The following Q&A was conducted with Gov. Bill Walker on Dec. 23, 2015, at the Juneau Empire. This is part two of the interview. Part three will publish Tuesday. Responses have been edited down in some parts due to space.<\/p>\n
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Are you optimistic, unless something like ANWR were to open up or in 10 to 15 years there\u2019s offshore drilling, we <\/strong>will <\/strong>see oil production go up, based on existing fields?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think we can see the decline flatten out, I\u2019ll put it that way. Offshore of course, if Shell had been successful, it wouldn\u2019t have brought $1 to our revenues, for the state anyway, because all the royalty goes to the federal government on the offshore. I\u2019m very bullish on the 1002 section of ANWR, and I\u2019ve been very vocal about that with the (Obama) administration. To see it increase in throughput, if there\u2019s some scenario that that would work, if we had access into the 1002 section on the coastal plain, it definitely would go up. There are now the independents we\u2019ve been working with on the slope, … I\u2019m very pleased with the kind of activity they have. So I think we\u2019re going to see some significant flow from those at development, but whether that\u2019s actually going to increase in throughput or if it just flattens it out is yet to be seen.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n D<\/strong>o<\/strong> you think that as Shell and other companies continue to explore offshore drilling, that Alaska\u2019s going to get a similar cut like the southern Gulf states do? <\/strong><\/p>\n Perhaps. I\u2019m less optimistic when it involves Congress than when it involves the Legislature. I\u2019m much more optimistic about the Legislature doing something. Unfortunately, it\u2019s a federal question, not a state question. But I think what happened with Shell, their cost, it was so expensive for them, … the permitting process took so long. I just think it sort of has a chilling effect on others that want to jump out there and do the same thing. Although, what it does on the positive side is that I think it, for me, it brings more attention on shore where we … (don\u2019t) require an act of Congress to have the revenue sharing associated. … I will never give up on the 1002 section (of ANWR), which is somewhere between 6 billion barrels and 16 billion barrels … 10 billion is probably the right number. So there\u2019s 10 billion barrels there on shore that we need to determine a way to get access to.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In your budget proposal there\u2019s about $150 million in cuts. There\u2019s some members in the majority, in the House and Senate, that are saying that there should be $750 million in cuts and no taxes. What would you say to the lawmakers that are trying to avoid having any kind of tax in Alaska? <\/strong><\/p>\n What we\u2019ve learned about this process, we have one slide that shows where we are in the scale of things as far as the lowest in the nation in personal taxes, and Connecticut I believe is the highest. And ours is so low I think there\u2019s actually an arrow that points to where we would be, to where our color would be, because there\u2019s almost no color because it\u2019s so small. If all the things went through that we\u2019re going to submit, we\u2019d still be the lowest. We\u2019d still be at that bottom, maybe there\u2019s one other state with us, but we\u2019d still be the very bottom of that chart. That\u2019s something to be aware of.<\/p>\n None of us want to make these changes, but it\u2019s much less painful than what happens to our state if we don\u2019t. Cutting another $500 million, $700 million, … the first wave of cuts is one thing, the next wave \u2014 things become very different as far as cutting programs and what not. I expect that there will be more cuts. We\u2019re not done looking at cuts ourselves. That\u2019s an ongoing process. My concern is as we wrestle with that, what I hope we don\u2019t do is spend the whole session arguing about $200 million, $100 million, $300 million, whatever the number is, and we borrow $3 billion to have that discussion.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s make sure we\u2019re having the discussion about what\u2019s the biggest impact of change in this … \u201chole in the boat.\u201d This hole\u2019s been in the boat for a long time. We haven\u2019t had a balanced budget since 2012. Throughput in the oil pipeline has been dropping since 1988. Our answer has been to throw in another pump rather than fixing the hole in the boat. Our deficit is costing us $400,000 an hour. That\u2019s a lot of money. That\u2019s a lot of pumps. We need to put the boat up on the grid, fix the whole and get on with it. $3.5 billion a year, $300,000 million a month, $400,000 an hour, they all feel equally bad. For me the $400,000 an hour is the one that sort of gets my attention the most and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve got to realize.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve had some meetings with the legislative leadership this week, and I\u2019m the ultimate optimist, and I think there\u2019s no question they recognize the severity of the situation. How we resolve it \u2014 someone had to put a plan together. We felt that was our obligation to do that. I was warned heavily about what the impact would have on me and my future if I talk about the Permanent Fund Dividend, if I talk about taxes. I said, \u201cYou know what, I didn\u2019t run for this job to keep a job; I ran for it to do a job and it\u2019s my job to step up and say here\u2019s what we need to do.\u201d Here\u2019s some options and I\u2019ll stand by those options. If there\u2019s better options, we will celebrate the better options. If there\u2019s some way somebody can make the plan better, we will celebrate that. Is this etched in concrete, that it has got to be this or nothing? Absolutely not.<\/p>\n … It\u2019s really hard to come up with a litmus test of fair for everybody, but we took all the different groups \u2014 rural Alaska, the urban folks, the different regions and what not \u2014 and have we disproportionately impacted any group of people? That\u2019s what we really tried to emphasize, it\u2019s not a perfect plan, it\u2019s a good plan, it works, it gets us to not just a balanced budget by 2019, but a sustainable budget that we know 50 years out Alaska can be doing just fine because we made that shift from living off of one commodity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do you believe the majority of Alaskans are going to be fine with paying their share to keep the state running?<\/strong><\/p>\n Most the people that we have spoken to, that just come up on the street, on the airplane, on the flight today, do say, \u201cHey, thanks, we like your plan. We don\u2019t like everything about it, but we like that there\u2019s a plan. We feel better that there is a plan.\u201d People used to ask me all the time, \u201cWhy is it when you were running, we were at a $1.6 billion deficit and you called it a \u2018crisis,\u2019 and now we\u2019re at $3.5 (billion) and you don\u2019t use the \u2018crisis\u2019 word as much anymore. Why is that?\u201d I said because we\u2019re talking about it. That was the problem before, is that we\u2019re at a $1.6 billion deficit and no one was talking about it, no one knew it. You could figure it out, but it wasn\u2019t up on the marquee. Now it is.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen some interview stuff where at restaurants they asked 10 tables the biggest concern they had about Alaska. Nine of them said the budget. I was glad to hear that because if you don\u2019t acknowledge there\u2019s a problem you sure aren\u2019t going to be able to get your arms around the solution. I think Alaskans are realizing some things have to change. This last drop down to $37 oil, … $10 either way it doesn\u2019t make a huge difference. We sort of get the same amount either way \u2014 it\u2019s not a big trigger point, but it does get people\u2019s attention. I say, every governor get\u2019s to spin the oil wheel. Gov. (Sarah) Palin was at $147 and we\u2019re at $37. Maybe the silver lining is we make this shift. We\u2019re going to have to at some point, we got there a little quicker because of the price of oil, but we\u2019re going to get there at some point and have to make this shift. I think it\u2019s probably helpful to be nonpartisan. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m on one team and trying to bring others onto my team. I don\u2019t have a team other than just everyday Alaskans. This isn\u2019t going to be a partisan solution, it\u2019s bigger than the partisanship. I\u2019ve got that sense from legislators as well, that we really need to fix this. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n \u2022 Paula Ann Solis contributed to this report. Read part three in Tuesday\u2019s Juneau Empire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following Q&A was conducted with Gov. Bill Walker on Dec. 23, 2015, at the Juneau Empire. This is part two of the interview. Part three will publish Tuesday. Responses have been edited down in some parts due to space. 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