sarah montalbano has to say we're going to continue here in just a minute The Michael Duke Show, Comet Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thicket Radio. Broadcasting live through a series of tubes. Allowing all of these entities to provide streaming stuff going on the internet. Well, it's kind of hard to explain. Sorry.
Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. All right, Sarah Montalbano is our guest. I'm going to address this just because. Henry says, Mike, why are you disparaging the production of our own vast supplies of natural gas? Sounds like Soros radio stations. Hope you didn't buy a bunch of radio stations for you. Horror of horrors.
Cheap LNG would allow Alaskans to eat their homes, heat water, cook, dry clothes. The profits of selling our abundant natural gas would be enormous. Except you're 100% wrong. Henry, I'm not disparaging. I'd love to have access to the 17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the North Slope. I would love that. To me, that would be a dream come true. The problem is, is the economics of it don't work out.
that they would deliver to Tidewater, if we were going to export gas, the profits you're talking, there are no profits. Even Wood McKenzie's report, which again assumes an 80% subsidy from somebody. the government or whatever, to build a pipeline still puts natural gas at 35% higher than the market. So we wouldn't be getting cheap natural gas here. We wouldn't be getting profits from natural gas. You probably should check your facts before you start spouting off. I'm just saying. Richie.
From Minnesota, formerly. He's now an Alaskan. Ask Sarah a question, which is probably more in her wheelhouse. Are tariffs on Canada likely to have any energy ramifications on Minnesota? Since that's your bailiwick, let's see what's going on. Sure. Yeah. So I haven't looked at this in depth. But I would imagine that it will not be helpful to Minnesota. And the reason is the clean energy mandate in Minnesota. They have to produce
100% of their energy from clean zero carbon sources by 2040. And what fudges the math on that actual grid stuff is that they're able to import cheap oil and gas. north dakota as well as get some uh imports from canada so i imagine that's not necessarily going to be a good thing for minnesota i would have to look at the math but right
That's my inclination. Well, tariffs are tough because tariffs are always a two edged sword. It always cuts in both directions. And I know everybody's all about the tariffs right now, but. I'll be honest, I'm a little concerned about it because of the effect back at us because the end user eventually pays for all tariffs. And we are the end user on a lot of the stuff of whatever the end consumer is going on.
Sarah, what else are you writing about right now? I know it's mostly Minnesota, but tell me what's going on. What are you writing about? What's fascinating you right now? Yeah, I mean, it's been such a busy time looking at all these executive orders and seeing what the effects will be. I've been working on some kind of.
proposals to look at American energy leadership abroad. Our organization did an energy leadership paper back when Russia invaded Ukraine, and we're thinking about doing an updated paper on that. I'm still working on quantifying the negative environmental effects of wind and solar. So that's been an enormous project that I'm grateful is starting to come to a close.
um and i've also been looking at some healthcare data so i've been kind of moonlighting in healthcare healthcare is a very complicated policy area especially at the federal level but that's been a nice break Yeah, no, I mean, I can't wait to see the end result of this discussion on the actual environmental impact of and cost of wind and solar. Because, again, we've seen a lot of anecdotal information over the years.
and pieces of that overall, which we talked about last time you were on the program, the actual cost and the lifecycle of a solar panel and what does it cost to manufacture and how much does it actually produce and everything. And it's such a fascinating thing. You mentioned something earlier.
when you said everything should be on an equal playing field. And that's the thing. We would not have the number of wind and solar projects in the world, let alone this country, that we have today if it wasn't... so lopsidedly funded by the government in an in an attempt to normalize it and to make it more ubiquitous when it really in a lot of ways doesn't make Cents.
You know, it really doesn't in a lot of ways. And that is the frustrating part. And of course, it steered us away from other options, including clean coal and nuclear and some of these other things that we have an abundance of or an available. of and it's put us behind i think it's put us behind the power curve on energy production
Absolutely. And if we're going to do 100% zero carbon energy, nuclear is the way to go. There's a lot of safe technology that is able to do this and it runs basically 24 seven, you know, it'll close for maintenance every so often, but that's still, you know. 99% uptime. So that's generally my feelings on it. Wind and solar have such a subsidy. I don't know if you've read this news report, but wind developers are really starting to freak out.
about now because their business model isn't going to make sense anymore. Right. Exactly. As soon as Uncle Sugar, as soon as the teat dries up, all of a sudden we can't even make it anymore. That's a problem. You know, and that's what I was saying earlier. If everybody's freaking out about this federal pause on funding, if everybody...
We have a problem. If we're so deeply ingrained and entrenched and suckling at the nipple, then we've got a real issue here going on. All right. Sarah Montalbano, our guest, The Michael Duke Show. Five seconds. Here we go. Common Sense Radio. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew! I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show. That's right. Not your daddy. I mean, that you know of.
Uh, nor your daddy's talk radio, the Michael Duke show common sense radio. Uh, let's continue on now. Sarah Montalbano, our guest Montalbano Monday. Final segment of the big show today. How do they go so fast? We get on with Sarah, we just get chatting, and she's oh so Ariadrite and charming and just gives us all the info, and the next thing you know, the hour's over.
Sarah, final segment here. We've got about eight, nine minutes here. So what are the overall impacts of all the executive orders, not just the Alaska one? I mean, obviously, I want to know about the Alaska one on Alaska. Give us your thoughts for Nationwide and then Alaska. What does this mean for us? Best case, worst case. Give us some scenarios here with your analytical hat on and tell us what it does for us and where we end up at.
Yeah, thank you. I really think this is an interesting positioning for the Trump administration to take. And I think it's generally going to be a positive one. I think there's a lot of value in stating that the national policy is to avail. itself of our natural resources and to make permitting for those things faster and more concrete for developers. And we can still do all of these things without.
sacrificing environmental protection in any serious way. I think we are wonderful stewards of our environment and that goes for Alaska as well as Americans in general. So, you know, we're seeing already the freak out from wind and solar developers about how their financial business model isn't going to make.
so much sense anymore uh we were just talking about that in the break but uh there's estimates that about 50 of these uh wind projects i think it's just offshore but don't quote me on that um but About half of wind projects aren't going to make economic sense once they're no longer getting these tax credits and subsidies. And the other thing I would say that I haven't mentioned in this discussion is that this is really going to be a.
reset towards a consumer focus for appliances and technology. So the electric vehicle mandate. The EPA has set some incredibly restrictive emissions standards that would essentially force people to EVs within 2032 or so. And that's just not going to happen. And the Trump administration's rolled that. efficiency standards for appliances at the independent women's forum. We're very happy about that one too, because, you know, consumers shouldn't have to be giving up.
the actual functionality of an appliance just so that it runs more efficiently. And it doesn't even do that. No, no, that's the thing. I was just going to make a comment on that because I saw a YouTube video on this. Somebody was one of the... you know one of my science guys uh that i follow on youtube you know that does different stuff and he was liking he's like this makes no sense because they've got a new whatever the new standard is for this dishwasher to use less water and yada yada yada
And so he runs it through it. He's like... You have to wash the stuff two or three times to get it to actually wash the dishes. You're using more in the long run because they've mandated this. I mean, it makes no sense at all. Oh, we're trying to save the planet by using less water. But I have to run the same dishes three times to get them clean. I mean, it just it makes no sense. This is the kind of stuff they're talking about.
Exactly. Exactly. These executive orders have been so wide ranging. And I think what we'll see is that we'll be in the next six months to 12 or 18. All of these agencies are going to be actually. working their rules and their standards, which means that I will be very busy, but also that we will actually see some of this.
coming back out in more concrete things. They're still executive branch agency rules. So those can be rolled back or revised depending on who's in the White House. But hopefully this will be the kick in the pants that Congress needs to make. some of these reforms permanent.
Yeah, I mean, and they have to do that. I mean, for a second, I mean, I hate to sidebar, but now I'm on to it. The whole gas stove thing, right? I mean, everybody was talking. So we're going to cut people off from gas stoves because. I guess cancer is what they're saying. I mean, we've been burning stuff for a million years, but it's cancer that's causing it. But the point is, well, we're going to replace them with electric stoves.
Except that our electrical infrastructure grid is so woefully inadequate for what we've got going on. We've got so many problems and you want to replace this cheap, abundant source of fuel, natural gas. with uh for appliances with electric that's already stressing and that goes again back to the electric cars great you've got electric cars but you don't have the infrastructure to support them i mean why are they pushing this whole thing in your mind
Why do we keep pushing everything onto an electrical grid that's so woefully unprepared for the load that it would be required to sustain that? It's hard to ascribe motivations, but I really... do have to say the best case scenario is that they're not thinking about the electrification of everything alongside the fact that wind and solar can't actually provide what they want and what they need. And I think at the end of the day, it's a...
feeling that our living standards are extravagant in some way, that having these clean dishes are just bourgeois in some way. And I don't think that we need to actually sacrifice any part of our... living standards that we can have cheap and abundant energy and it just needs us to think cautiously about the actual impact of the of uh intermittent wind and solar on the grid and that's that's the charitable interpretation is that they're just not thinking right well
And if you really wanted clean, cheap, how many billions of dollars have we poured into renewables? When if we'd poured that same amount of money into the safe development and modification of nuclear energy, we'd have enough energy to, I mean, we could. shine a spotlight on the moon we'd have so much you know energy that we would need but we've been pouring billions of dollars into these renewables that require more billions of dollars to be poured into them to keep them online for again
For not a sustainable or not a steady supply, just a supplementary supply of energy, which makes no sense whatsoever. I'm just, I'm so aghast at all this stuff. We want to say, but I think you hit on it. It's the bourgeois. How dare you want clean dishes? How dare you want your house to be 68 degrees? How dare? Do you know that there's starving children in Botswana? Well, yes, but we're here and they're there. Oh, but you should feel guilty about it. So no clean clothes for you.
OK, I mean, that doesn't really help us, except for you get to keep you, Mr. Political Thought Leader, get to keep clean clothes in your six houses with your private jet. I mean, that's fine. It's an elitist mentality. It really is. All right. We're four and a half minutes here. What does the executive order play it out for us? What happens in Alaska? What do you think is going to happen?
And I'm asking you to put your turban on and hold the envelope up to your head, I know. But what do you think is going to happen with this? And does it end up being good for us? Or is it a mixed bag? What do you think? I think in general, this will be a positive development for Alaska. I think what we will find is that these are not immediate changes, that we're not immediately sending people out to go drill an ANWR. I think we will still have the robust permitting process that we have.
currently, that we won't be sacrificing any environmental quality, but that some of these areas will be allowed to have exploration and we might be able to actually quantify what's down there and what might be worth economically taking out. And again, I think that there's a lot of room for interpretation in these kind of things. So we will need to see some actual work by Congress to to.
make some of this stuff permanent. But I do think it would be a good thing. And especially from critical minerals front, because we didn't talk all that much about ambler, but if we're going to. pursue the electric vehicles and the wind and solar, you need all sorts of minerals. And part of that is the copper that we're actually abundant with, you know, and all of these different.
attitudes we really need to be working on our domestic supplies of these things for the economics of it if we're going to export if we're going to use it at home great but we cannot continue to uh preserve at the expense of actually just responsibly conserving the environment yeah no i mean i think that uh we've got a lot of opportunity here and uh the the the the
minerals, especially rare earth minerals and things that we've been getting from China, we do have here in the state of Alaska and we have an opportunity. And the one thing the state was guaranteed at statehood, which has never really been delivered, is that roads and infrastructure, right? I mean, that's something.
We've got a few roads, don't get me wrong, but especially to these areas where we could develop the minerals, develop the resources of those areas, minerals, timber, oil, whatever, gas. We've got a great opportunity. We could be the mineral breadbasket of America if we just had the ability to get there. Exactly. It's promised in 1979, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Surface access to the Ambler Mining District is promised. They shall permit.
I don't think that allows for a lot of ambiguity. Of course, it's being litigated right now, and I'm no lawyer. But I truly do think that there's strong cases to be made that these resources need to be accessible. So however that's done, that's again a question of economics, but I don't think there's ambiguity that this is supposed to be done.
You can find her at sarahmontalbano.substack.com. Sarah Montalbano, our little ray of sunshine here in this otherwise dark and dreary world. She's the chief muckety-muck of energy analysts at the... american experiment in minnesota uh sarah as always it's a pleasure to speak with you thank you for coming on board
Thank you. It's my pleasure. Live long and prosper. Live long and prosper. She's got Star Trek earrings on in case you can't see that. All right. Hold the line, Sarah. Folks, we got more coming up. Education. I'm about to unbutton my shirt collar. give you a real, real talk about education up next. It should be a barn burner. Stay tuned. The Michael Duke show. It's so crazy. I mean, I think Anthony hits it thorium.
salt reactors quit trying to fix antiquated antiquated energy systems we're putting chrome rims and a sound system into a horse carriage at this point i mean right I mean, everybody, all these, all these AI companies are like, they're dying for energy. They're trying to restart one of the three mile island reactors so that Microsoft can get their AI in on there.
i mean you've got thorium reactors thorium salt reactors we had a conversation about that a year ago with one of the developers of it it's a brilliant technology Why do we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot? And this is the same thing that's going on in Alaska. Oh, we need this Alaskan gas more than anything else. Forget about importing. That would be wrong.
I'm not saying it's a perfect solution. I'm saying if you want to keep alive and survive and not have to pay three times the cost of energy, that makes sense in the short term until we figure out how to get it down from the North Slope. I mean, it's the same kind of thing, right? Yeah, no, I mean, nuclear technology is a whole other basket of issues. I would love to see. modular reactors i think alaska is the perfect use case for small nuclear reactors um you know these kind of things could be
hauled in on a truck. They're that small and they will run for 10 or 20 years straight without needing to refuel. So I think there's a lot of opportunities in nuclear and what we're finding is, you know, just the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a lot. to do. And what they do is mostly drive up costs and prevent innovation because they have very strict standards for what's safe, what do we consider approvable. So there's been some interesting developments in nuclear.
especially with this AI issue. No, I mean, it's going to be driving a lot of what we need. Now, whether you like it or not, and I'm skeptical of it myself, but even if it is, it is going to be driving that demand. You know, I think that, again, and they were talking about ILSEN is going to be a test bed for one of these thorium salt reactors. And I think it's brilliant. Like you said, you pack it in every 20 years. You take out a new one. You pick up the old one.
You swap it out, you bring it in, they recycle it, they do whatever they need to do. Lower waste, lower toxic waste, lower things. But if it generates energy for 20 years, clean, no emissions energy for 20 years. That's a pretty good deal. Why aren't we talking more about that? And it's because of the Chernobyls and the Three Mile Islands and some of these specific worst case scenarios that we're not talking about it. And it's frustrating, especially when we're pouring.
billions of dollars into energies that wouldn't exist if we weren't subsidizing. Yes. And, you know, I think with the safety record thing, it's important to point out that I believe the U.S. hasn't had a civilian nuclear. accident death and just ever you know a lot of these things nothing like a meltdown you know what I've read is mostly that
Occasionally people will get electrocuted, which could happen in any kind of power plants. So yeah, I'm actually working on an article about this kind of issue for the edition of Thinking Minnesota that's going to be coming up. A shameless plug for the magazine if you want to read me there as well. Well, that just means you have to come back on here when you're done with that, because we definitely want to talk about that.
Um, wait, keep Sarah on for education. Sarah's busy. I'd love to keep her on for education, but I don't want her to get outside of her lane too fast. Although you're, you're happy. You're welcome to stay on if you want. I just, I don't. My staff meeting is about to start. Yeah, no, that's it. Terry says you need to bring her on more often. And we do. We need to bring Sarah on more often because it's always such a joy to talk to you. It's always some good information.
And maybe, yeah, let's let's let's let's do that. Let's let's try and bring you on a little bit more often. How long till your till your nuclear article is out in this?
I think it's going to publish sometime in the spring. So it's going to be probably a couple of months that I can preview it. All right. Well, maybe we should preview it. Nothing stops me from doing that. No, you send me an email when you're ready to preview it and we'll talk about it. And maybe we'll bring you back on for education as we get a little bit closer. But that means you'd have to. More work to get up to speed on what's going on. I know.
I'm only here to toughen up your workload, Sarah. That's what it is. All right. Well, Sarah Montalbano. Well, she's paying the tax for taking the Montalbano Mondays name. That's what it is. Montalbano Mondays on Substack. SarahMontalbano.substack. Sarah, thank you so much. It's good to talk with you. We'll talk to you again soon. Thanks. Thanks, Michael. It's always good. Always good to see her. She's so, she's so much fun. I enjoy it. All right.
See, now I'm going to get agitated because now I'm thinking about the next hour already. The next hour is that's going to be a barn burner. I could just tell you right now. Terry says. my gas stove take it out of my cold dead hands yeah i know really brian says you just need to lower your standards of cleanliness md your earth-hating barbarian colonizer yes that's what i am
I'm going to colonize Earth first. We'll worry about the rest of the planets later. That's that's what it's that's what it's all about. I mean, and how do I get I mean, if I only take a shower once a week, is that is it what is what is the right number? Is it once a week? twice a week, once a month, nobody would stand me. You'd smell me from here. Over the internet, you'd smell me. But that's what it is. I think she really hit on it.
When she said that it was that whole bourgeois, oh, we have so much and we can cook the thing and the deal. We did mention coal, Frank. He said he's talking about coal. We did mention clean coal as one of the options that are out there as well. And then David is previewing the next hour when he says, these people freaking out with schools slated to close should freak out about schools failing their children and grandchildren. I agree. I totally agree with that.
Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. David says, big problem with small reactors in rural Alaska. Current power and sanitation systems in schools cannot even be maintained. But these are mostly self-contained. I don't think that they would require a nuclear engineer to make them work based on what I understand about it. All right, we got to go. We're going to continue the Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Based, Free Thicken Radio. Here we go.
Put that thing back in its holster. We haven't gone anywhere. I don't understand. Check out themichaeldukesshow.com for information on how to get access to the podcast. Welcome to the party, pal. The Michael Duke Show. The greed and the entitlement is astounding to me. What more could you want from a low-budget radio program? This is a dumpster fire. That was just BS. It is time to get a new perspective.
We know just what you need, and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't fathom it. The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Live around the world, on the internet. at michaeldukeshow.com and across the state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Good morning, my friends, and welcome back to the program.
It is hour two of the big radio show. We just finished up with Sarah Montalbano from the American Experiment. She used to be with the Alaska Policy Forum. talking about education. Now she's doing energy policy with the American Experiment out of the Midwest, and she is always a joy to have on. And if you missed it, we were talking about the president's executive orders and what the effect will be on not just the country, but on Alaska specifically.
And she joined us for the Montalbano Monday segment, which I'd like to make a semi-regular thing with her because she is so, she's so informative. She's so good. And she just a calming, she's a calming influence on the, you know. coming influence on the old program, which you're going to need in this hour, because in this hour, we're going to be talking about, we're going to be talking about education.
And I would like to preface my entire conversation for this hour, for those of you who are listening, with this statement. I believe education is important. I believe it is important, you know, culturally. I believe it's important for society. Most importantly, I believe it's important for the individual students. Now, we can agree or disagree on the various methods of education or what needs to be taught.
If nothing else, the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic should be taught. I believe that the Socratic method and the triumvirate of logic, rhetoric, and reason should be taught. I think that those at the base... should be the basic foundation of any education. Those things, you know, that those things, I think.
we probably well i would hope that all of us could agree on that those are the most important things to be taught at a baseline for education so i don't want to hear a bunch of stuff about how i hate kids and i hate education and i hate this and i hate that let me tell you what i hate I hate waste. I hate doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. I hate the idea that somehow by throwing money at a problem,
that that is the ultimate solution to fixing the problem, especially when we have a proven track record that that's not necessarily the case. Now, now that I've set all this up, Said I was going to unbutton my collar. Let me unbutton my collar here before I get too hot and bothered about it. And we're going to talk about this. The governor has come out with his plan. The governor put he put came forward with his education legislation. And it.
It kind of sets everything up. Here's what the headline reads in the ADN. From Iris Samuels and Sean McGuire over at the ADN. Governor Dunleavy unveils education legislation that would boost Alaska homeschooling and charter schools. setting up a battle with lawmakers okay so they're already phrasing it as if this is you know this is it's going to be contentious i'm not i'm not criticizing the headline i'm just saying they're they're already showing you that this is what it's all about
But let me tell you what's happening in the legislature right now. This should be no surprise to those of you who've been following along at home. The legislature is bent. on making sure that they create an enormous increase in school funding that is not just a one-time increase but is an increase that advances into perpetuity. This proposed this new proposal that's nearly half a million dollars in increased annual funding for the school districts. And also.
is pegged to inflation so it would automatically increase every year, is the price. Their eyes are on that price. They want to fund that, but they want to have absolutely no... accountability measures put into place for that funding. There is no quid pro quo. There is no we'll give you the funding if you can show us how you're going to increase your achievements. There's no discussion on any of this. And you've got people like Loki Tobin quoted in this article.
saying we've got to stabilize the ship and save the people who are drowning before we can talk to them about how you might trim the sails or even rearrange the deck chairs. I love the Titanic alliteration there. I really do. That everything's going down because we just haven't been giving them enough money. And that's why things are falling apart. Gary Stevens is quoted in this article.
He said and he had some things to say about the governor's proposals on charter schools because the governor wants to create a secondary body to approve new charter schools. But the whole point here of this, and I think it was Andy Josephson that was also quoted. And Bill Wilikowski saying, we're not interested in accountability measures for this. We just want to get them their money so that they can continue to do what they've been doing. The problem is...
As you continue to look at what they've been doing, it's not great, folks. It's not great. We're going to get into that here in a second, but it's not great. The governor's bill, I guess I should go through this first. The governor's bill includes targeted funding increase that don't change the underlying base student allocation.
which is one of the major problems with the proposal that we're seeing right now from Loki, Tobin, and others, is that everything would be baked into the student allocation, the base student allocation, so they wouldn't... have to fight over it again in the future. It automatically increases the pay and it stays there and it's got a baked in escalator. So it's going to go up every year from now on in perpetuity.
His doesn't change the BSA. It would cost about $117 million annually, again, subject to appropriation. It includes $43 million increase for homeschooling students. $31 million increase for career and technical education, $14.5 million for student transportation, and $22 million...
for reading instruction in elementary schools. This is part of that whole, everybody's complaining about the read by nine. They can't do the read by nine because they didn't get funding to do the read by nine, which... I guess I've never I'm not a teacher, so I don't understand it. I mean, if you're already teaching them to read why and this is just a different way of doing things, why does it require more money? That's just my question, I guess.
Additionally, there's $4 million for residential schools. The legislation would also allow children to enroll in whatever school they choose. Whatever school, regardless of where they live. This is the basic foundation of backpack funding. Now, the school can't be at capacity. And the school would also have to provide transportation adjustments so kids can travel to their chosen school. Which I think is also part of the whole 14 million dollars for school transportation issue. So.
I think these are good ideas from the governor in that regard. I don't see a problem with those. It also calls for spending. for the bonuses that Don Levy was talking about last year, the annual bonuses of between $5,000 and $15,000, depending on... whether the district is in an urban area or a rural area. That's going to cost about $58 million. And finally, it would also order districts to ban the use of cell phones in school, which...
Is already I mean, it's already that's a district level thing. I don't know if we need the state to tell them to ban it. I mean, I think they should just be doing it. I think the district should have that decision making power, but I think most of them should be doing it anyway. Get the kids off their phones. The governor depicted the legislative debate that would take place in the coming week as a battle between his administration and the NEA. And he said...
on his commitment to adopt policy reforms to go along with the funding increase, basically tying the two together, he said, I'm not going to back down. That's a quote. I'm not going to back down. Which gives me some hope that the governor, when this is all said and done, regardless of the outcome, if there are not some kind of accountability measures baked into a funding increase.
that he's going to veto the legislation. Because that's really, at this point, our only hope. If they continue to draw from the permanent fund and other readily available sources and avoid... trying to make a CBR draw, which requires a supermajority vote and would require the input from the minorities in the House and the Senate, which they don't want. The majorities don't want that. They do not want the minorities in the House and the Senate to have a say in this.
because they are all looking for accountability. Mike Schauer, Shelley Hughes, Kevin McCabe, you know, Kathy Tilton, all the players are looking for some accountability to be baked into this. They don't want the minority to have a say in this. So that also means that unless unless they get the cooperation of the minority, which would be required to override a governor's veto.
This thing is probably dead in the water as far as that goes. But let's get down to some of the details in the brass tacks on this charter schools. Charter schools in Alaska currently serve about 4% of the public school students. But again, as has been pointed out numerous times, charter schools still have one of the...
highest academic achievement scores, not just in the state, but in the country. Alaska charter schools do tremendously well, which I think is a combination of things. Part of it's probably the policies, the curriculum. But more importantly, I think for people to remember, probably one of the biggest reasons why charter schools work so well is the enhanced direct parental involvement.
Charter schools require that parents are being engaged. And I mean, in fact, the parents are helping to run the charter schools. That's the whole point. And I think that is a key component. Now, how do we get that to happen in regular school? How do we get higher parental involvement? I wish I had an answer for that.
I know, I know it's hard to believe that I don't have an answer for everything, but I don't have an answer for that. But expanding the ability to create new charter schools for those parents who do want to be involved, that makes sense. Most states have a secondary method for charter schools to be enacted. And why you would leave this solely in the hands of the local school districts is beyond me.
Because that's a direct competition, right? It's a direct competitor. The people running the school boards, you want to start a school in my... That's like asking Fred Meyer if Safeway can open a store in their neighborhood. Oh, no, I don't think so. I just don't. Can I, asking Coke, can I put this Pepsi machine right next to your Coke machine? No? Oh, shocking, I know. But this is...
But and here's here. This is the brain donor of the week award goes to Rebecca Hemshoot, who's quoted as saying, if Alaska charter schools are as high performing as we hope they are. as they seem to be, because everybody's now doubting. That was the other thing. As soon as we showed that Alaska charter schools were performing so well.
They immediately, well, that can't possibly be true. I mean, I think you're I think you're fudging the results. I don't. I mean, it's they're trying to cast doubt on the fact that charter schools are doing so well. But she goes, if Alaska's charter schools are as high performing as we hope they are, as they seem to be. then why would we change the system that gave us those schools? What? We're changing the system to give us more of them.
It's not changing the system that gave us the schools. It's expanding the system that gave us those schools. But this is how this is the desperation. This is how they have to phrase it. Oh, well, if these are so great, then why would you want to change the system that gave it to us? We're not changing it. We're expanding it. I mean, that is the dumbest comment I've heard so far on this debate.
But don't worry. Don't worry. That will be outdone in just a minute, I believe, by the Senate president. Because he's got some things to say. He's taking a stand. He's taking a stand on this. We're going to continue on this education talk for the remainder of the hour because there's more coming up, including the latest. scores from the national report card and spoiler alert it's not getting better in fact The Michael Duke Show.
If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekly morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Okay. Okay. Let me go back over here. Let me go back over here. If we go back over here, let's go to what he's talking about. There you go. David says... K-12 education. What other entity gets more money when it gets more customers and more money when it loses students?
Okay, what other entity gets more money when it gets more customers and more money when it loses more customers? It's a win-win situation the industry cannot ever lose. Yeah, that's part of the problem. Wow, Brian. He says, you get up every day. That's doing the same thing over and over again, right? Yeah, but I don't expect different results. I expect excellence every day, Brian.
Harold says legislators are all over Facebook asking for solutions from the public. Maybe the legislators should determine the barriers keeping schools and students from learning and becoming proficient. Gasp. Harold and I. Agree to you. Agree with you. Um, well, don't worry. Well, don't worry. When the FNSBSB loses federal money for clinging to DEI and their stolen land statements, the budget crisis will be over.
The stolen land crisis, was this the comment where one of the school board members acknowledged the land, the native land or something? Is that what you're talking about? Willie says, Gary Stevens is irrelevant. Okay, there you go. Harold says barrier number one, education funding is being fundled into admin and maintenance special interest feeding offer education funding. Admin and maintenance.
number one number two special interest feeding off for education funding number three no clear understanding of the issues crippling alas education in alaska by the legislature i again couldn't couldn't agree more um Anthony says, much like the Titanic, talking about Loki Tobit's comment, our current education system is a bunch of guys with buckets bailing water sure they can get it out while ignoring the 45-foot hole on the side of the boat. It's pure lunacy. Yep.
Yep. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Rebecca Schwanke says, some of us are trying to bring common sense back. I understand that. I understand. 100%. 100%. But again, you guys are the quiet voice in the wilderness out there because the majority is shouting right over the top of your head. Let me go through here. Not backing down, says Kim. This is from the governor's comment that he's not backing down. He goes, I got to see this. I want to see what's going on. Yeah.
Melissa Burnett says she just spent three days in Juneau, talked to the progressives and left about the policy side. None were interested. Brick walls. They just want the funding. No accountability behind it. You're right. That's exactly what they want. Give us our money and we're not going to talk about anything else. That's what they want. The root of charter school success, says Fat Ray on YouTube, is the root of homeschool success. Parents. Yep. Yep. Question, says Miguel.
Will, if it happens, if raising, will raising the BSA bring students physically back into person to the brick and mortar schools? No, because I don't think that's the main problem with the many of these students. It's not the lack of funding. It's that the parents want to do something different.
Public schools discourage parents from entering the building. Some even lock their doors during the day. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. This is a big problem. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show. The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes. All right. So, again, just there's a comment in the chat room this morning from school board president Melissa Burnett from Fairbanks.
who I think summates everything that I was just talking about. She says, just spent three days in Juneau, talked to the progressives and the left about policy side, the policy, the accountability side of education. She said, none were interested. Brick walls. They just want the funding. No accountability. She says, you're right. That's exactly it. Give us our money. Shut up and give us our money. We don't want to hear about anything else.
which we're going to get to in a minute. Let me go back to Senate President Gary Stevens talking about these charter schools after the dumb question or the dumb comment by Rebecca Hemshoot. It's then quoted saying Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, said earlier this week that Dunleavy's proposal on expanding charter schools are, quote, a nonstarter for many of us who believe in public education and don't want to see those changes made.
What? You're a believer. Well, charter schools are public education and you don't want to see those changes made. Why? Why? He went on to say removing an elected school board's local control and giving it to an unelected state board to establish charter schools is a no-go. This level of local control and parental involvement is what makes our charter schools thrive.
But there are charter schools out there that have wanted to be formed that have been roadblocked by the school boards. You got parents who are they want to be they want to do this. But don't worry. The great Steve-O has spoken. Gary Steve-O. We're going to do it. And then we get into the... And then we get into the test scores. Dunleavy mentioned the NEEP reporting card, which is the national report card on education assessment that just came out this last week.
which shows Alaska students are at the bottom of the nation. It indicates that policies have changed. In fact, the assessment indicates that Alaska's average scores have gone down in both math and reading. when compared to 2022, which is already at the lowest. We were like 48th and 49th. You want to know where we're at today? You want to know?
Per those results from the NEEP, the National Assessment of Education Progress from the Peninsula Clarion, per those results, Alaska ranks... 51st of 53 United States jurisdiction in grade four math, grade four reading, grade eight reading, and also... 47th, which means we fell again because we were up to 46. Now we've fallen again. 47th in eighth grade math out of 53.
We dropped down to nearly the bottom, 51 out of 53 on the other three scores, and 47th on 8th grade math. It's going backwards, folks. It's going, but now they're going to hold up the thing and say, well, it's because we haven't gotten the school funding we needed to make it happen.
You got a huge chunk last year. You got a huge chunk the year before. Oh, in fact, you have had one-time funding every year since. I don't want to hear about how it hasn't come up with inflation. The base student allocation is not supposed to be the mainstay. It's supposed to be the base.
It has the word base in it for a reason. It has to be baseline. That's the baseline for it. Everything else is above and beyond that, and that should be one-time funding, subject to approval, appropriation, and discussions. But we're 51st. We have fallen yet again. This is post-COVID, by the way. I mean, I just want to remind you. We already took a dumper in the COVID era.
And here we are coming up just a little bit in 2021, 2022. And now we're back again. And now we're back down again. We dropped even further. We went from 48th to 51st. in these three categories and down one from 46th to 47th in math. Does that sound like people who are good stewards of what we've entrusted them with? Does this sound like this is working? Dunleavy said he stopped short of saying he wouldn't support any increase in the BSA.
But that he said his package included funding and that he was frustrated by the repeated lobbying for increased funding, which he perceives as coming at the expense of people calling for improved test scores. He said, we're doing money. This is a complete package. The other side just wants the money and they want us to shut up about this. That's the problem. You can't shut up about this. It stares you right in the face. When you look at the numbers.
Why do people seem to care more about the school funding than they do about the actual education that their child is receiving? I mean, that's... That's the problem. David Boyle in the chat room, our education advocate. says these people who are freaking out with schools slated to close should freak out about schools failing their children and their grandchildren. Where's the outrage on the fact that we're 51st out of 53?
And then it dropped in just the last two years. Well, it's because of the funding, Michael. No. It's the same thing I've been saying for years. The system that we have right now, something is fundamentally broken in it. And I want to get into the theater of this because there is a component of theater that's being played out in front of our very eyes right now. We're going to talk about that here in a second.
That this is all, as I mentioned with Sarah earlier during the break, this is all working as intended. This is all part and parcel of it. We want to get more money. All these headlines. from around the state. You know, $100 million deficit at the Anchorage School Board, $17 million deficit at the KPB, $16 million deficit in Fairbanks. And they just act like this is just so, it's so surprising to us that we have had deficits.
going on in all of these areas and all these districts for years. And when we got COVID funding, what did they do? I mean, in a brief... lapse of judgment, the federal government issued some brilliant advice. Please don't use these COVID funds for ongoing costs. Use them only for one-time costs. And then the COVID money ran out. And these school districts who had used the money for ongoing costs or, in some cases, took one-time costs and applied those to ongoing costs and then used the...
the foot, the COVID money for those one time costs in the short term. You can't, you cannot off, you cannot grow your ongoing costs when you have a deficit. Especially when you've had a multi-year deficit that's been going on for half a decade, a decade. You just can't continue. But don't worry. They're going to teach us. I'm going to get that. I don't want to get ahead of myself. But this is where we're going. The lawmakers.
who are all in the majority, who are all the people this last go around during the election cycle, who are out there pounding their fists on their chest about how they care about education and they care about the students. If you care about education and the students, you should care. that we are now 51st out of 53. And I know the first thing there was because we just didn't have the money.
That's funny because education is still the number one spent item in our budget. Education has increased by over 35% over the last 18 years, if you include all the one-time funding. which you should, because that's part of it. It's not just the BSA.
But most people don't know that. The average person doesn't understand that. They don't understand the difference between the BSA and one time funding and all the different variables and everything else. They read the headline that says, oh, man, they haven't increased education. They haven't. It hasn't kept up. with inflation? Well, I know how hard inflation's hitting me, so man, maybe we should do something.
And what do you see on Facebook and the social medias and everything else? All you see is all the people going, but my schools and the thing. Well, of course, they should just fund it. Okay. How? How are they going to fund it and who pays? And even if they did fund it and pays, what's the guarantee that the outcomes are going to get better? Is there a plan in place for making the outcomes better? We are fifth or sixth in the nation as far as per pupil expenditures.
We're at like the top five. We're right there in the top five. And yet we score it 51st out of 53. What is going to change? Well, more money will change and then it'll all be fine. No, but you got them on the one side saying, give us our money and shut up.
And you got those on the other side which are saying, but we'll give you some money because that's what the minority has said. We're open to talk about increasing the funding, but we need accountability. The governor said the same thing. We need some accountability. And where are the parents? Where are where is the general public? Well, the general public, again.
not understanding how all this works, not really understanding the difference between the BSA and one-time funding and everything else is like, well, of course we need to take care of the children. Of course we do. Why are they not as outraged? I mean, they're outraged about the fact that it hasn't kept up with inflation. OK, why aren't you outraged that the fact that these schools are delivering? Not just a subpar product. Not just a substandard product. But an abysmal product. You're...
You're in the top five for funding the education system, but you're in the top three or you're in the bottom three for actually achieving that, that academic achievement. Something is not right. There needs to be a checkup from the neck up. We need to look at this system. We need to look to see what's wrong. We need to have some fresh thinking and some new accountability measures go in there. So if you do need to get some increases, you can do it. But see, this is all about...
In the long run, this is my opinion, this is all about getting the money into the pipeline. for the special interest. It's not really about the kids. I know that's a harsh thing to say. People are like, well, you just, well, how do you, but if it was really about the children. Those NEAP scores would be front and center in every discussion, along with the money discussion.
But they don't want to talk about the ADN doesn't even even though it says the assessment indicates that the average Alaska scores have gone down. They don't actually tell you what the scores are.
I had to go to the Peninsula Clarion and then pull the NEEP assessment itself to take a look at it. They don't even tell you what it is. They just say, oh, they're down. But then they go right back into... why we need we need more money to address those policy out those those those outcomes why is there not more outrage about because really what this is about is getting the funding for
the special interests and making sure that the funding's there so that they can continue on. And the whole system is built around that. And I'm going to talk about that. in just a minute the michael duke show common sense liberty-based free thinking radio We continue with our one in just a minute. Don't go anywhere. One final segment dead ahead. Don't forget, you can always check us out on Facebook, facebook.com slash Michael Duke show slash live.
If you want to come in and join us in the chat room, feel free to do so. Back with more right after this. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show. Okay. All right. Bill says, do we really need another day of doom and gloom added? We already have Brad tomorrow. I mean, it is just insanity. Just insanity.
The teachers bonuses that the governor's bill only go to classroom teachers, not to other teachers, because many of the teachers that work in the administrative side of things, I mean, many of the people that work in the are also certified teachers. Right. So these bonuses go strictly to classroom teachers, which I think is a good, I think that's a good, I think that's a good spot. The real losers in the Alaska's K-12 system.
are the low low-income kids their parents are being fed misinformation and they trust the system yeah um I'm going through here. It's Coke voting for Pepsi, vetoing Pepsi, says Rob. Exactly. That's exactly it. All right. I'm scrolling through here. monopolies never ever want to lose control that's why our districts do not want other charter school authorizers right because they don't want to they don't want to be put in the crosshairs and be made to realize how poorly they're actually doing
We are rewarding failure. Until that stops, nothing will change. The state prohibiting cell phones in classrooms is another harbinger. Alaska's redeck with another for the end of local controls has been. If school boards won't fix their policies, the mate. The state must do so because it's constitutionally required. I'm surprised it hasn't been sued already. I mean, I agree. I think that that just shows that if the school districts are not willing to step up.
that's why the state has to do it i'm not happy about it i would rather the local school boards do it um It's all emotion, says Cindy. It's all about emotion, primarily fed by fear. Yeah. Harold says, go full Alaskan and blame the students. when did i blame the students i'm not blaming the students this is the system um Someone suggested the students are like teaching rocks. Well, be engaging, I guess, if that's the problem. Be engaging. Scrolling through here.
We were at the bottom. Here's the other thing. This is, again, proving that it's different results. We were at the bottom when we had the highest level of per student funding back in 2015. That's the problem. I mean, we were having this problem back when Sarah Palin was governor. Low graduation rates, low achievement scores, everything else, nothing else. scrolling through here.
51st out of 53 total for the amount of money that's being asked is like someone charging you $3,000 for a six-piece chicken nugget combo and they're only giving you two. Yeah, this is true. It's absolutely true. I'm still scrolling through here. It's about control. Ben says, the worse it gets, the more emotional justification for additional funding. It's similar to a union strike. Be willing to endure suffering until you get what you demand.
And we're going to talk about that here next, because this is part and parcel of the whole thing. There's a big component of theater to this whole deal. Yeah. Okay, wait, the school board president lobbied the communists and they didn't listen? Color me shocked. And Melissa says tomorrow the Fairbanks School Board is voting to consolidate five schools. If you support consolidation, emails can be sent to schoolboard at k12northstar.org.
And if you don't, then if you don't support it, don't send an email. If you don't support consolidating the schools, don't send an email. That's not what she's saying. jim says a lot of parents struggle with reading and basic math so they feel their kids are right where they should be oh that is so sad so so sad all right
Here we go. We're ready to jump back into it. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty Base, Free Thinking Radio. Like, share, subscribe, ring the bell, do all the YouTube-y stuff. Let's get back to it. One final segment here. We go. The Michael Duke show proudly splitting the left versus right dichotomy. Yeah, I had to look that word up too. I don't think it means what he thinks it means. There he is though. That guy, Michael Dukes. The one with the show. Okay, so...
I guess I want to we want to look at this and I want to I want to paint you a picture because I started seeing this. Gosh, about 10, 12 years ago when I was serving on the Fairbanks North Surboro Assembly. And I saw this going on and I started asking questions about how these things were, you know, how is this going down? What I saw year after year through every budget cycle. was I saw the school districts and the school boards.
banging the drum for more education funding. And this has been going on. And let me hit you with a comment before I jump deep into this. when I was talking about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And we're saying we're near the highest level and we're still getting the lowest. And they'll say, well, it's because we don't have the funding.
Back in 2015, Rob Myers makes the point, back in 2015, when we had the highest level of per-student funding in the country, we were still at the bottom, scholastically. So what's changed? Nothing, just the amount of funding. The amount of funding has continued to increase. Granted, not at the base student allocation level, but in the rest of it, it's still, we've had a 35% increase in the last 18 years.
I mean, you can go back and look at it. Don't take my word for it. Go back and look back at the education funding in the budgets for the last 20 years, and you can see it's an upward slope, 35%. That's the number one expenditure in the budget. But I noticed something. While I was sitting there. in the assembly in Fairbanks, I noticed that the school districts were pounding the table asking for more money. Because if we don't...
We're going to have to eliminate some teacher positions or we're going to have to issue pink slips to tell them that they may not be rehired, that their life is uncertain now. Because we don't know what the legislature is going to bring. So I started digging into it and I started looking at it. I'm like, OK, why? Why is it? Well, first of all, because the pink slip component is mandated by their contract. That pink slip notification.
and that the budgetary cycles are lined up so that they're just ahead of the legislative session's budgetary cycle. And those two things going hand in hand showed me something. That this, that that is intentional. There are teachers who've received pink slips every year for 10 years. Why?
because then they can wave those pink slips, they can slip on their red hoodie or their red T-shirt, and they can stand in a room full of other educators and other people who support education, other union members, and they can wave their pink slips and wear their red shirts. and say we your children it's going to be horrible it's going to be dogs and cats living together mass hysteria it's going to be because it's intentionally built that way
The unions mandating that the pink slips go out by a certain time. The school's budget process is falling just ahead of the state's budget process, initiated in that way to put more pressure on the state government to always increase funding.
And then the campaigns that you see online that do exactly the same thing, the campaigns then from the school districts where they go and say, well, what we're going to need to do is we're going to need to we're going to have to cut all these. We're going to have to cut teachers. and music, and sports. Those are always the proposed things to get cut. Why? Because they hurt you the most.
because they raise the ire of the public the most. My kid's life won't be full and rich without music or sports. I can't believe you're going to cut the teachers and no discussion on cutting the administration, the overhead. Anytime there's discussion on consolidation of schools. The public immediately freaks out, but Johnny loves that school. Does Johnny really love that school, or are you projecting onto Johnny your love of that school?
This is all part of the theater to get the public involved and to snow them into putting pressure on the legislature to do more. Here's a quote. Here's something I got from... came off of Facebook yesterday. This is from the group Homer Communications in Homer. And here's the post. This is what it says.
So everyone knows what our governor and representatives are planning. Recently, administrators from our schools, principals, received notifications that they may not have a job or the same job next year. Since our government refuses to properly fund our schools. The school district is facing a $17 million deficit for the next year. Principals found out on February 1st that if they...
principals found out February 1st if they would have a job next year or not. If you care about this, I suggest you immediately start flooding the inboxes of the school board, borough reps, mayor, and Sarah Vance. Okay. So let me just say this. Since our government refuses to properly fund our schools, the school district is facing a $17 million deficit for next year. The school board is facing a $17 million deficit.
And they've been facing a deficit every year for the past KPB, I think it's for the past seven years, I think. This is not anything new. They knew this was coming. But they refuse to cut back. To live within, only could a government entity create a deficit budget and expect it to be funded. Getting the public ginned up on this.
And getting the public upset about it and getting them to call their legislators and say, just fund it is exactly what they want. Music to their ears. No question. Does any person who calls say. How are we going to pay for this? Oh, we should just fund it. Okay. How are we going to pay for that? I.
Oh, you're going to take the PFD? Oh, okay. And once the PFD is gone, what are you going to do? Are you going to tap into the fund itself? Oh, okay. What happens if that's gone? Oh, you're going to do an income tax or a sales tax or some other form of tax? Okay. After you've consumed all the money in the room, this is what you're going to do. But this is exactly what you're seeing from the Anchorage School District.
Anchorage School District says there are $111 million in structural deficit. He said the deficit is, quote, driven by more than a decade of flat state funding and rising costs due to inflation. Wait, you got a bunch of money last year. You got a bunch of money one-time funding the year before. Your base hasn't gone up much, but you've been getting all this one-time funding. Are you telling me that you guys cannot live within your means?
$111 million structural deficit. So what are they going to do? Well, they're going to cut. We just can't sustain the same level of programs and services. So we're going to cut teachers. We're going to increase the student to teacher ratio by four. We're going to eliminate 200 teaching positions.
In addition, more than 60 teaching positions would be cut due to declining enrollment. Wait a minute. What? In addition, more than 60 teacher positions would be cut due to declining student enrollment. So you've got... You've got fewer students. And so is the 200, is that part of the deficit or is that part of the declining enrollment? But don't worry.
Nobody apparently is actually losing their jobs. According to Anchorage School Board President Andy Holloman, teachers in the district were not expected to lose their jobs as a result of the cuts. Rather, retiring and resigning teachers would not be replaced and existing teachers may be asked to ship from one school to another. Wait, so you're, you're, you're eliminating the, but I thought you were firing teachers.
Folks, this is all part of the theater. This is all part of that theater. They have to put their budgets in before the legislature is done. And because they do that, then they can pitch the pink slips, which then means they can go back out in the public eye and say, we're losing all our teachers. Call the governor. It's all theater.
Which is just terrifying. Terrifying. All right, we got to go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense. Liberty-based. Free thinking radio. Tomorrow's Tuesday. We will see you then. Be kind. Love one another. Live well. Okay. I mean, am I am I seeing this wrong? You guys tell me, am I seeing this wrong? Because I'm seeing districts that have had structural deficits for years. And it's like they refuse to come to grips with them and to create a budget that's based on the actual money that they have.
And then go back and say, we'd really like to do this and this and this, but we don't have the money for it. But instead, they create the budgets and then they cry poor mouth and cry to the public. and give the pink slips and then cut the music programs and they cut all the stuff. And then they're like, see, see, this is what we're talking about. Is it me? 51st out of 53 and we should just shut up and give them more money that's the answer
It's insanity. It's insanity. They knew this was coming. They knew there was going to be a deficit. They knew there was going to be fewer students, which of course exacerbates the deficit. they knew that this was coming it's not like they can't see it and yet they go well but that's not our problem it's because the state hasn't given us all the money that they want That's what they keep. The state, they're not funding with $1.2 billion in education funding for 125,000 students.
All right. We got to go. My blood pressure's up. Check. Mission accomplished. All right. We gotta go. Thank you for being part of it today. We look forward to talking to you guys tomorrow. Be kind, love one another, live well. We'll see you. slimy lizard internet people.