Alaska Legislature: House Finance, 4/20/26, 1:30pm

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting of the House Finance Committee to order. Let the record reflect that the time is currently 2:12 PM on Monday, April 12th, 2026. And present today we have Representative Stapp, Representative Bynum, Representative Co-Chair Schraggi, Representative Co-Chair Josephson, Representative Jimmy, Representative Galvin, Representative Tomaszewski, Representative Hannan, myself, Co-Chair Foster, And just a reminder, folks can mute their cell phones. We have two items on the agenda today.

And that is House Bill 271, which is the kitchen lights unit royalty modification, as well as House Bill 195, that is the pharmacist prescription authority. For House Bill 271, we will hear the sponsor's introduction. And then take invited testimony and public testimony. Uh, and then we are going to move over to the next bill, and that is House Bill 195, and that is the Pharmacist Prescription Authority, and we'll be taking public testimony on that bill as well. What I would like to do is we do have quite a few testifiers today from the public, and I'd like to make sure that they have an opportunity to give their testimony.

So what I'd like to do is maybe if we can keep our questions limited to the folks who are testifying and maybe not get into dicing, slicing, dicing the bill itself, and then that way we can give the public an opportunity to testify. So rather than getting to the questions, for example, Representative fields, we'll just take public testimony today. And then if folks have questions for public testifiers, we can certainly do that. So, um, and I'm looking, for example, the pharmacist bill has 33 people, I believe, to testify. And then, um, on our royalty bill, looks like maybe 2 or 3.

So with that, I'm going to go ahead and kick it off here. And starting off with House Bill 271. That is the Kitchen Lights Unit Royalty Modification. Also like to recognize that we've got with us Representative Allard. And so the first bill, House Bill 271, that's the Kitchen Lights Unit Royalty Modification Bill.

And I'd like to invite up Representative Fields as well as his staff, Mr. Michael Noddy, if you'd like to both put yourselves on the record and walk us through the bill, and then we'll jump right into invited testimony and So with that, welcome, Representative Fields. Thank you, Chair Foster. Zach Fields, House District 17. House Bill 271, which is a bill about energy security and natural gas production. What does House Bill 271 do?

It would put into place, into statute, royalty modification consistent with an administrative royalty modification decision issued by the Department of Natural Resources. In 2025. You might ask why would we want to contemplate putting an administrative decision in statute. Short answer, predictability for a producer to go out and raise and invest more capital and have a time period over which they could have confidence they could recover that capital. This is a very capital-intensive industry.

Right now we have one jackup rig in Cook Inlet that is one of the constraints on production. I think without question it would be be in the public interest to have more jackup rigs. Pre-Iran War, those cost at least $50 million. You can imagine it takes many years to recover that kind of investment. Royalty modification, as it exists under state statute right now, can be withdrawn, say, in a new administration by a new commissioner.

So I really applaud the DNR and the current and previous commissioner for their work on royalty modification. We have an interest, I believe, in spurring greater capital investment in natural gas production in Cook Inlet. And when you look at the very cold winter we just had, the Kitchen Lights unit was actually extremely important to making sure that we maintain heating across this winter. So this is not a majority of production in Cook Inlet. Um, but when we have challenges producing enough gas, this is an extremely important unit.

As are all the producing units in Cook Inlet.

Members who have not heard royalty modification legislation before, um, can review the DNR decision. When the legislature previously contemplated royalty modification legislation, I think we didn't have the benefit of the economic analysis conducted by DNR. So when you look at that analysis, DNR was exhaustive. DNR in their look at number 1, volume of gas that would be produced, number 2, state royalties produced over time, number 3, impact of gas production on energy security in Southcentral Alaska. Uh, it is fair to say based on DNR's analysis that a producer's ability to produce gas is highly elastic based on the combined State royalty and overriding royalty interest, or ORIs.

So DNR found that yes, a royalty modification would work.

I think it's worth looking at how they measured that, and it's worth noting that total state revenue actually increases with royalty modification, because in the absence of royalty modification, the kitchen lights unit simply is not economic.

Members are probably aware, um, we face a crisis now in Cook Inlet. Um, it's not going to get easier, it's going to get harder. This is an old field and we need to change the economics of the field so we maintain production. I would like to just maybe note very quickly, um, this is all probably worth asking questions. I think there's a lot of content here that I think folks are going to have questions over.

So I started the meeting by saying we've got a lot of folks online for public testimony, but I think as you're going through the presentation, maybe if we could go ahead and— we'll go ahead and open it up for questions. If folks could maybe try to stick to some of the bigger questions, and then that way we can get through public testimony, and then we could save some of the smaller questions for our next meeting on this bill. And so I've got a number of folks who are wanting to ask questions. I've got Representative Galvin, Stapp, Hannan, Bynum. Am I missing anybody?

I think I got everyone. So with that— sorry, Representative Fields— let's jump over to Representative Galvin. Did you have a question? Um, well, I think Thank you. I do have questions on this one, but I can go back to slide 2 as well.

Sure. If that's all right. I think— I mean, just to emphasize the point that DNR has already provided royalty relief tax last year and bringing, you know, the state royalty rate down from 12.5% to 3%. Which is the same as it is under this legislation, as I understand, right? Through the Chair, yes.

Okay, and then follow-up is— So the bottom line effect of this legislation isn't that it would grant this company a new 3% state royalty rate, because that's already attained. The real effect is to eliminate the sunset of the 3% once once the company has already reached $725 million in sales. Is that right? Through the chair. Through the chair, yes.

And the purpose of that, making this a multi-year, and as the bill is written, indefinite royalty relief, is to make it easier for this producer to go out and attract and invest more capital and produce more gas. So, follow-up on that point. I think— DNR put that provision in there so that, you know, the state wouldn't be giving away royalty review once it was no longer needed.

Through the chair, yes, and the producer remains obligated to follow their plan of development. So the department will continue to monitor that and ensure they are meeting their mandate to explore and produce.

Follow-up. Okay. So if the company did make that extra spend, then they could go back to DNR as, as the process goes now, and they could reasonably expect them then to extend the revenue cap at that point, right? Well, through the chair, Representative Galvin, I would say maybe a shortcoming of existing statutes when it comes to royalty modification is that there's a gross value cap, I believe, for this decision at $712 million. And if you think about a gross cap, it actually does not incentivize investment at all because Hex Fury is going to earn a certain amount— is going to invest a certain amount of money and earn a certain amount of money let's just say up to $712 million.

So if they make a major capital investment, a jack-up rig that costs $50 to $100 million, well, under a gross value revenue royalty modification structure, they're actually earning less profit if they make a major capital investment. So I very much support the royalty modification issued by DNR. I think there's a statutory flaw in the way that DNR has to execute that royalty modification in that it actually disincentivizes major capital investment because major capital investment under the current statute reduces profitability. And that is one of the reasons that I think this bill has some value. And I think it's why it's worth looking more broadly at how are we encouraging Cook Inland Natural Gas production given that this is an aging field with challenging economics.

Okay, so if I may follow up. So essentially what I'm hearing is that the royalty reduction in this— under this bill is, is going to be lasting in perpetuity? Through the chair, yes, that is how the bill is written. Now, there's— there was discussion in a previous committee, and I want to be fully transparent, the committee could consider a timeline, a 7-year, a 10-year timeline to revisit. I think the one thing you want to think about there is we don't want to unwittingly encourage a producer to go into harvest mode where they're not investing as much because they see this finish line.

So if we put an end date on it, I think we just want to do that cognizant of the realities of cooking like gas supply, rail belt power needs. And I, um, and I should have mentioned, um, when I was looking at that slide on cooking like gas availability, a lot of people assume—. Who—. A lot of people from maybe South Central assume cooking like gas is a South Central issue. Well, it's actually much broader.

So this year The interior has seen really high diesel consumption. I believe 250,000 gallons of diesel per day, which has significantly increased costs in the interior. So this is— I see it as a statewide issue that goes far beyond NSTAR, Chugach, MEA, and Homer. Thank you. Follow-up.

So I think I can maybe get to slide 5 and then wait for others to have a turn. [Speaker:COB JEAN GATZA, MODERATOR] But this is important information to have. I really appreciate your comments, Rep Fields. And I guess the other thing is hearing from DNR as to when they expect the company to earn $712 million, which I think there is some thoughts around that already out. And, and that may be important information to have because I think it's not super long-term, and yet this is, you know, without a sunset.

So I appreciate that, and I will wait for others and then go back to this slide. Thank you. Okay. Representative Sell. Yeah, I think— Coach Foster.

So through the chair to Rep Fields, thanks for being here. Don't get to see you at this committee that often, so it's fun to see our L&C chair here. So just on a macro sense, the purpose of your bill, I thought I heard you say it Representative, just maybe clarify the record. The objective that you are trying to do is to provide energy security in South Central through this bill, is that correct? Energy security through the chair for everyone who relies on or is impacted on natural gas, which is directly the rail belt and indirectly the entire state.

Okay, follow-up, Mr. Co-Chair? Follow-up. Through the chair to Rep. Fields. I will let you off from that, although I think we will debate the impact on the interior, but I appreciate you not forgetting us when you talk about the bill.

So the reason I asked the question is I actually agree with you. I think royalty reduction on the aging field is a way that you can provide insecurity, especially if you look at the last lease sales that we just held in Cook Inlet. There wasn't really any interest. I do have a couple of things. On the bill, I don't see anything that Says that in the, in the event this, this lease were— I don't know if it can be sold to another producer, but if you sell the, this lease to another producer, do they get to maintain the royalty rate at 3% if we pass the bill through the chair?

Representative Fields, um, through the chair, I would ask that the department address that. And I also wanted the department to provide a little more detail following up for Representative Galvin on— they're both royalty reduction requirements and there are lease requirements. I want to be clear, the lessees must meet their plan of development. They must invest, and I applaud the Department for doing their job to make sure we are getting investment and production out of the Cosmopolitan as well as out of the Kitchen Lights unit. The obligations of the Department remain and are very important.

Follow-up, Mr. Kuchera? Representative Snap. Yeah, I think my only real issue with this overall is I don't understand why you wouldn't just apply it to the entire Cook Inlet Basin. Um, I don't like picking winners and losers in life, and I mean, there is clearly a gas shortage looming in South Central. I think that, um, this certainly helps to get gas out of the kitchen lights unit, but I don't see that you're going to move the needle much unless you're willing to say for the entirety of the Cook Inland Basin, hey, we're going to do royalty modification.

Um, and I would just like to hear the sponsor's thoughts on that for potential amendments later. Thanks. Through the chair, Representative Staff. I'm gonna, uh, through the chair—. Representative Fields.

Through the chair, to answer Representative Staff's question, I'm going to skip ahead to this slide. The short answer is yes, I agree with you. We should be contemplating basin-wide royalty modification. One of the conditions that makes that just a little bit complicated is that there are different rates of royalty take in terms of state royalty and overriding royalty interests, or ORIs. And this is an illustration.

So I introduced a bill for the kitchen lights unit because we have what I think is clear and compelling evidence from the department that royalty modification is in the public interest based on expansion of gas supply and actually an increase in lifetime royalty yield. There is no measure by which royalty modification is not in the public interest in the kitchen lights unit. We do not have that depth of information for other units. However, when you review the other units, I think you could conclude that there's a substantially different cost burden based on the combination of state and overriding royalty interests. Members will see that the second most expensive unit based on that combination is Cosmopolitan, a unit where BlueCrest is investing today, drilling horizontally from onshore to offshore.

That is a very important unit to get additional natural gas production, again, for the entire rail belt and rippling out through PC and otherwise the entire state. So do I think that the state should be pursuing a royalty modification structure for Cosmopolitan that's data-driven and looks carefully at the public interest? Absolutely. But do I think that we might also want to look at some of these Glacier and Hilcorp units to see, is there a world in which we have a lower royalty rate but also some transparency about project economics? So we make sure that we're getting a good deal as a state.

Yes, I would strongly support consideration of that. We have a reactive system of royalty modification right now where the producer has to come to the state. Given the realities of gas supply and effects on consumers, should we be more proactive? And what is the right degree of transparency so that when— if and when we grant royalty modification, can assure the public that we're getting a good deal with a producer like Hilcorp, Glacier, or BlueCrest. I support that inquiry and have already started to ask Ledge Legal for— to explore different models of it.

I would like to also recognize that we have with us Representative Moore. And next up, I've got Representative Hannon and then Bynum. Representative Hannon. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Representative Fields, you referenced that your bill and passing this would increase revenue to the state.

Do we have a fiscal note or Department of Revenue analysis, not DNR analysis about prediction? And I see that, but I don't—. So I'd like to see other additional expansion from the Department of Revenue and kind of tied into that, how that has shifted as we went to the royalty relief that DNR was granted to them over the last 2 years. Representative Fields, or actually Mr. Noddy.

Thank you. Through the chair, Representative Cannon, we do have here in our physical note, the attached with the document, but I think I would actually defer to DNR for more specific model numbers regarding how much the state would make for the royalty modification. The person I've got, Mr. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Commercial Manager, Division of Oil and Gas, would he be the person to ask or are we looking for somebody else?

Through the Chair, yes, I believe so, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Representative Hannan? Thank you, Chair Foster. I guess I'm—. I know DNR says it's good.

I'm looking for Department of Revenue's analysis of it, which, you know, as we hear frequently, they have slightly different data sets and different analytical properties. And so I want to know from Department of Revenue how this royalty reduction has increased production and what its expectation is over the next— and usually do a 5-year forward. We don't have a Department of Revenue person on the line, so we will have to coordinate for our next meeting to make sure DOR is here. Representative Hannon. Follow-up on a slightly different— when we heard similar legislation a couple of years ago, much of the discussion was the state was going to take a royalty reduction, but there were overriding royalties of private investors that were not.

That appears, I think, on slide 12. 2012, And I want to know if we have information about where their profitability has been. So we've lost potential revenue, but, you know, collecting royalty on zero is zero, so collecting royalty on something adds to us. But does it remain the circumstance that only the state has reduced its royalty and overriding royalties owned by 4 or 5 private partners. Are they making hand over fist millions or 10 bucks?

Representative Fields. Through the chair, when that issue came up under previous royalty modification legislation, I followed it because I thought we should try to deal with those ORIs, buy them out. That was obviously not successful. I want to defer to the company, this— PECS and FURIE, to talk about how they approach that, because of course they dealt with it. But if the Committee has proposals on dealing with those ORIs, I certainly support that.

If there is a way to deal with it, my recollection from previous sessions where I did some research on it was we didn't find an easy/legal way. To deal with it, unfortunately. Representative Hannon. And I, I think this is a follow-up comment. I, I know that our Department of Revenue can't reveal to us that data, but if those, uh, private royalty holders want to share that information of their profitability or losses with us, my belief is they're allowed to breach their own confidential.

And so I guess this is the public appeal of— this is a theoretical case with confidential data, and if they want to make their case, I think that some of them need to share the risk they believe that they have taken and whatever potential profit sharing with the state they are willing to make. Senator Fields, any comments? No? Okay. Okay, we will move on to the next in the queue.

I have got Representative Bynum, Josephson, and Galvin. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Just for the record, I missed the staffer's name. Through the record, Michael Noddy was the staffer who testified.

Thank you. Michael. And then as far as this presentation, I also wanted to be clear. Is it the intention of the Co-Chair that We're going to have the introduction here today. We will have some element of public testimony, but we will be bringing this back and we will have an opportunity to fully ask questions of any slide that we've had and the department as well.

Is that accurate? Absolutely accurate. If that's the case, I'll just hold off my questions until we're through the presentation and then get through public comment and then wait for it to come back. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. Next up, I've got Representative Josephson and then Galvin. Representative Josephson.

Through the chair, Representative Fields, Representative Hannan said something along the lines of, "I know DNR says it's good," and then asked a question. Just to clarify, DNR thought the reduction down to 3.3 or 3% was good, but they're not— this isn't their bill, it's your bill, obviously. That's correct. Through the chair, I think what Representative Hannan was saying is DNR essentially agreed that a reduction in royalty would increase— royalty rate would increase state royalty over the life of the field. [Speaker:COMMISSIONER HART] All right.

And follow-up? [Speaker:COMMISSIONER HART] What is the restriction in the royalty modification? What's the time limit on the current administrative allowance? [Speaker:MR. HART] I don't know if there's a time limit in addition to the $712 million gross dollar figure. I think the issue is— It can be revoked by any commissioner or future administration.

Okay. Thank you. And the department will correct me if there is also a timeline in there that I don't recall from the decision. Okay. Next up I have got Representative Galvin.

I think I am going to wait as well until we can get to public and others who are weighing in. Thanks. So I think we are on— which slide are we on there? Um, go ahead and proceed maybe with the presentation. Uh, yes, slide 6.

Just a little bit of background about the Kitchen Lights Unit. The Kitchen Lights Unit is quite large, and it represents what were previously 3 smaller units. Back in 2024, it was producing, uh, 9,100 MCF production. Here's another map of the consolidated Kitchen Lights Unit.

So there are still a fairly small number of wells that Hex has successfully developed. This is a nice historic view. So Hex purchased Fury, um, was able to levelize production with some significant investment. And as you can see, when the department granted a royalty modification, production since then has gone up quite a lot, uh, more than doubling. And if— for members who are familiar with what happened this year with Enstar, this production was actually very important for maintaining heat in South Central.

I guess I should also add, so there are ripple effects of having adequate gas supply for power generation and heating If you don't have adequate gas supply for power generation in the Matsu Valley, their generators can transition to diesel. So in an event where we had inadequate gas supply in South Central as a whole, MEA would convert to diesel. That is tremendously expensive right now. NStar would actually reimburse MEA for the marginal cost of that. So in the event that we have inadequate gas supply for both heat and power, South Central, there is a massive cost that is borne by all South Central consumers.

Unfortunately, like I mentioned, Fairbanks has already seen the impact of this where we don't have adequate gas supply today to meet demand up in Fairbanks. So this winter, GVA had to burn a bunch of diesel at a very significant cost increase to interior consumers. So this is very much a an issue that affects multiple geographic regions and hundreds of thousands of Alaskans. Representative Galvin. Thank you.

On that slide that we were just looking at, can— will you share with us, if you will, what percentage of gas is currently being produced that the rail belt is using by HexFury? Representative Fields. Yes, it varies— through the chair, it varies greatly based on the season, and I believe on an average winter day this is about a tenth. Might be a little— might be a little smaller than that, 6% or so. And I am going to defer to the— I think the company could probably address the percentage of, uh, in-star daily demand that this represents.

Thank you. I, I, I follow up, and I can check in. I met with them, and I think they were at that time it was 4 to 6, and so 4 to 6 of the total. And then my question is, in your thinking through this incentive program, if you will, was the idea that if we were to put this in place, we would not need to import any gas? Is that what you had in mind?

Rep. Fields. Through the chair, no. Um, this is not— certainly in the kitchen lights units, it's not a sufficient volume of gas to obviate the need for imports. I think when you look out to 2033, as the Hill Corp— current Hill Corp contract expires, um, this is an aging field, and we should be thinking ahead and planning ahead to create an environment where, in case the AK LNG line is not successful, we have an environment where we maximize Cook Inlet production to minimize the need for imports. I don't see a scenario in the absence of a gas line where we don't need imports.

The question is how much, and I think it's clear we want to minimize our dependence on imports. Okay. And if I may, a quick follow-up. Rep. Galvin. So in thinking through the incentive program, historically the department typically has geologic information and more things than we would have as legislators, certainly.

Not, I guess, not just geologic, but I know to some degree it's economic analysis pieces that they have that we don't have. And so my thought is that historically this process seems better suited for a department that has more information. —So that we can take the political process out of it, if you will. And I just wondered if you wanted to address that and why we're in a unique situation to put us in this decision-making seat. Representative Fields.

Through the Chair, Representative Galvin, that's actually why I had a lot of questions about previous royalty modification bills because they presumed that a certain rate was economic and I didn't feel like I had the data. Because we have this data, it's very extensive. I feel confident that this royalty modification is in the public interest. I think we should be considering other royalty modification with sufficient data and consumer safeguards, and that data is important. And we also have to think about the variable royalty plus ori rates, recognizing that if we just set a flat royalty rate across the inlet, that would actually have a differential cost burden depending on the unit, depending on the ore, and that's the degree of complexity as well.

So I— in short, I agree with you. It is also true that because this is such a capital-intensive industry, a degree of predictability I think is really valuable to help producers go out and raise capital and depreciate that capital over time, recover that capital over time. Thank you. Okay. I don't see any other questions.

Representative Fields, proceed with the presentation. Okay, um, thank you, Chair Foster, Zach Fields. Um, yeah, the slide shows I think royalty modification works. We need it to work. We need gas production.

This is a quick overview over— um, this is what information from DNR, Runway of Cook Inlet Gas. Um, so if you look at the heating demand This chart would suggest that robust development out of Cook Inlet can help us meet gas demand for the next half decade plus. And it's worth noting that different utilities have different contract timelines with Hilcorp. So MEA extended by a year. Enstar has a contract through 2033.

Chugach has a contract that ends sooner. They are pursuing an import facility with Harvest, which is a part of the Hilcorp family of companies. So collectively, we think about gas supply, but of course, there are actually multiple heating and electric utilities.

Again, we've gone over the—. Question on maybe on— oh, please proceed. Differential or E+ royalty rates, I think we've covered that.

So coming toward the conclusion here and going to Representative Galvin's question about the detailed economic analysis, DNR went through a very robust analysis of what was in the public interest in terms of royalty modification or not royalty modification, to what level. And again, based on an extremely rigorous review, concluded that the royalty modification, which is now contained in this proposed bill, is in the best interest of Alaskans based on gas production and royalty maximization for the state. It is also worth noting, when you review letters from the industry, there's a significant economic difference in the number of jobs from producing gas from within Cook Inlet versus importing a corresponding amount of gas from out of state through an import terminal. So if we have a choice and the costs are the same, we should produce it locally in terms of the economic benefit. The reality is it is cheaper to produce it here than it is to import it.

So I believe when you look at the data and the price points, it is cheaper to produce it here, creates more jobs here. So it's a, it's a no-brainer. And that concludes the introduction. I I appreciate everyone's time, and I'm happy to answer more questions. Representative Stout.

Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, just so I went and looked up the amount of money that the state paid in direct cash subsidies for Cook Inlet, and it far outstrips anywhere near the amount of royalty that the state has collected. And I think even this particular unit, the cashable credits, by my calculations, would take like 200 years of royalty payments to pay back what we've already given. And you're nodding your head, so you know what I'm talking about. So I guess I just fundamentally, to the maker of the bill, I mean, I agree with where you're coming from.

I want to see more domestic produced gas. But I mean, if the state of Alaska didn't do any of that stuff, it would have had more money than all of that stuff. And here we are.

Debating this, and it's kind of like marginal. I mean, oh, not to sound mean, but through the chair, like, how much production are we actually talking about out of this field in total cooking gas production? Is it 4%, 6%? Through the chair, do we know? Uh, through the, through the chair, in that range presently.

Obviously, the Iran war has kind of scrambled global economics. Um, you should ask the company about their efforts to explore acquiring a jack-up rig and bringing it into the inlet. I think a more predictable regulatory and royalty regime is one in which it is more likely that we would get another jack-up rig in the inlet acquired by private capital. That would be a good thing. And I think you're right that this previous spending on cashable credits sort of created an intellectual overhang where people did not want to revisit very generous subsidies in Cook Inlet production.

I think had that cash flow credit regime not existed, we would have looked at royalty modifications sooner, because this is not contemplating paying cash for production. This is contemplating a lower royalty rate to maximize production. Those are very different things. And I think this is a more— certainly a more cost-effective way of trying to maximize natural gas production. I don't think it's marginal when you look at it in the context of keeping people's heat functional and avoiding hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel, which if we don't maximize production, we may very well be on the hook to burn here in South Central.

That's a profound negative economic impact. So even though this unit is under 10% of Cook Inlet production, when you look at not shifting the mats to diesel, that is a very significant impact and we need all the units producing. We need Blue Crest, we need Kitchen Lights, we need all the Hilcorp units. It takes all of them. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Justin, through the Chair to Representative Fields.

So I, again, like, I agree that domestic production is best. I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why we wouldn't just go to a blanket royalty reduction in the basin because every economics of the fields are different, every producer is different. You have a chart there for our royalty in Oryx, but the reality is all those different fields have completely different economics and cost structures. And if you just decided to like dramatically reduce that, I mean, that's the only way that I think that you could probably have a chance at production. I don't necessarily think it's gonna matter, to be honest, because as I mentioned earlier, We dumped billions of dollars into this field and here we are again.

But I'm just curious if the sponsor would— I know you want to look at each individual individually, but I just— I don't think it's super material. Through the chair, I'm curious of your thoughts. Representative Fields. Through the chair, I do support reducing royalties across the basin. I think it's a fair question given the different ori rates.

Do you reduce the state share to 3% of all of them, or do you attempt to achieve an average burden taking into account ori so that there's a degree of fairness? There is a difference among the producers. Some are larger than others, and I think we generally want to be supportive of trying to help the smaller producers gain a foothold and be successful. I think that's a reasonable thing for a state to do. There's some real economic differences there, but yeah, I totally support a basin-wide approach, and I think there are multiple ways of going about it.

Okay, follow up, Mr. Kocher. Follow up. And lastly, through the chair to Representative Fields, has there been any direct translation in the drop in the price of the sale of the gas to, in this case, be Instar with the corresponding reduction, right? So ideally, like, when you, when you want to reduce government take for domestic use of gas, ideally you're going to get a lower price purchase from the end user. So do you know if the sale price of the gas has gone down to Instar?

I think— I don't know if there's anyone other buying it. So I believe it's just Instar, but I don't live there. So correct me if I'm wrong. Through the chair, Representative Fields. Through the chair, there would have been less gas available to purchase.

That would have been the real issue this year. Frankly, we would have risked some very expensive impacts this winter. Had royalty modification not been put in place, and the volume difference would have been about 10,000 MCF, which I know sounds small, but is actually, you know, in a winter where we were struggling to have enough supply, it did make a difference. And I don't want to, um, talk in this forum about price points, but I think you could ask utilities and the producers about those negotiations. And in short, I think the royalty modification did achieve the intended purpose of more affordable gas than otherwise would have existed, if you're going to go to basin-wide royalty rates, I think a good question for the public is what do you demand on the producer side to make sure that for the more profitable units, and there— I think we can presume there are some, certainly not all of them, how are we getting a good deal for the public?

Are we having sufficient transparency the public has confidence that the royalty modification is in the public interest? And I think that's a good thing to be certain of.

Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, thank you, Representative Fields, for bringing this forward. Just really quick, I was going through a lot of the information that was provided in the packet here, and I apologize if it's here and I don't see it, but we talk about having royalty relief to do two things. Number one is to make sure that we have continued investment in the field to provide the gas for the communities.

And then secondly is about overall pricing and supply and demand issues and the potential to stave off the idea of imports. But what I don't see in here is just like right down to the basics. The basics is when I go to explain this to my communities about why is it that we're doing this particular— solution is that it's going to impact the bottom line for community members, and that's either going to be through electric rates or heating my home. And I was hoping that there's been some kind of actual evaluation done that would model out taking the action of yes and what that does to those two things, or the action of no and what it does to those two things. And I was wondering if that's been done, and if so, if that's something that could be made available to the committee.

Representative Fields. Through the chair, yes, insofar as NSTAR has certainly modeled out if we were unable to meet gas supply needs, what would the cost impact be? Because like I said, the first— well, number one, you know, there's a collaborative effort across multiple layers of government, our defense installations, to turn down the heat, and then you transition your MEA generators to diesel, and the, the cost of that has been modeled. And we can— we'll need to get more details on it, but yeah, we can, we can follow up because that's a regional impact. The costs come back to all South Central ratepayers.

Great. So, I mean, at the end of the day, we're talking about making sure there's supply. If prices go up sufficiently, then there's incentive for the developers to go out there and drill for more gas. Because the product is going to be worth more. But the local ratepayers are going to be the ones paying it.

And, um, the alternative is obviously diesel. In many cases, in many homeowners' conditions, maybe that's not a solution. I mean, if my home is being heated off of gas, I mean, I don't have that as an option to convert to diesel. And so there's going to be a direct impact to the residents. And that's really what I'm trying to figure out, is what is the direct impact if, if this is going to be implemented and the assumptions are true versus it not being implemented.

And those negative impacts are going to hit our residents. And through the chair, the— I think the follow-on impact is in a world where diesel supply is in question more than people might have ever thought a year ago, we don't want to add any more demand as Alaskans writ large when we don't need to, when there is no replacement for diesel in many of our communities.

Okay. Next up, I've got Representative Galvin. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, I very much appreciate the concept of royalty reduction relief. I think that given the numbers you're showing, it makes sense.

Where I'm hung up still is the idea of forever. I just— I'm trying to get my head wrapped around this, what we're doing. It's no longer even really— why would we be calling it relief? Relief, the way it had a purpose, was that when the companies needed relief, they went to DNR, the State of Alaska. They showed them their numbers.

They explained the geo, you know, everything between the economics and here's what this field looks like, so that the state would understand and appreciate how important this development is. And then the state has given relief. And I think that my understanding is also there will be a lot of revenue coming in, of course, to the company. That's why they're in this. They're in— they're a private company and they intend to make money.

And we don't want to take away that either. Want them to stay in the state. My understanding is between 10 and 12 years they're going to be rolling it in up to $712 million. So what I'm still left with is why do we need to have a forever clause? What is that about?

When we know companies can always go back to DNR and ask for an extension if it's not penciling out so that we can continue to get the gas that we need. Representative Fields. Through the chair, that's a great question, and I think, you know, the committee could say this is up to 10 years and DNR may grant a multi-year extension after that if economic conditions warrant it. I think when you look at the price of Cook Inlet gas production, it is unlikely that 10 years from now it's going to be easier or cheaper per unit to produce out of Cook Inlet. So I would be a little surprised if royalty modification was not warranted in the future, but it's totally within your purview to create a time frame for review.

And, you know, that's, that's an option. I would, uh, just if I could follow up, I would just ask companies and maybe ask DNR to look at how would that affect the behavior of an investor and how does that correspond to our pursuit of the public interest. Okay. Maybe if we could jump right into the invited testimony and then we'll go into public testimony. So thank you for the introduction, Representative Fields.

And we do have here for invited testimony Mr. Mark Slaughter, Chief Financial Officer— Chief Commercial Officer with HEX. If you could go ahead and put yourself on the record and begin your Testimony/presentation.

Good afternoon.

For the record, I'm Mark Slaughter, Chief Commercial Officer for the Hex family of companies. I am a lifelong Alaskan, born and raised in Fairbanks. I reside in Anchorage with my wife and our 4 adult Children live there along with our 3 grandchildren. Appreciate the opportunity to testify today on behalf of HB 271. HECS supports this bill.

We— I think it's very important to look at that DNR went through a very rigorous process with us over the last 2 years to find— do the best interest findings. And they found that a royalty modification was in the best interest of the state. DNR itself, though, I will point out, has limitations statutorily as to what they can and cannot grant. So with regards to the sunset clause, there was— there is a requirement that they end the royalty modification. We asked for a 20-year modification in our application, and they came up— instead of a timeline, they came up with a dollar amount.

Is how they would determine to calculate it. So there's a difference in what we were asking for, for the duration. They came up with a way to— looking at it monetarily to provide the end date for the royalty modification.

So with that, I'll provide a little bit of information just about the Hex family of companies and kitchen lights, and then go specifics as to why we're addressing in support of HB 271. The Kitchen Lights Unit is the largest unit in Cook Inlet. It was formed by, um, combining 3 distressed units. The Corsair Unit, which is the center of the unit, um, and that's where the Lake Relief Platform is, is placed. Then, um, the bottom, the bottom section was called the Kitchen Unit.

And then to the north between us and the Tyonek platform was the Northern Lights Unit. And it was all combined into one large unit in 2009. Currently, the Kitchen Light Unit produces approximately 9% of the total gas in Cook Inlet. Depending on the month, we'll be more or less, depending on what the other producers are doing. But we're the second largest operator in Cook Inlet.

And I want to make a point that the company itself, we are the only Alaskan-owned oil and gas producer and explorer and operator in the state. So we're very unique in that regard in this oil and gas industry. And then also, besides the kitchen lights unit, Hex has purchased state leases over the last several years, have been participating in the state of Alaska lease sales. So we have some additional state leases, and those are off to the right that are on the blue on the map.

So this is just to give an overview of how the gas is produced. It's from the Allegra Lee platform. That platform is the newest platform. It was set in 2015. It was renamed last year after our owner's first grandchild who who incidentally turns 1 this week.

We process the gas— excuse me, we produce the gas from the platform. It's moved from the platform to the shore on a 15-mile subsea gathering line. It's a 10-inch concrete-coated pipeline where then it's treated and turned into utility-grade gas at our Nakiski Central Processing Unit. And then from there, it connects with the Harvest pipeline system, and then we sell gas to Enstar, to Marathon. And I'll point out, we've sold to every South Central utility over the last 10 years, and then correspondingly, the gas that we have sold to MEA or CEA has been burned on behalf of Golden Valley Electric to make economy energy sales.

So we've benefited all the utilities in this— in the rail belt utility area. Excuse me, the rail belt.

This is the similar slide that— sorry, we've got two questions. Representative Stapp and Galvin. Representative Stapp? I'll defer right now. Come true.

Okay. Representative Galvin? Well, I do—. I have question on this particular slide, so if you would like to present it first, I'm happy to Wait until you finish your comments. I apologize.

That's okay. Representative Slaughter— or Mr. Slaughter. Thank you. So as previously discussed, the Kitchen Light unit has the highest burden combined overrides, which are 12.5%, which are the private interest, and then we had the 12.5% that is the state lease.

Royalty on that estate when we purchased the leases. Those leases come with a 12.5%, so combined it was 25%. That contributes to what made the unit uneconomic and why we approached DNR requesting the royalty modification. And then with the temporary royalty modification, you see that the state's share went down to 3%. And this is unfortunately the reality of the situation.

We cannot compel the private overriding royalty interest owners to change. We approached them. We were made offers to buy them out at the request of DNR. We made several efforts to have them change, reduce, either to match what the state reduction was or to just give up a portion of it, but none of the individual— some are individuals, some are companies— were willing to reduce their private royalty interests. Okay.

Representative Stout. Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair to Mr. Schlatter, thanks for being here. So with the royalty reduction in the kitchen lights unit from the state from 12.5 to 3, Uh, in terms of overall royalties, including the ories that you still have left, less to pay, are you guys now over or under some of these other fields like Cosmopolitan and Readout and West MacArthur River? Are you paying less overall in royalty than those, these other fields?

Through the chair, Mr. Slaughter. Uh, Representative Stapp, through the chair, uh, we're currently at 15.5%, so we are less than the Cosmopolitan, um, VNC, Deep Creek appears that it's higher, and then West MacArthur River, you know, is at a higher royalty rate. Fault misculture. So kind of keeping in line with my earlier argument, I want as much domestic gas out of the basin as possible, so why should I look at this for simply the kitchen lights unit when I see the other fields are also having higher royalty rates combined state and ORE?

And the economics are the economics, right? I don't know if you have anything to weigh in about that through the chair. Um, through the chair, Rep. Stepp, every company has their own economics. Each field is going to be different, and every company has the opportunity currently to go through the royalty modification application process. None of them have elected to do that.

We went through that process. It's very rigorous. They, they made the decisions on how to approve that and come to the best interest finding. So any company has the opportunity and has had that opportunity statutorily. And this was the first royalty modification for a gas field in Cook Inlet that has ever, I believe, ever occurred.

Yeah. Follow up, Mr. Kocher. Rep. Snap. Yeah, we have some hard feelings about royalty modification in Fairbanks.

I'll just leave it at that. Thanks.

Thank you. Through the chair, so in looking at this slide, it's, it's, I mean, very clear that Kitchen Lights has an unusually massive amount of overriding royalty interest holders. And reading the DNR decision a bit ago over the weekend, it makes it clear that all of these Ore's are held by previous owners of the kitchen lights unit leases, and I think they total around 12.5%, and the same as the state's original royalty rate. So I have two questions. The first one is, was HEX aware of these Ore's when it purchased the leases out of bankruptcy back at that time?

Mr. Slaughter. Rep. Galvin, through the chair. Yes, and at the time, through that complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the buyer, Mr. Hendricks, was prohibited by the judge from approaching the state with regards to this. So the understanding or thought was that after the sale closed, he would be able to approach the state and talk about this, but through the bankruptcy process he was not able to do this, do that, have those discussions.

I'll point out that those overrides were created by prior ownership. I believe the last one was approved in 2010, and that the having 25% of the gross revenue being pulled off the top is what, you know, along with other issues that occurred Certainly contributed to the challenges that led to the bankruptcy of that company.

Follow-up? Representative Galvin. Thank you. And so did any of the ORE holders reduce their royalty rate when the state lowered its rate from the 12.5% to 3%? Mr.

Slaughter? Representative Galvin, through the chair, no. None of them elected to.

Thank you. Okay, please proceed, Mr. Slaughter.

So slide 6 basically is just an overview of the process that we've gone through over the last almost 4 years now. We started with making the initial inquiries with DNR in April of 2023. That's it. Basically, at the time, DNR requested us to go back to the overriding royalties because it makes sense. Why would the state be— why is the state having to give up their share if these other private entities are unwilling to do so?

So as discussed, we made that effort. We've provided all that correspondence to DNR as part of this process, so they're well aware of what we attempted. And then they also recommended to go back legislatively, go back to— back here to Juneau to seek royalty modifications. As some of you may remember, there's House Bill 223, Representative Rauscher, which was the area-wide royalty. There is also a gas storage bill and a reserve-based lending bill that were proposed.

Those bills, the storage and the reserve-based lending bills, passed. The Cook Inlet area-wide relief bill did not pass, in part because there was questions as to why. Not everybody needed it. Why do— why is the state giving that up? So we, in the meantime, went back to DNR after that bill failed and went through this whole royalty process where they did additional modeling with us, additional financial review.

And while we were doing that in 2024, we moved forward with drilling a sidetrack well, even though we hadn't received the royalty modification. But because our customers and DNR were saying that we need additional gas online for that upcoming winter, and we went ahead and did that in October of 2024.

February 2025 is when the royalty relief that's in front this modification occurred. And DNR did an excellent job as to their process, but they're limited as to what they can do. They went down to the floor of 3%, but then they had to put a time limit on it. And so rather than a date, they put a financial limit for sunsetting those— sunsetting the relief. In the meantime, last year We did move the jackup rig.

We had it under contract from Hilcorp. We moved it in on April 10th, which is the earliest it had moved in Cook Inlet. We successfully drilled 2 additional grassroot wells. We got more gas on in line starting in late July. And so our production significantly increased.

We also made additional investments into the— onto the platform to handle the increased number of wells. We added additional conductors, so we've doubled the production of the platform capacity from 6 wells to 12. We've increased the number of wells that are currently being producing, and we've made the investments because of the royalty modification. And there is questions, would royalty modification result in additional investment? The answer with Cook In— with, with Kitchen Lights unit is yes.

We said we would invest, we said we would drill, we said we would get gas, and we've demonstrated that for the Kitchen Lights unit, that that does work. And so HB 271 gives us this long-term stability, not just this short-term mindset of get gas online and harvest. This gives us the long-term ability to plan, to invest, and to maximize the production out of the unit to get every last molecule that we can of gas that's needed for the market.

So in regards to the summer's plans, we have the rig under contract. We expect to have it by the end of the summer. Uh, we are planning on drilling at least 2 wells. It depends on when Hilcorp releases the rig to us. Um, that's their rig.

They have needs for it, so they'll be using it first. We are investing in this additional header system. We're installing that. And we've partnered with a Homer company to bring in a new vessel from Fortune Seas, which is a small Homer fishing— excuse me, a company that will be bringing that support vessel up to Cook Inlet.

This slide you've already seen. We've already talked about. The benefits, but this shows, you know, that royalty modification increases production. If the company had stayed on the track that at the bankruptcy, you know, you'd see that decline in 2022. You see once HEX purchased the company, production increased, and then you see once royalty relief occurred, there's a significant— we doubled production, you know, we hit 25 million a day of production rate.

Last October, which is a company goal. And now currently today we're doing 20 million a day. So that's approximately, um, a little under 10% of the total volume of the gas. Uh, this weekend we were moving about 20% of the gas on the Harvest system. That was good that I could see on the reports.

Uh, the questions about regards to what does the Kitchen Light contribute We pay 17 cents in MCF in our production tax. We pay 2% in our property tax that's split between the state of Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula Borough. And we have, you know, royalties that are going to the state, even though it's reduced. That's on a short-term basis. And then we also have a requirement to pay this, put into a fund for a dismantlement restoration and removal fund of $12.5 million.

$0.015 Per MCF. At the time that the company was purchased, it was capped at $6 million. As a requirement of the royalty modification, that cap had to be removed, and so now that's uncapped, so it's unlimited. So that's money that's going to be tied up in perpetuity until the field stops producing and has to be dismantled and have the platform removed. And then we also have currently about $2.7 million in AOGCC bonding.

And that will increase as we drill more wells.

This slide is specific to questions about the oversight. The plan of development, we have a requirement from DNR, which is tied to our leases, that compels us if— when we submit a plan of development, if we don't follow the plan of development, the leases could be taken from us. HEX has always, you know, followed through on our plans of development. So it does not remove DNR's ability to have oversight over HEX with the royalty modification. All this bill does is it removes the linkage between the royalty modification and the DNR's ability to have it removed.

So it gives us the stability and security that the royalty rate— we can plan our financials out on a long-term basis.

Got a question, Representative Gallatin? Thank you. If we could go back to slide 7. I'm still just wanting to get my head wrapped around a little bit more on the ORI issue and I did want to revisit that again just to make sure I'm not missing anything. So I see that, you know, HEC spot HECS bought the former company FURY out of bankruptcy, and the process, I think, took place in 2020.

And at that time, as you mentioned, they knew that it was burdened with these ORIs and that 12.5% plus the private ORIs, and it didn't use the process to seek to reduce the ORIs that were being held by the bankrupted owners, right? Representative Galvin, through the chair.

The—. These are not bankrupted owners. These are individual— the Ores are private third parties. They're not associated with the operations of the company. They're not owners of the Kitchen Light unit.

Or owners of the field. They just have a right to the revenue generated from the field. So they've, they've invested in this hoping that it becomes profitable? Yes, or some were given as a result of doing gratis work for the predecessor, they were given a right to have revenue from the field in the future. And presumably when they were approached they chose not to sell that out because they thought it may be a good thing to hang on to?

Through the chair, yes. But if you're asking through the bankruptcy, those are just rights that existed. Had it been a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, those probably would have been eliminated. But it was a Chapter 11 where it preserved those. Okay.

And then I just— I found it interesting that with the DNR decision, I'm going to quote if I may, FURRY argues in its application that one of the reasons for needing royalty modification is that DNR allowed the kitchen lights unit to be excessively burdened with ORIs, end quote. So then DNR asked HEX to get the private ORI owners to lower the Ore's and they refused. Mr. Slaughter? Yes, Representative Gowan, through the chair, that's correct.

So HEX made an effort, they refused, and yet DNR did grant royalty relief to HEX, lowering the state's portion from 12.5% to 3%, but then they cut off the relief if the kitchen lights unit earns— I think what it says in there is at $725 million in revenue. And the only thing that this bill really does is eliminate the possibility that at some time in the future, the state may one day get the royalty back up to 12.5%. Is that correct? Mr. Slaughter?

Representative Gallin, through the chair, so that the limit on the royalty is $712 million. And that is when it would sunset. This bill allows— puts the royalty rate, sets it at a 3% in perpetuity. And then it also requires that if the company were to be sold, if we were to assign the leases, then the DNR commissioner has the ability to— has to approve that. So it's not that if that company is sold that that rate would go forward, that would— the commissioner could have rescinded that decision.

Okay, thank you. Okay, I've got Representative Hannan, then Representative Allard. Representative Hannan. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Mr.

Slaughter, when is it anticipated that the $715 million in revenue would be really, uh, be reached? Mr. Slaughter. Representative Hannan, through the chair, it's— I would estimate right now it's looking probably in the 2030-2031 time frame. We do have a new contract with Enstar that started in this month, April 1st, and we, you know, that will get us— we anticipate that there's more gas.

We only committed— we committed approximately 39.5 BCF to Enstar. The additional drilling will allow us to get more gas available for other parties or to continue to meet NSTAR if they have additional needs. Follow-up? Follow-up? So if we modify this bill to put a sunset clause in there that meets what your anticipated deadline is but could renew it, you know, so we could give you— you know, if we got to that deadline and you haven't reached that and we thought you needed an extension of another 5 years or 7 years to stay stay in production and meet demands, that wouldn't thwart your investment predictions.

Mr. Slaughter? Perhaps a hand through the chair. We asked for a 20-year royalty modification because the field itself has been, you know, has not been fully explored, fully developed. If you look at when platforms in Cook Inlet have been set to the north of us.

The Tyra platform was set in 1968, and it's still producing. Hilcorp is out there still drilling. That's what they're using the rig for now. I think the longer that there's a known life, known run on this royalty, on what our financial models look like, it's going to be the most ability for us to produce the most amount of gas out of the inlet that our customer our customers are requesting or demanding us produce. [Speaker:CHAIR] Representative Hannan.

[Speaker:HANNAN] I have one additional question on the Oryx. I want to know if there is any intersect between the Oryx royalty holders and the ownership of HexFury. [Speaker:CHAIR] Mr. Slaughter. [Speaker:SLAUGHTER] Representative Hannan, through the Chair, no.

HexFury is 100% owned by one individual.

And I will point out that the royalty modification is just for 7 leases. It's not the entire unit. There's only— it's the 7 leases closest to the platform. So out of— there's additional— well, there's 30 leases in total. So this is just very select royalty modification.

It's not applying to the entire unit.

Rep. Bannon. So to be clear, even though we keep calling it the Kitchen Lights unit, it is not all of Kitchen Lights, it is only 7 units within Kitchen Lights. Yes, it is only for 7 leases and they are the closest leases to the platform. Okay, thank you. Representative Ballard.

Thank you, Chair. This is to you actually. I have a double booked and I think we are going to be taking up another one with public testimony, so I will be back. But I just wanted to say through the Chair, Thank you, Mr. Slaughter, for being here.

I know we had conversations earlier, so I look forward to more conversations. So thank you. I'll be back. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

And just so folks know what's happening here, um, our time was from 1:30 to 3:30. I know folks have been waiting online very patiently to testify both on this bill. I think we've only got 2 people on this bill, and then we've got probably over 30, maybe 36 people, I think, for the next bill. So I know that folks have been waiting and I intend to get through all the public testimony. So just if folks are trying to figure out whether or not they're going to stay online or not.

So with that, Mr. Slaughter, if you'd like to finish up the presentation, looks like I think we've only got maybe 2 or 3 more slides. Yes, thank you. So this, we just, this is a slide that is make or should demonstrate why the Cook Inlet is so challenging. The gas market is moving from what has been historically supplied from Cook Inlet to— there's now different avenues that gas may enter the inlet.

And this bill is very critical because if those different projects do not move forward on the timelines that they are presenting, where is the gas going to come from? It has to come out of Cook Inlet. There's no other avenue. So this legislation allows allows Cook Inlet gas to be produced, allows the Kitchen Lights unit to be a significant provider of that gas. And I think it's very important that the public, that the committee understands that those timelines that are being presented may not occur.

And if they don't occur as they are presented, what's going to happen? Additionally, if those timelines occur, we need to make sure that there's a market for Cook Inlet producers. Cook Inlet has provided that gas for, well, for over 50 years. There's still a gas out there. It's an underexplored, undersupported basin.

There's only one jackup rig that's available in the inlet. Our company brought it up initially under the prior ownership, and now it's owned by Hillcorp. We have it under contract. This will be the third season we've used it. It's an excellent facility that Hillcorp runs.

It's very good. We've had very good success with that. But the challenge is, where is the market going to be in a number of years? And so as an investor, you want to make sure that as you make your capital investments, you're going to have a market. You're going to have a return on that.

That right now, Cook Inlet is very challenged in that regards. You see the quote from Enstar's president. If they move forward, they affect with imports, you effectively kill the market. Why would a rational investor move forward with a market that's going to disappear on them? But the positives, I'll say, is there is gas in Cook Inlet.

USGS, you know, reports has— there's 19 trillion cubic feet of gas. That's over a 200-year supply of gas. You just have to go look for it. We are demonstrating that there is gas in the inlet, and we're demonstrating that royalty relief works for the Kitchen Lights Unit. Over half our— currently half our wells have been drilled under a royalty relief.

So we think that that's proof for why this legislation is important.

And, you know, cooking gas has been the supplier, has been the source of gas. I think it will continue for decades, actually, to come. So this— and wrap up on this slide basically is one that's a lot of misconception that cooking with gas is expensive. Yes, at the wellhead we do have a higher price than you hear in the lower 48, but delivered to the consumers, delivered to your house, your home in South Central, it is much less expensive than people think. This is EIA, U.S. Energy Information Administration data from September.

It's the last data that they had reported— that we were the 11th least expensive gas in the country. Texas is at $30 an MCF. So this is third-party independent data. The utilities report this. This includes Fairbanks Natural Gas, IGU, you know, the high gas price for up there, and then Enstar, and then the third gas utility on the slope.

But this is very important to realize. Gas is not that expensive when you compare it to the rest of the lower 48, once it's delivered to the consumers. And that is because the gas is local and STAR does a very good job providing efficient, cost-effective delivery of that gas.

So I'll let— wrap up with this slide. It's just HB 271 improves DNR's decision. That it was a best interest finding for royalty modification. It gives us the long-term stability to make investments in Cook Inlet in the kitchen lights unit, and it promotes the rational economic development of our resources. Without it, they'll be looking— there'll be a potential for less gas.

It's when the gas that's needed in Cook Inlet from the customers So we believe that the HB 271 is the best process, the best decision that can be made to supplement DNR's decision. So thank you. Great. Thank you very much for your presentation and testimony. And do we have any questions before we jump into the two testifiers we have on this bill?

I don't see any for now. So, um, Mr. Slaughter, we very much appreciate you being here. And so with that, I'm going to go ahead and open up public testimony for HB 271. That's the kitchen lights for unit royalty modification.

And if folks would like to submit written testimony, they can do so by emailing us at [email protected]. I'll repeat that in a moment, but I think I've got 2 people on the list here who would like to testify, and the first The first one we are going to go to in the room, Mr. Jeff Landfield, if you would like to come up and put yourself on the record and begin your testimony. And then next up I have Kevin Banks calling in from Anchorage. So Mr. Landfield. Hello, Mr.

Co-Chairs and members of the House Finance Committee. My name is Jeff Landfield. I run the Alaska Landmine News website, but I'm here today testifying as an Anchorage resident and Enstar and Chugach Electric ratepayer. I'm here to speak in strong opposition to House Bill 271. This bill is merely the next in line in a long line of attempted political handouts to John Hendricks, the owner of Hex Fury.

I've been tracking and reporting on Mr. Hendricks' unscrupulous activities for 3 years. Mr. Hendricks does not deserve any more special treatment from the state of Alaska. Mr. Hendricks bought Fury out of bankruptcy in December 2019 at a fire sale price of $15 million. —Thanks in part to a $7.5 million loan from ADA. Prior to that, from July 2016 to May 2018, Mr. Hendricks served as former Governor Bill Walker's chief oil and gas tax advisor.

Ask yourselves what information Mr. Hendricks learned about Fury's money problems when he was Governor Walker's oil and gas advisor and what kind of advantageous position that put him in to purchase Fury out of bankruptcy. From the start, Mr. Hendricks tried to get his property taxes reduced by 90%. His property taxes are based on an assessment from the state of Alaska, um, approximately $1.6 million a year split between the state of Alaska and Kenai Peninsula Borough. You heard that earlier in the presentation. The State Assessment Review Board, or SARB, ruled twice against Hendricks, first in May 2021 and again in May 2022.

Both times they upheld the state's $81.7 million assessment. Both of those decisions were unanimous. In June 2021, Mr. Hendricks filed a lawsuit trying to reduce the property taxes. In May 2024, an Anchorage Superior Court judge also ruled against Hendricks's attempt to massively reduce his property taxes. Mr. Hendricks also attempted to put political pressure on then Deputy Revenue Commissioner Brian Fector for not approving his massive property tax reduction.

He went as far as trying to get Brian Fector fired from his job for not granting his demand for property tax reduction. The revenue commissioner at the time, Lucinda Mahoney, was conflicted out of the decision because her husband Steve Mahoney was Mr. Hendricks' tax attorney in the property tax lawsuit. When the SARB route failed, Mr. Hendricks tried to seek a political solution. In February 2023, Senator Cathy Giesel introduced Senate Bill 50, which aimed to radically change how oil and gas property taxes are calculated in Alaska. This bill was written to directly benefit John Hendricks.

When I tried to speak to Senator Giesel about the bill, she actually referred to it as the "Fury Bill." After an article I wrote exposed what Mr. Hendricks was trying to do, the bill was withdrawn a week after it was introduced. A year later, Mr. Hendricks sought a different political solution to deal with another financial problem he perceives: overriding royalties, which you've heard about today. On February 4th, the House Resources Committee heard from Mr. Mark Slaughter, HexFury's chief commercial officer, who just spoke to you all about these overriding royalties. Keep in mind, Mr. Hendricks was well aware of these overriding royalties when he bought FURRY out of bankruptcy. In February 2024, Senator Jesse Bjorkman introduced Senate Bill 254, which aimed to have the state forcibly acquire private overriding royalties through eminent domain.

As written, the bill would have allowed the state to confiscate overriding royalties only below 68 degrees north latitude, which would apply to Cook Inlet and not the North Slope. Senator Bjorkman told me on two occasions that Mr. Hendricks did not talk to him or inspire him to introduce the bill. A week after I spoke with Senator Bjorkman, I obtained a letter from Mr. Slaughter written 2 months before Senator Bjorkman's bill was introduced that proposed to do precisely what Senator Bjorkman's bill did, even down to the amount the state would pay the overriding royalty owners by forcibly acquiring their rights. The letter was sent from Mark Slaughter to TIE Energy, owned by Houston-based geologist geophysical interpreter Carl Mollier.

Mr. Mollier holds a small overriding royalty in the kitchen lights unit for work he performed years ago. Again, after reporting I did expose what Mr. Hendricks was trying to do, Senator Bjorkman's bill failed to get a single hearing. It seems Mr. Hendricks has abandoned the Senate route and has turned to the House. And so far he has had better luck. House Bill 271 was passed out of the House Resources Committee after just 2 hearings.

It is now before this committee. House Bill 271 aims to permanently reduce the royalty rate in the kitchen lights unit, the cooking lint field Mr. Hendricks operates. In September 2024, Mr. Hendricks petitioned the Department of Natural Resources for royalty relief in the Kitchen Lights unit. After 5 months, the DNR agreed to reduce Mr. Hendricks' royalties and Cook Inlet by 75%. Again, it took DNR experts 5 months to agree to the royalty relief.

The legislative session is only 4 months, and there are no oil— there are no oil and gas experts in the legislature qualified to deal with this kind of complex business matter. The DNR also agreed to backdate Mr. Hendricks' royalty relief to the time he applied, resulting in a $2 million credit for royalty payments made during the 5-month period. After the 75% reduction, resulting in royalty payments declining from approximately $400,000 a month to $100,000 a month, Mr. Hendricks was put in the fortunate position of not having to make royalty— any royalty payments for 20 months, unless he starts producing a lot more gas. House Bill 271 aims to make this royalty reduction permanent only in the Kitchen Lights unit, not anywhere else in Cook Inlet. On February 4th, a member of the House Resource Committee asked Mr.

Slaughter and state officials how much Fury was charging for gas. Mr. Slaughter and state officials refused to answer the question. Here is the answer. While Hilcorp was delivering Cook Inlet gas at a contracted rate of approximately $8 per MCF, Fury is charging around $13 per MCF, even after the royalty relief Fury was given by the state more than a year ago.

Here's the bottom line. The gas produced by Mr. Hendricks is by far the most expensive gas in Cook Inlet. Not due to higher costs, but because he knows he can put a gun to the head of South Central ratepayers due to very limited options. Thank God he only produces a small fraction of cooking the gas. The royalty relief he's already obtained does nothing for ratepayers.

It just enriches his pockets. Is cooking the gas supply constrained and concerning for South Central residents and businesses? Yes. But I can tell you all one thing: giving John Hendricks more handouts is not the answer to this problem. Anyone who has so shamelessly demonstrated the troubling kind of behavior Mr. Hendricks has does not deserve help or special treatment from the Alaska legislature or the people of Alaska who ultimately foot the bill.

I urge this committee to put this bill where it belongs— in the trash. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Lanfield. Do we have any questions from the committee for the testifier? Seeing none, thank you very much, Mr. Lanfield.

Next we have, uh, Mr. Kevin Banks. If you could state your name and your affiliation. Looks like you're calling in from Anchorage.

Hello, thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Kevin Banks. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And can you hear me, please? We can, but we're getting some background noise. And if you're on a speakerphone, usually we can hear folks better if they— if we're not on speaker.

I'll hold this up closer. We want you off speaker. Okay.

Thank you, uh, Chairman. Can you hear me now, please? Yes, we can. Thank you.

Very good. So I, um, I would like to testify in, uh, on HB 271 and argue that, uh, there's some serious flaws with the, um, the bill as it is. Uh, I can go into some detail about that, but I think The important issue is, is that the difference between what the commissioner and the Department of Natural Resources found in their determination versus a permanent decision that has been advocated by the lessee. So for having said that, my background is as a former director of the Division of Oil and Gas. I worked there for 4.5 years in that capacity.

And I'm quite familiar with the royalty release activities of the department over the years, including the statute that is being referred to here and when that was promulgated in the 1990s. It's It's worth noting that as we've heard here that the commissioner has created a mechanism in the royalty relief for the Kitchen Lights unit that would terminate the release after gross revenues had achieved a number like $712 million. That number, that $712 million, was come to because it's required by the statute, the 3805-180-J statute that makes it possible to give royalty relief to extend field life. Now, in extending the field life, it's not just a matter of reducing royalty. For some time period.

The requirement was that it should be subject to condition related to the economics of the field, you know, including things like price and the costs and the production and production rates and reserves. Um, what the commissioner did here was to roll those kinds of conditions into one number, the gross, uh, revenue, uh, cumulative gross revenue that— and determined at what point that— how much that would extend the life of the field given the economics as it was modeled. I'm familiar with the way these findings have been drafted in the past, and DNR has done very similar work in the past and has done it here as it's done here. And The fact that the royalty rate is not a matter of going back up at 12.5%, it goes back up because of a certain time has gone by. It's because it's the kind of rate of— the kind of number that's chosen here shows that the project would be economic for a good deal longer.

And then that amounts to the state making an investment in the field just as any other investor by giving up its royalty or a share of its royalty to incentivize better economic conditions. So if the field is at near its end of life, what can the department do to extend the economic life of the field? And that's what they've done here. Now, the reason why it's important to have a number like that is that because things aren't always the way they turn out. The state is making an investment in this field, and it should be entitled to a return on that investment if things go better than what might have been expected.

A lot of— I'm not sure that that would be a necessary— necessarily what people will believe today. But who knows what's going to happen? Imports of gas will be a lot more expensive to end. Sale prices of gas in the inlet may rise too as a consequence in competition with the most expensive gas supplies coming from outside. So who knows, maybe this, this $712 million amount occurs sooner than rather than later.

In any case, increasing the length of life of the field by 10 to 12 years or so, as Dinar has illustrated, suggests to me that it should be a fairly long time to enjoy this kind of relief. And as has already been mentioned, the— should the— we get to the end of this $712 million gross revenue if the project— if royalty relief would again in a different form extend the life of the field, there's certainly the ability to do that again. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Through the DNR process. I know people have talked about the fact that at some point in time that the Commissioner could deny royalty relief under this format, but that's not true. The— it stated pretty clearly that when the gross target is reached, the royalty rate will go back up, but not before.

And in fact, there's even language to say that in that last month that it hits that point, they get the royalty rate relief for the entire production for that month. So timing was a a consideration, but not necessarily one that was on the clock or on the calendar. I think it's worthwhile to say that if I were— if I were the commissioner, I have some serious concerns about using just a simple gross revenue amount, but it certainly makes it easy to administrate. You don't have to get cost data from the lessee, which is always subject to some contention.

The overriding loyalty interest has been raised as an issue, and I understand that the problem that DNR has with that. And by the same token, I understand what the incentive is for the overriding interest. The overrides know that they are going to share in the benefit of the royalty relief given by the state. So they have no incentive to give it up if the production can continue and they'll share in their 12.5% of the royalty reduction. And so obviously that's not something that can be given up for free.

And hang on to it. It's not like they have an incentive to give up their royalty just to make a project work without getting any revenue for it. And then lastly, it's odd that this should be applied to just this single unit and this single company. And I suspect that you'll have to have much better findings or— than maybe the few lines of the— in this bill that suggests that it's good for the state and the best interest of the state. The commissioner has already done that work and done it with some thoroughness.

I would submit that if this bill were to go forward, that the legislature would have to do a similar kind of analysis and it has the right to do so under the statute on 180J that allows for the use of turning over information to the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee to do that kind of work. I think at that, I'd like to just conclude my remarks by thanking you for this opportunity to speak. It's been a long time since I've had any opportunity to do this, but this particular issue caught my eye caught my interest because of my experience with it in the past. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Banks.

You— can you repeat again the position that you held prior, in your prior years here with the state? Yes, and yes, certainly, Mr. Chairman. I, uh, I was the director of the Division of Oil and Gas for 4.5 years. I became director in January of 1998. And you were in charge of the economic analysis.

And before that, I was the head of the economic section. Great. The commercial section in the division. Thank you very much. Also, I have some requests here for both yourself as well as Mr. Landfield.

If you are interested, we would encourage you again, if you can, to maybe also submit your testimony in writing if you have it or if you would like to compile that. I think folks are interested in what you have to say and would like to relook at that and revisit that. So just an invitation to both of you from members of the committee. And also I have a question or comment from Representative Schrag. Thank you, Chair Foster.

I wanted to say hi to Kevin and Paula. Thanks for your thorough and thoughtful testimony. We really appreciate it. Kevin and Paul are constituents, so just appreciate them calling in today. Thank you.

Very nice. Okay, I don't see any further questions. So with that, thank you very much, Mr. Banks. And I'm going to repeat again the email. If you'd like to submit written testimony, you can do so by emailing us at [email protected].

So with that, For now, I will go ahead and close public testimony on House Bill 271. And we are going to put the bill aside for now. Representative Fields, thank you very much for bringing this to us, and we'll revisit it. So with that, we're going to jump right into the next bill, and we're going to do public testimony. And so that's for House Bill 195.

That is the Pharmacist Prescription Authority Bill. And if we could have Representative Mena and her staff, Ms. Katie Giorgio, if you could please come up to the table and put yourselves on the record and just give us a really quick brief recap just to get our brains moving in the right direction here, and then we'll jump into public testimony. So with that, um, welcome. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster and members of the House Finance Committee. For the record, my name is Genevieve Mena.

I represent House District 19, the Anchorage neighborhoods of Airport Heights, Mountain View, and Russian Jack and the Alaska Legislature. House Bill 195 is a collaborative piece of legislation between the Board of Pharmacy and the Alaska Pharmacy Association to help increase access to limited primary care, uh, from pharmacists that are practicing in Alaska. In 2022, the 32nd Legislature passed House Bill 145, which helped create a path to allow pharmacists to practice at the top of their education training and experience. However, this bill did not clarify what this provision of other patient services would mean. What House Bill 195 does is that it, it builds upon this effort to clarify the intent of the other patient services that pharmacists can provide, including independent prescriptive authority and direct patient care.

This would also include pharmacists being able to do a test for the flu, for strep throat, for UTIs, etc. Since the introduction of this bill last year, this bill has also been included in the Rural Health Transformation Program as one of the many policies that the legislature would need to pass in order to ensure that we keep the federal funding that was awarded to us. This bill would help increase primary care, would help increase access to this care in rural areas, increase access to substance use disorder treatment, ensure that we have collaborative team-based approaches to this primary care, and pharmacists would be able to triage and refer patients as needed to other providers. Great, thank you very much for the recap. And so I'm going to go ahead and open public testimony on House Bill 185.

Again, that's the pharmacist prescription authority. And if folks If folks would like to submit written testimony, they can do so by emailing us at [email protected]. What I'm going to do is maybe if folks can limit their testimony to 2 minutes. We have quite a few people. It looks like 34 at this point.

34 People online. So for the folks who are waiting towards the end of the list here that will give them an opportunity to be able to testify later. And so if folks can limit their testimony to 2 minutes, if you can state your name and your affiliation, and then also if you are on a phone, if you could maybe— if you are on the speaker, it is sometimes better if we can hear you when you are not on the speaker. So with that, let's see, I am going to start with the first 3 people I have on the list are Abigail Brash, Jane LeBlanc, and Therese Siren. So starting with Abigail Brash calling in from Anchorage, if you can state your name and your affiliation and proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

[Speaker:ABIGAIL_BRASH] Hi, for the record, this is Abigail Brash, and I am an Alaska resident. And calling in opposition to the HB 195.

Okay, and sounds like that's your testimony. And I just want to look in to see if anybody knows you, wants to say hi. Sometimes that happens. So thank you very much for calling in. Next, we're going to go to—.

Oh, go ahead. Oh, oh, I actually do have a few things to say. I just, I wasn't sure how this worked. So, you know, perfectly fine. I was thrown off for a second there, but yes, please proceed.

Thank you. Okay. I'm opposed to pharmacists' authority being expanded.

I'm expanding access to specifically the Mifepristone pill. I'm not sure if that's how you pronounce it. But, um, it's a dangerous pill, and, um, 10% of women will actually experience really serious or life-threatening complications. Um, I'm also in opposition of the, the pill in general that, um, ends a pregnancy, which therefore is ending a life, and, um Ending a life that can't defend itself is unethical and immoral. Expanding access to the drug, especially in the rural places here in Alaska, is concerning to me.

And so many people who do not have the access to hospitals and medical care, and it could be much more dangerous to them. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And that's my statement. Great, thank you very much. Representative Bynum has a comment. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster, through the chair.

Thank you for your call-in testimony. My question is, is are you aware of any community pharmacies that are currently dispensing the drug that you referenced, the mifepristone? And if so, would you be willing to provide the those to the committee?

I'm not sure of any specific ones. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much for calling. Thank you so very much for calling in.

I just would like to also recognize that we have in the audience with us Representative Ruffridge. Thanks for being here. And next up we have Jane LeBlanc calling in from Fairbanks. If you can state your name and your affiliation, proceed with your for your 2-minute testimony.

Thank you. My name is Jane LeBlanc, and I'm calling from Fairbanks, Alaska. I'm calling in strong support of HB 195. I work as a clinical pharmacist in the primary care setting, and I wanted to speak to some of the activities and services that this bill is hoping to extend, because I think there's a little bit of misunderstanding about what this bill is actually hoping to do. For the last several years, I've worked as a provider in a primary care setting in Fairbanks under a collaborative practice agreement, which does extend prescriptive authority to me and gives me the ability to do primary care with patients under the supervision of the physicians at that clinic.

The reason that the physicians felt that this was important enough to have me there and to enter into a collaborative practice agreement under their licenses was access to care. And Fairbanks is not a rural community, but we suffer from many of the same problems that rural communities do, which is inability to get in to see primary care physicians in a timely manner. I will say that most of our providers have a soonest available appointment in our clinic at any given time of about 6 to 8 weeks, which doesn't serve a patient patient well who's been newly diagnosed with a chronic condition or newly prescribed a prescription. Patients are, are referred to me, and I see them about 2 to 4 weeks after their visit with their primary care provider to ensure that progress is being made on the care plan that's been detailed and outlined by the PCP. I check to make sure patients have access to prescriptions, make sure that they're not having any side that they are able to afford their prescriptions, and also make sure we're making progress to clinical goals.

And if not, I'm able to prescribe medications that do serve these purposes. And I use the same practice guidelines that physicians do. And I see my time's almost up, but I just wanted to let you know what those types of services looked like. And if you have any additional questions, I'm happy to address them. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. LeBlanc. I don't see any questions from the committee, so appreciate your calling in. Next up we have Therese Siren calling from Anchorage, and then after that will be Dr. Dan Hartman. So with that, Ms. Siren, if you can state your name and your affiliation. I'm not alone.

I'm united with other believers in Jesus. You need grace to believe it. Miss Siren, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Okay, can you hear me?

Uh, yes, we can. We've got a little bit of a— sounds like maybe a TV or something in the background, but, um, yeah, if you could proceed with your testimony, just state your name, your affiliation.

Yes, my name is, um, Therese Siren, and I'm, uh, I'm calling as an individual, but I'm affiliated with, um, you know, Pro-Life groups and so on. Um, the point I would like to make is that the State Medical Board opposes this bill very strongly, and, uh, to quote them, they said the diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions is the practice of medicine. The State Medical Board opposes pharmacists being granted the ability to practice medicine in Alaska. Mm. So, I think on the face of it, it is highly, highly irresponsible for any member of the committee, the Finance Committee, to vote this bill out of the committee because it is opposed by the State Medical Board.

It's putting a decision— it's revamping the whole medical system instead of looking for ways to cure the problems that we're hearing. There'll be lots of problems coming in. We can cure those without dismantling a first principle of medicine, which is that you have to become a doctor, and these are These are pharmacists who are— they're not under the Hippocratic oath. They're just, you know, and, and so naturally it will very much lead to abortion, even gender-altering treatment drugs and so on. Not treatment, but you know what I mean.

So this— any committee member who, who votes this out We're going to watch them and we're going to get them out. This is, this is unheard of that something opposed by the medical state medical board would ever come up for, um, to even be considered as a bill. And I would ask, as everybody is listening, committee members, as you're listening to all these people that are for it, keep that in mind. There are other ways to address these legitimate concerns without going against a core foundational principle. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much, Ms. Siren. We've got a question from Representative Sharkey. Yeah, thank you, Chair Foster. Just a quick thanks to Therese.

She's a constituent and also a family member and just wanted to thank her for being part of the process. Thank you, Coach Foster. Great, thank you. Okay, thanks for calling in. Uh, next up we have Dr. Dan Hartman, then Amy Young and Barry Christianson.

So Dr. Dan Hartman calling from Anchorage. If you can state your name, your affiliation, proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

Good afternoon, members of House Finance Committee. For the record, my name is Dan Hartman. I'm a physician with 24 years of experience treating customer owners across Alaska. And I'm here today to express support for HB 195 on behalf of Southcentral Foundation.

These bills allow pharmacists to practice to the scope and level of their training. These professionals have earned doctoral degrees, have been trained in clinical settings, and have practiced for years in clinical environments. Pharmacists work shoulder to shoulder with physicians and advanced practice providers within SES systems of care. Pharmacists have the skills needed to appropriately use the authorities they would be given under the policy calls in this bill. South Central Foundation employs over 1,000 licensed healthcare professionals, including dozens of pharmacists across many locations.

In both urban and rural areas. Pharmacists make up a critical component of Southcentral Foundation's integrated care team model, which has been designed with an eye towards optimizing accessibility and making efficient use of financial resources while prioritizing better health outcomes. HB 195 will help achieve all three of those goals. This legislation will increase access to certain types of care that could now be performed by pharmacists, including patient care services as defined in Section 8 on page 6 of Version I that include the prescribing or administering of a drug. Additionally, at a time of workforce shortages, this legislation will help to expand the healthcare workforce that can take on certain care responsibilities.

The recognition of the scope of pharmacists' training, as well as placing appropriate guardrails on the prescribing of opioids, are also both appreciated. Please continue to support HB 195. Thank you for your time. Great. Thank you very much for calling in.

I've got a question from Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, thank you for your testimony. In your professional opinion, do you believe that this bill will change your scope of practice? Dr. Hartmann.

Representative Byron, through the chair, it will enhance our ability to hire and retain more clinical pharmacists, which will improve the reach of our services and the access to services by tens of thousands of Alaska Native American Indian people in our state. Thank you. Okay. Representative Hannon. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Can I clarify, Dr. Hartman, you're a general practitioner or were you a pharmacist?

Through the chair, I am a physician, family medicine physician. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Hartman, for calling in. And just so folks who are waiting in line know how many people there are, we've got 28 people.

And so next up, I've got Amy Young calling in from Anchorage. If you can state your name, your affiliation, and proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. For the record, my name is Amy Young, and I'm a practicing pharmacist in Anchorage. I have over 30 years experience working in a pharmacy with over 20 of those as a licensed pharmacist. I've been surrounded by pharmacy since I was a young child sitting on the counter in my dad's independent pharmacy capping vials.

Throughout my career, I've had the honor and privilege to work in pharmacy settings that have models in which pharmacists can provide practice at the top of their licensure. I was given the autonomy to start and stop medications or adjust dosages as needed. Tailoring treatment to each of my patients. I've played a role in many teams such as rounding with general surgery, pain management, palliative care, and internal medicine teams consisting of doctors, residents, social workers, nurses, and more. Pharmacists being a part of the— are part of the— they belong as part of the care team.

We are the medication experts. We know when a dosage is incorrect, a drug interaction can happen, and which antibiotic is indicated. We also know when it's time to refer a patient back to their provider for further care. I'm proud of the work I have accomplished practicing at the top of my licensure training and experience, providing patient care at the highest quality possible. Pharmacists are on the front lines as the most accessible healthcare providers out there, and we are the medication experts.

I respectfully urge the passing of House Bill 195 to allow pharmacists to better serve our Alaska communities. Thank you. Great, thank you very much, Ms. Young. Next up, I have Barry Christianson, then Douglas Bartko, and Debbie Rathbun. So with that, Mr. Barry Christianson calling in from Ketchikan.

If you can state your name and your affiliation.

Good afternoon, my name is Barry Christianson and I'm a practicing pharmacist and also the owner of Island Pharmacy in Ketchikan. I've been practicing pharmacy for 38 years. I joined my dad who started our pharmacy in 1974 in 1988. That first year we transitioned onto a computer. That was a big deal.

Later, in the 1990s, we had over-legislation come through from Washington, D.C. that mandated that pharmacists counsel patients. I participated, sorry, in the process of updating our statutes in the '90s to reflect the practice of pharmacy. Then in the 2000s, we saw pharmacists being able to immunize patients. Now we take it for granted, but again legislatively, we— the statutes changed so pharmacists can now independently prescribe prescribes and administers immunizations or vaccines. I'm strongly in support of this bill as it pushes the profession forward just like historically things have happened.

I'm proud to say my, my daughter is currently with me on staff here at the pharmacy. She's a graduate of a 4-year doctorate program. She also completed a 1-year residency at a hospital pharmacy. Her education educational experience far outweighs what I saw, but I strongly hope that you'll support this bill to move the profession forward in Alaska, to help us fill the gaps. I just want to say one other thing.

In 1988, when I moved back, there was approximately 10 primary care physicians full-time in our community.

Today there is one full-time. Primary care physician. Pharmacists can help fill the gap where needed. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Mr. Christianson.

We've got a comment from Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, Mr. Christianson, thank you very much for your testimony. Appreciate all your hard work in the community and being able to call in and share with us your thoughts. If you don't mind, I'd like I would like to ask you a really quick question.

In your many years of professional experience, do you believe that this bill in any way will change the definition of your scope of practice? And specifically with regard to your ability to perform activities that are listed in statute that only a physician can provide? [SPEAKING SPANISH] Through the chair. Through collaborative practice agreements, pharmacists have already demonstrated their ability to, to do prescribing of medications. So this bill would absolutely allow us to advance the profession throughout the state and in our community.

A quick follow-up. Follow-up. With that expansion of your ability to do that, would this allow you and your community pharmacy to dispense the drug that's been of question, the mifepristone, for the purposes of abortion?

Absolutely not. Representative, through the chair, absolutely not. Even if my pharmacy wanted to do that, we're prevented from buying it. So, and, and legally, uh, that, that is not allowed. Um, so no, to answer the question, absolutely not.

Thank you. Okay, Representative Hannon, do you have a— no? Okay. Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Christianson, for calling in. Uh, next up we've got Douglas Bartko calling in from Palmer.

If you can state your name and your affiliation, proceed with your 2-minute testimony? Yes, this is Doug Bartko. I'm calling from Palmer, and I'm working at the pharmacy part-time in Alaska. I recently worked in Gwenn Law in Alaska, and in the bush they have a lot of mail orders, and I noticed that a lot of the remote Alaskans, it's difficult for them to get in to see their position. I graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle, and the state of Washington has had something similar to HB 195 for at least 20 years, maybe more than that.

At the federal level, pharmacists have been working in the Indian Health Service, and pharmacists have been providing direct patient care and prescribing also for many, many years. HB 195 would give more recognition to the pharmacist collaborative practice that's also been in law for many, many years where pharmacists work with physicians and other healthcare workers in direct patient care. So my opinion is that the current system is, is too restrictive and old-fashioned, and it's very out of date. And HB 195 would improve the healthcare for all Alaskans. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bartko. Um, next up we have Debbie Rathbun, and then Yakwina Rupnow, and Tony Bishop. So next up is Debbie Rathbun calling from Fairbanks. If you can state your name and affiliation.

Yes, good afternoon. This is Debbie Rathbun. I'm a concerned private Alaskan citizen. I grew up in remote Athabaskan villages, and I want to say declining population is a big problem in the entire state of Alaska. I want more women and more children to be well in Alaska.

Medical help is hours away for medical emergencies in rural Alaska. The mail-in abortion tablets, um, 10% of them cause complications for women who take them, including serious complications which may prove fatal. That is not a good thing to have. Um, that's a high percentage. Expanding mail-in abortion pills is too dangerous for women and their own unborn children.

I'm calling to oppose the abortion pill expansion in HB 195 as not a good option for the state of Alaska. We can do better in Alaska. We— I want this bill to fail in the Finance Committee. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much for your testimony.

I don't see any questions, so next up we'll go to, uh, calling from Palmer. If you can state your name Your affiliation?

Uh, my name is Jaqueline Rapno and I'm from Palmer, Alaska, and I represent myself. Um, I am calling in opposition of HB 195. Um, I'm for better healthcare in Alaska, but what concerns me is the drug, uh, everyone's been pronouncing misopristone. Um, I don't want to see abortions being to be able to be handed over the counter for people. One is for the life of the child, but two is for the mother involved because this is very risky, and in the remote cities it can be hard to get emergency care that they need.

So thank you for your time. Great, thank you for calling in. We've got a comment. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-chair Foster.

Through the chair, thank you for your testimony today. Um, the Conversation around the mifepristone drug has been mentioned many times in this committee. Are you aware of any community pharmacies that are currently distributing or dispensing this drug for the purpose of an abortion?

Right now, I do not think it is legal, so I'm not aware of any. Okay, appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. And next up we have— next 3 that I have in line are Toni Biskup, Brittany Keener, and Dorothy Dablow.

And so Toni Biskup calling from Anchorage, if you can state your name and your affiliation. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Thank you. My name is Toni Biskup and I am a physician. I'm dual boarded in internal medicine and pediatrics, and I've been practicing medicine for 18 years, and I'm calling in to testify in support of HB 195. Um, one of the beautiful things about working in medicine is being able to work with a team of people who have different areas of expertise, and we help each other out.

Rely on each other. And for all of my career, I have worked closely with pharmacists as well as nurses, obviously. And I can say that I'm in support of this bill because it doesn't— it allows pharmacists to practice within their scope of training. And as many others have said, it would expand access to basic and really important care, healthcare, in areas that don't have easy access to care. It additionally would allow access to care in places like Anchorage, Fairbanks, Ketchikan, Kodiak, where there's more access, you know, some have more resources than others, but allowing pharmacists to have additional practice abilities that still fall within their scope of training, and these are highly trained medical professionals, with expertise in medication, in side effects, in dosing, in, you know, looking at what the patient's other medical conditions are and how these medicines interact with other things they might be on or affect their kidneys, et cetera.

They're highly trained to do these things. And this could not only in areas with very limited access to care, help increase access, but also in areas with more resources, um, still improve access to a lot of people who maybe don't have a primary care physician, um, or, uh, their only other option would be to go to the emergency room when it's not really an emergency. There are many reasons why I think this bill would benefit, um, Alaska and Alaskans.

Thank you very much. Ms. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Oh, uh, sorry, I was going to say thank you so much, um, for your time. I, I appreciate, um, the committee's time and listening to all of our testimonies.

Great, thank you for calling in. Um, next up we've got, uh, Brittany Keener calling in from Eagle River. If you can state your name and your affiliation. Good afternoon, co-chairs and members of the committee. My name is Brittany Keener.

I'm a pharmacist leader within Alaska's tribal health system and I'm here in strong support of House Bill 195. A point of clarification, one of the testifiers earlier stated that pharmacists don't take the Hippocratic Oath. That is inaccurate. We do take the Hippocratic Oath as part of our program. And at its core, House Bill 195 is about improving access to care for Alaskans, especially in rural and underserved communities, by allowing pharmacists to practice at the top of their training.

This bill comes at a critical time. Alaska has received funding through the Federal Rural Health Transformation Program, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen our healthcare system. To fully realize this opportunity, we must modernize our policies, including pharmacists' scope of practice. House Bill 195 supports this by enabling pharmacists to deliver team-based, protocol-driven care for low-acuity conditions and chronic chronic disease management. A key component is ensuring that community pharmacists can enter into a collaborative practice agreement.

These are proven, safe partnerships that allow pharmacists to initiate and manage medication therapy under defined protocols, expanding access without adding burden to an already strained provider workforce. In rural Alaska, where access to a provider may be limited, these agreements are not just helpful, they are essential. They allow patients to receive timely evidence-based care in their own communities while maintaining coordination across the care team. The reality is many communities may not have a consistent access to providers, but they do have pharmacists. We are among the most accessible healthcare professionals and are uniquely positioned to improve population health.

At the recent Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Quality Conference, CMS leadership emphasized the untapped potential of pharmacists to help close access gaps, especially in rural areas, and that is exactly what this bill enables. It strengthens team-based care, extends the reach of our healthcare system, and improves outcomes without replacing existing providers. House Bill 195 is practical, evidence-based, and a step forward that aligns with federal priorities and improves access to care for Alaskans. I respectfully urge your support, and thank you so much for your time. Great.

Thank you very much for calling in. I don't see any questions. So next we're going to go to Dorothy Balao, and it looks like you're calling in from Healy. If you can state your name and your affiliation.

Yes, hello. My name is Dorothy Balao, and I'm from— I am from the Healy area, and my affiliation is We're pro-life all over the state of Alaska and everywhere in the world, and I oppose HB 195. Um, it's a statement of my own: the intentional taking of an innocent human life is always wrong, and the unborn are innocent human lives. Well, the Alaska State Medical Board opposes HB 195 because it allows abortion pill prescriptions. And ones who are really wanting HB 195 are big abortion and big pharma.

And if it fails, they will risk losing all of the bill's promised benefits for abortion pill expansion. The number of— abortion pill deaths in Alaska has more than doubled in 5 years, from 307 in 2019 to 730 in 2025. Now HB 195 opens the door to more abortions by, um, you know, allowing, uh, this to happen, going into pharmacies for the prescription. There's no need for a medical doctor to be involved. If you use patient care will be— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Every methadone tablet kills a baby.

And records show that 1 in 10 women suffer serious or life-threatening complications. And we spoke about the rural and remote women and their babies who live in Alaska. Is even greater.

Expanding this drug is deadly to babies and dangerous to mothers. I hope Alaska can take the time and do better and not pass this bill. We're— it seems like we're— yes, we have the training. Yes, the pharmacists have the training and all of that. And that's what we want.

But we're talking about life and death here. And thank you for letting me call in. Great. Thank you very much for calling. Representative Bynum.

Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, thank you very much for your testimony today. My quick question is, is are you aware of any community pharmacies that are illegally, illegally dispensing mifepristone for the purposes of abortion? Ms. Dubow. I am not.

Thank you. Okay, okay, thank you for calling in. Um, next up, let's see here, just so folks who are waiting online, uh, just so you know how many people are online, I've got 19 people who would like to testify. And the next up, I've got the next 3. I have our Pat Martin, Andrew Haynes, and Margaret Patton-Walsh.

So Mr. Pat Martin calling in from Wasilla, if you can state your name, your affiliation, and proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

Uh, Mr. Pat Martin, are you there?

Okay, we'll come back to— oh, go ahead, Mr. Martin, if you can state your name and your affiliation and proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

Yeah, thank you, Rep. Foster. Uh, Pat Martin, uh, president of the Last Alaska Right to Life. And, uh, you know, I have some prepared comments that I was going to make, you know, about abortion pill expansion through the pharmacies, about how they, uh, you could actually have the infamous Dr. Margaret Carpenter from New York could obtain a license to practice medicine in Alaska, and she could legally extend her abortion pill business through a collaborative practice agreement with as many pharmacists as she can recruit, and then she could kill babies for profit all across Alaska, wherever she can actually obtain a contract, a collaborative practice agreement with, with the pharmacist to do that. Section 6, 7, and 8 all make that possible, and Section 8 specifically of the bill eliminates any board approval or authority to deny a collaborative practice agreement. And of course, as you read the bill, the plain reading is that, that the bill would actually prohibit the board, meaning the Pharmacy Board, or any board for that matter, from actually regulating a collaborative practice agreement.

So, you know, it's plain in the reading of the bill that this is a serious threat. And I would say that, that perhaps Representative Bynum, instead of asking normal Alaskans if they know about, uh, you know, pharmacies that are illegally prescribing or dispensing Mifepristone, well, ask your coach, Representative Ruffridge. The camera shows that you're passing notes back and forth, and he's clearly coaching you, so ask him the question. Or perhaps instead of doing that, why don't you actually your job and put Alaskans' concerns to rest by either killing the bill or amending the bill to prohibit any possibility for any pharmacist to prescribe or administer or dispense any type of abortion-causing drug. Instead of putting Alaskans on the hot seat in your, in your hearing, do your job, amend the bill, and a laser, a last chance concerns about the bill.

Okay. Thank you very much. We've got a couple of comments here. Representative Bynum and then Moore. Representative Bynum.

Yes. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, Mr. Martin, thank you for your testimony today. Appreciate you calling in. I can assure you, Mr. Martin, that all of my research is being done by myself and looking through my statutes.

So Sir, since you called in and, and made the, the question of the statute, my question to you is, are you— is there anywhere in the bill that changes the definitions under Chapter 16, which is the regulation of abortion, specifically that physicians are the only ones that are prescribed in law to be performing these activities and are licensed under the state medical board. And in further question to that is, does this bill in any way change the definition of the profession of pharmacy and that it falls under the practice of the Board of Pharmacy that you're aware of? Mr. Martin.

Yeah, hey, thanks for the question. Uh, through the chair, Representative Bynum, I think that your research is actually severely lacking. So to answer your question, Statute 1816 is criminal code. It's not medical code. So you can't actually change criminal code with a bill that's regulating pharmacy code like what we're doing here.

Additionally, you have the September 2024 Superior Court opinion that made it abundantly clear that first, uh, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and as they put it in their opinion, any qualified healthcare provider can actually prescribe and administer abortions. And specific to the nurse practitioner, they can do that all the way up to 15 weeks. And so when you look at that opinion, that opinion nullified the statute that you're referring to. So please catch up in your research. You've got a bigger staff than I do.

You should be able to do better at this. In terms of redefining the nature, the scope of practice for pharmacists. I don't see that the bill redefines it, but you do see in Section 6, Line A, a pharmacist may, under collaborative practice agreement with a written protocol approved by a practitioner who is not a pharmacist, provide first patient care services. Next, it says the collaborative practice agreement must define the nature and scope scope of patient care services the pharmacist may provide under the agreement. So what that's telling you right there is that the collaborative practice agreement will define the scope of practice for the pharmacist.

And like we've heard a gazillion times in these committees, then the pharmacist then obtains the training and education that's necessary for killing babies before they're born, and then as we hear over and over and over, the pharmacist can practice at the top of their training. So it's right there in the statute, Mr. Bynum.

Representative Bynum. Well, thank you. I appreciate, appreciate your comments. And yes, I can understand the plain reading of Chapter 16 in the statutes and Chapter 24 defining medicine and also lean on opinions from former AG Tregg and the current acting AG in his office in defining what this statute change will and won't do. So I do appreciate the input and look forward to any additional comments that you might be able to provide to the committee through email.

And I've got Representative Moore. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Thank you, Mr. Martin, for calling in as a constituent of Wasilla. We appreciate you, uh, being a part of the, uh, conversation and engagement. Thanks.

Great. Thank you very much, uh, Mr. Martin, for calling in. And, uh, I, I certainly do appreciate, um, the back and forth that we have sometimes in terms of just trying to get out all the information and all the different perspectives. And, um, and I think for the most part we do a pretty good job about trying not to make it personal. I just want to, uh, encourage us to keep up with that.

So appreciate everybody calling in. And next up we have Mr. Andrew Haynes and then Margaret Patton Walsh. Oh no, I'm sorry, that she's with the Department of Law. So the next step would be Joshua Max and then Soren White. So with that, Mr. Andrew Haynes calling from Eagle River.

If you can state your name and your affiliation and proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

All right, for the record, my name is Andrew Haynes. I am calling in as a resident of the Cable River. That makes me a constituent of District 23. So co-chairs and members of the community— of the committee, firstly, I want to thank each and every one of you for your time and dedication that you have for representing our Alaskan communities. My daughter has suffered with chronic recurrent ear infections since infancy.

She's currently on her fourth set of ear tubes and is in the midst of recovering from yet another infection. Um, when she gets an infection, we have to drive from Eagle River into Anchorage, uh, to see her primary care physician for antibiotics. Best case scenario, this is several hours after we call, but oftentimes nothing is available for that day. We have had to utilize both urgent care and the emergency room, wasting hours of our time just waiting for somebody to check a box to begin treatment. With House Bill 195, we would be able to go straight to our community pharmacy, less than 5 minutes from home, show the pharmacist the blood and pus draining from my sobbing daughter's ear, and begin treatment within the hour.

We all suffer when our children suffer, and getting treatment earlier is important. Um, however, I will also acknowledge that my family is blessed enough to have access to same-day healthcare, and many Alaskans in your communities currently do not. And for them, this bill may be the difference in starting treatment multiple days early. It may also be the difference between between getting care and not getting care at all, which could even lead to further complications. I fully understand that there are concerns regarding the verbiage, both present and absent, in this bill, and I'm happy that these questions have been asked.

However, I do feel satisfied that these concerns have been thoroughly addressed, and this is by the Attorney General's Office, who would be enforcing the law. Continuing to frame this bill as something that it clearly is not is disingenuous, disrespectful, and it feels like unnecessary fear-mongering. I encourage all of you guys to instead focus on what Alaskans in your communities, like my daughter, gain from this bill's passage. I strongly urge all of you to stop delaying the healthcare of Alaskans and to pass House Bill 195 as currently written. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you very much, Mr. Haynes. Uh, next up we've got Joshua Max calling from Anchorage. If you can state your name and your affiliation.

Hi, my name is Joshua Max and I'm the district pharmacy manager with Albertson's Companies. We operate 21 community pharmacies across Alaska under the Carr's and Safeway banner. I'm here today in support of House Bill 195. I was promoted to this job in January. Before that, I was a I'm a pharmacist in Homer where the nearest urgent care is about 70 miles away.

I frequently had to refer patients to the emergency room for conditions that could be safely and effectively managed in a community pharmacy setting. The most common example is influenza, an illness that does not require an ER visit, yet in many rural Alaskan communities, the ER becomes the only timely option when primary care appointments are booked days or even weeks out. I also routinely see travelers who have full medical histories available through their patient portals but have forgotten essential medications at home and cannot reach their primary provider. In these situations, despite clear medical need, I am unable to provide even a short emergency supply of critical medications such as antiarrhythmics or anticoagulants, leaving the ER as their only resource. These are precisely the gaps in access that House Bill 195 is designed to address.

I respectfully urge your support for House Bill 195. Thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Great, thank you very much, Mr. Max. I don't see any questions, so, um, just so again folks waiting online, uh, we do have about 14 people left, and so the next one is, uh, Saren Soren. Soren White calling from Sitka.

If you can state your name and your affiliation and proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

My name is Soren White and—. Oh, can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Yes, okay. Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Soren White. I'm a community pharmacist and pharmacy owner here in Sitka, Alaska. I stand in strong support of House Bill 195.

This bill is all about expanding access to healthcare in a safe and efficient manner. Here in Sitka, we only have the one hospital, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. There is not a single private practice doctor. We have two dentists and an eye doctor, and that's— those are the only ones. And often these search physicians are very busy, unable to help patients in a reasonable timeframe, and so it results in patients having to go to urgent care or emergency room, where in some cases they'll wait hours there as well for some things as simple as like a strep throat or, or flu, which we can test for.

Uh, the pharmacy is always there, always open. Pharmacists are the most readily available and most easily accessible medical professional in America. Uh, but because of this, obviously we get a little busy, but there is never a time in my practice that I have seen myself or any of my other pharmacists not accept a patient walking up and helping them when they're in need, be that for a walk-in vaccine or just a chat about any sort of sickness that that patient might have and what we can do to help improve it. And sometimes that does result in us sending patients to the emergency room for those things. Uh, but just think what we would be able to do if we could test and treat for those illnesses right there and save them that time and pain At our pharmacy ourselves, we already have the equipment waiting here to test for patients, but we haven't really been able to implement it because once we test, there's nothing we can do except say, "Hey, yes, you do have strep.

You have to go to the doctor." It would be amazing if we could have an option to say, "Yes, you have strep. Here is an antibiotic or any medication that you can use," and Here you go, you can start the healing process immediately. Also, obviously pharmacists have graduated as early as 1992 to have a PharmD. This is a doctorate degree. We go to pharmacy school— oh, can I just finish up quick?

Oh no, go ahead.

Okay, yes, so during pharmacy school we work with patient actors, and so we do a lot of testing and diagnosing and of prescribing medications. So, if pharmacists were to have access to electronic health records, be able to assist in testing and treating, we'd really help stand and lift pharmacists and doctors and PAs and everyone in the healthcare system up to help all the patients across Alaska. So, please, I urge you to support— I stand in support of House Bill 195, and thank you so much. And I'll take any questions if you have any. Great.

Thank you very much, Mr. White. And I don't see any questions, so we're going to next go to Mr. Tom Wadsworth calling in from the Matsu. If you could put yourself on the record, state your name, your affiliation.

Hi, this is Tom Wadsworth. I'm the dean of the UAA ISU Doctor of Pharmacy program located on the UAA campus. In Anchorage, also a licensed pharmacist in Alaska for 24 years. I'm here to speak about the rigor of the Doctor of Pharmacy program briefly. It hasn't been mentioned yet.

The PharmD requires 2 to 3 years of undergraduate preparation followed by 4 years of professional education. And during those 4 years, our graduates complete well over 2,000 hours of doctorate-level didactic training in physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, therapeutics, and more. As well as clinical decision-making. They complete more than 1,700 hours of direct patient care—real patients—across many settings including primary care hospitals, inpatient settings, and other FQHC settings. Many go on to complete residency training that adds thousands of more structured and rigorous direct patient care clinical hours.

With this training, pharmacists really bring a distinct and specialized expertise to the healthcare domain that you've testified to here. It particularly is focused on selecting the right medication at the right dose for the right patient at the right time and ensuring it's used safely— and I use that word safely— and effectively. That is our domain. And our accrediting body, as the dean requires us to graduate practice-ready pharmacists, this includes diagnostic clinical reasoning and independent prescribing within the pharmacy's scope of training. This bill aligns perfectly with that and, and perfectly with the education that pharmacists are already receiving.

They care. More importantly, um, this bill improves patient access, access especially in rural Alaska where I have family members myself who literally have delayed care because they couldn't get a hold of their doctor for a refill when a pharmacist could simply do a gap prescribing refill to fill in the blank until they can connect and communicate that with their doctor. So it's practical, it's easy, it makes sense, and it's in line with our training. Thank you for your time, and I appreciate your support. Great, thank you very much, Mr. Wadsworth, for calling in.

Um, I'm going to go ahead and close the public testimony for folks being able to sign up. We're beyond our normal finance slot. We do have a couple people that just very recently called in, and so we're going to keep them on the list. And just so folks know, and I'm actually— I'm just going to go down the list here of a few, few people who are next on the list. We've got Margaret Miller, Clayton Trotter, Kathleen Wiedemeyer, Brittany Carnes, Michelle Moore, Veronica Fraude, Deborah Heron, and then there's probably maybe another 10 more people after that.

So just to give folks a sense of how many people have got online. So next up, Margaret Miller calling in from the Matsu. If you can state your name, your affiliation, proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Hi, my name is Maggie Miller. I am speaking on behalf of myself in opposition opposition to House Bill 195. Um, I could echo a lot of what people have said about mifepristone, um, but I just especially want to echo what Pat Martin said, that, um, to ease the minds of Alaskans, at the very least, we don't need to rush this bill into being passed. Please amend it so that we can all be reassured that mifepristone is not going to be permitted for pharmacies to prescribe to people. Just in the last year, 600,000 abortion— abortions have been performed through abortion pills alone in the world.

11% Of those abortion pills caused harm to women, and that's 66,000. And so just something to consider is if there's any possibility that this bill could allow misopristone now or in the future to be convinced that in order to protect the lives of Alaskan women and children, this bill should be at the very least amended. I'm sure, you know, if that one gentleman who called in and said his son's ear infections could have more access to care, that's a great thing. But if things like abortions could be permitted through, um, through a bill like this, it, you know, it needs to be amended. Um, and I would also like to state that I would just like to urge that I think a couple months ago I testified at one of these hearings as well, and somebody said that this isn't a life, you know, versus abortion issue, this is something completely different.

And that is not the case if this can at all allow abortion pills to be dispensed. Thank you so much for your time. Great, thank you very much, Ms. Miller, for calling in. We do have Representative Moore. Yes, thank you.

Um, Miss Mr. Miller and also Mr. Wadsworth. Both of you guys are from the Mat-Su Valley and calling in and participating, and I just wanted to say thank you for being a part of the process and engaging. So I hope you guys have good days. Okay, thank you. And next up we've got Clayton Trotter calling in from Anchorage.

If you can state your name, your affiliation.

Uh, Mr. Trotter, are you there?

Okay, we'll come back to Mr. Trotter. Uh, next up we have Kathleen, uh, Wiedemeyer, um, calling in from Seattle. If you can state your name and your affiliation.

Um, thank you. Good afternoon, my name is Kathleen Wiedemeyer. I'm with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a psychiatric watchdog group. We're asking for a no vote or amendments to be made to HB 195. We want to point out the vast differences between psychiatric labels and their diagnosis and treatment versus conditions identifiable through common medical means like blood tests and imaging.

The diagnosis for psychiatric disorders is vastly different in that it is not objective. And I'm going to quote here: "There are no objective tests in psychiatry, no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding." that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder, unquote. And that is from Alan Francis, psychiatrist and former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman. HB 195 as drafted would make no distinction between diagnosing and treatment with psychotropic mind-altering drugs and treatment for conditions that are objectively identifiable and are treated in a way that resolves the condition. It also makes no distinction between adults and minors.

A pharmacist's education and training, while extensive, does not provide medical training adequate to safely diagnose and treat complex medical or psychiatric conditions and to rule out physical conditions with symptoms that mimic behavioral or mental health issues. Providing access to care has to be evaluated in the risk benefit failure of psychiatric mind-altering drug treatments to be anything other than means to chemically manage individuals' behavior symptoms. Psychiatric drugs are not cures and do nothing to address the root causes of mental health conditions. Please amend HB 195 to protect Alaskans. Pharmacists should not be getting the power to prescribe mind-altering psychiatric drugs.

Or to treat minors under 18. We have submitted amendments and would be happy to provide additional information. And just as quickly, I wanted to say and just kind of to clarify, earlier somebody said that Washington has a law like this, and that is not true. Washington's laws are very much like what exists in Alaska, that pharmacists can do that. They can prescribe and they can treat under the collaborative care agreement of a clinic.

Um, last year, last session, a law very like HB 195 was introduced. The Washington legislature did not pass it, and I just want to clarify that. Great, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Widmeyer.

And, uh, so it sounds like you've submitted some proposed amendments, so we'll keep a lookout for those. And so next up we have Brittany Carnes, then Michelle Moore and Veronica Fraude. So Brittany Carnes— actually, after Brittany, I'm going to come back to see if Clayton Trotter is on. Brittany Carnes, if you can put yourself on the record. Looks like you're calling in from Fairbanks.

Yep. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can.

I have— my name's Brittany. I'm a born and raised Fairbanksan. I did my 4-year undergraduate degree here in Fairbanks at UAF. I did 4 years of a doctor of pharmacy degree in University of Minnesota, and I did a residency at the VA in Boston, um, which means I've had as much or more education as the PAs and nurse practitioners that I work with. Um, I have some great news.

The Attorney General has already weighed in on whether pharmacists can prescribe or be part of abortion services, and they cannot. So we already have the answer. This bill does not The Attorney General, who knows the law, has already reviewed all of it and weighed in that this doesn't allow us to do that. So that part's already taken care of. I want to add that we not only catch errors every day.

I literally watched my coworker catch a 100-fold ketamine overdose yesterday. We also get asked to dose meds by our physician and provider colleagues all the time. In fact, they come to us when they are stumped. They come and say, "Hey, I've got this patient who's really got a complex blood pressure situation. They're already on these things.

What can I do?" So, they're not like thinking they know more than us. They're actually coming to us when they don't know what to do because they know that we do know and we're usually able to help. They regularly ask us, like I have regularly calls where they say, "Hey, can you just put this in?" And I'll say, "Well, what dose do you want, or do you want me to dose it?" And they go, "Yes." "Can you dose it?" So, they are very— already using us to dose stuff all the time. They're using us to pick drugs all the time. This is something they're really doing already.

We— and then I guess the extra point I wanted to add, which I think has already been made, is that we have a scope of practice. So, just like I do not expect an osteosurgeon to suddenly prescribe chemotherapy for someone, you would not expect a pharmacist to suddenly prescribe something out of our scope of practice. We're just asking for the things that within that 8 years of college PharmC, PharmD degree that we've earned to act within that scope of practice to really help people. And I mean, this has already been said, but I have people regularly every day who are like, oh my God, I just need this thing, but it's going to take me many, many hours of sitting in urgent care and a bunch of money to get seen and taken care of. So, we're— this is something the public absolutely wants and is asking for.

We are well equipped to do this. And then, the last thing I was going to say is I worked in the Indian Health Care Service for some amount of time. They have health aides who are following algorithms for prescriptions in the village. Those people have 6 months of training, and I think they do an amazing job, so I'm not knocking that at all, but we're asking to be able to do that with our, like, 8 or more years of training that, as has been spoken to, is really extensive. So, I think I'm at time, but I am really proud to be a pharmacist.

I'm really proud of what pharmacists do. I'm super in support of this bill, and I think most of the public is too. Thank you very much, Ms. Carnes. I don't see any questions, and so we're going to next go to Clayton Trotter calling from Anchorage. Are you there, Mr.

Trotter? Yes, I am. I don't know why it didn't work last time. Can you hear me? Uh, yes, we can.

Thanks for calling. If you could put yourself on the record, state your name and your affiliation.

Yes, my name is Clayton Trotter. I'm a professor of business law at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I'm also licensed in the Supreme Court of the United States. I don't practice in Alaska, I just teach here, but I'm also general counsel of the Justice Foundation, which is a public interest law firm that has dealt with this in this area. I think that my comment would be, first of all, I think it's a great idea for Alaska to expand the ability of pharmacists to assist with medicines more than they do now.

On the other hand, I have seen and am aware of women bleeding out because they took— I can't pronounce it—. Mifepristone. And The Justice Foundation has represented thousands of women who have been deeply, deeply injured psychologically and physically by abortion. So, and there's a real simple solution to this, and that is put in the bill the following language: patient care services do not include the prescription, administration, or dispensation of an abortion-inducing drug to a patient. That simple.

All you got to do is add that phrase and then it's clear. The opinion of the Attorney General of Alaska is subject to litigation by groups, for example, like the Justice Foundation. And, and so it'll be a mess. And since abortion is no longer constitutionally protected, the doctors and the nurses and the pharmacists will be open to litigation and being sued because it's no longer constitutionally protected. You know, abortion is just like any other medical practice now, and that means you can be sued.

So just protect the— protect the pharmacists, protect the doctors, and protect women from, you know, having a pill that will kill them. If it's lethal, all you gotta do is say don't do it. I mean, I would highly recommend that Amend the bill because I think we need to have that service, but put the language in. Patient care services do not include prescription administration or dispensing of an abortion-inducing drug to a patient. You save a lot of litigation, a lot of worry.

Thank you very much for listening to me. I went over my belt a little bit there. Appreciate you calling in, Mr. Trotter. I don't see any questions. So we're going to move over to Michelle Moore and then Veronica Fraude and Deborah Heron.

So Michelle Moore calling in from Anchorage, if you can state your name, your affiliation, proceed with your 2-minute testimony.

Yes, my name is Michelle Moore and I have a doctorate of pharmacy and I practice in a community, community setting here in Anchorage. I've been practicing as a pharmacist for 30 years and can assure assure all of you that we do go under rigorous clinical training as well as many hours of continuous education on a yearly basis. We are also very accessible by serving countless patients every single day in many different settings. Multiple states have already implemented this, and it can decrease ER visits and increase positive outcomes for those patients with chronic conditions, not to mention close the care gap underserved populations. We're not asking to replace prescribing practitioners.

We are asking to improve patient care in an already strained system. We are all on the same team and have common goals, which is to treat our patients safely and effectively. This bill will make care accessible to a lot of people in this massive rural state, not just those that live near a doctor's office. I encourage those who have concerns to do their research and and look at laws already in place and what other states are seeing that have already put this in place and not rely on hearsay and fear tactics. These, these concerns should not stand in the way of expanding basic routine and essential care that many are currently going without.

Thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Ms. Moore. We've got Representative Bynum. Thank you. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Through the chair, thank you very much for your testimony today. My quick question is, as a pharmacist— my understanding is you are a pharmacist, correct? Correct. Thank you. And as a follow-up to that, Mr.

Chair, the— as a pharmacist, is it in your scope of practice to practice psychology and/or perform the duties of a physician?

Absolutely not. Thank you. Okay, uh, thank you for calling in. Next up we have Veronica, uh, Fraudy calling in from Wasilla. If you can state your name, your affiliation.

Yes, my name is Veronica Fraudy. My name is Veronica Fraudy and I'm from Wasilla, Alaska, and I am just calling to state my opposition to HB 195 as it's written. The caller before the last one was a really tough act to follow, but I agree with them wholeheartedly that yes, while this is something that's needed in Alaska, that pharmacists can help with gap prescriptions and possibly antibiotics to extend that, I think you could ease a lot of Alaskans' minds and hearts by stating that pharmaceuticals for the purpose of abortion are exempt from this. And protect our young women who would have no— as, as stated here, since they don't have access to medical care, would have no medical care or psychological care for the aftereffects of these medications. And so I just ask you all to sit back and try to consider all Alaskans and their needs and, you know, their desires for, for this bill and and do the best for Alaska, which is oppose or amend this bill.

Great, thank you very much for calling in. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry, we've got Representative Moore.

Hi, Ms. Ferretti. I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Oh, I just wanted to say thank you for calling in and being a part of the process and engaging.

Thanks a bunch. Thank you. Okay, the next 3 that we have up. And so just for folks online who are waiting, we've got 10 people online, so we're getting towards the end here. Next up, we've got Deborah Herron and then Brian McKnight and Eric Holland.

So Deborah Herron calling from Anchorage, if you can state your name and your affiliation.

Miss Herron. Hi, Chair. This is Deborah Heron with Walmart. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Oh, great. Uh, Chair and the committee, I wanted to, uh, speak with you today about House Bill 195, which obviously there have been many testifiers on this bill. Walmart is in strong support of providing additional, uh, authorities to pharmacists, and we do appreciate the Physicians that have testified about how expanded pharmacist prescribing authority will be a huge help to many Alaskans across the state through many, many different communities. Mostly, we care so much about this because we see the customer as needing access to very specific types of healthcare services and that is something that our 9 pharmacies and pharmacists can provide in our locations throughout the state. Sorry, the sound quality is not so great, and so I apologize that my voice might be coming through a little bit awkwardly, but I wanted to share with you that pharmacists are often the most accessible healthcare providers providers in the community.

We find that patients at the pharmacy counter see our pharmacists more frequently without appointments and often at the moment when care is needed most. For example, we offer test and treat services for influenza, for strep, for COVID, and in 21 states and counting, and we hope that Alaska will be the next. This bill is about meeting patients where they are and reducing unnecessary unnecessary delays in care. It does allow pharmacists to act where— when appropriate, refer when needed, and collaborate more effectively with physicians. And you've heard numerous testifiers speak to this as well, including our physician partners.

It does not replace physicians, nor does the bill expand beyond appropriate clinical boundaries. It simply allows our pharmacists to fully utilize their training to safely and effectively serve patients. We see this as a practical and patient-centered solution and hope that you do as well and move House Bill 195 forward in the process. Thank you so much. I'm happy to stand for any questions.

Great, thank you very much, Ms. Herron. And we were able to hear you very clearly, so thanks for that. We do have Representative Galvin. Thank you, Ms. Herron. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

I really appreciate that while you're part of a very large organization, you still always keep it local. You're always paying attention to what's happening here in Alaska, and it's always great to see you at meetings. And thank you for chiming in. Representative Bynum. Oh, thank you so very much, Representative.

I appreciate that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. We've got Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

And through the chair, did you say you were with the Walmart organization?

Representative Bynum, through the chair, yes, that's correct, with Walmart Government Affairs. Perfect. And as a quick follow-up, is there any anticipation from Walmart that you're going to change your pharmacies into a hospital setting and/or become an approved abortion facility?

Uh, Representative Byron, through the chair, no, we will not. Our pharmacies will stand as they are today, meeting people where they're at and making sure that the necessary prescriptions are available to people when they need them. Representative, thank you. It's a quick follow-up. Do any of your pharmacies across the country perform in those capacities other than just being a pharmacy?

Ms. Herren. Representative, through the chair, no, they do not. Thank you. Okay, we've got Representative Ballard. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you so much for being here today. Can you tell me the difference between clinic and retail, and do you think there's a difference? I'm sorry, Representative, can you please repeat the question? Sure. Can you tell me— I, I, um, could you tell me, are you a pharmacist?

Let me clarify that first.

Representative, through the chair, no, I am not a pharmacist. Okay, then I don't need to ask her. Thank you. Okay, thank you. The next 3 folks that we have online are Brian McKnight, Eric Holland, and Deborah Stallman.

So Mr. Brian McKnight calling from Anchorage, if you can state your name and your affiliation.

Good evening, my name is Brian McKnight. I'm a pharmacy systems analyst working in Anchorage. I am calling today in strong support of House Bill 195. Throughout my career, I have worked closely with pharmacists serving rural and remote communities specifically. In many of those areas, consistent and timely access to primary care providers is not always possible or possible at all without a plane ride.

Pharmacists are highly trained accessible healthcare professionals who already serve with— serve as a trusted resource in their communities. With the authority provided under HB 195, pharmacists could help manage routine treatments, provide timely care, and reduce unnecessary delays for patients who might otherwise go without services or experience a pretty long delay to get taken care of. This is not about replacing providers. This is about strengthening the healthcare team and filling gaps where they currently that currently already exist. HB 195 would allow pharmacists to practice at the top of their education training, which is, as we've heard today, is extensive, uh, for many Alaskans, especially in those rural communities.

This expanded role can make a meaningful difference. I respectfully ask that the committee pass HB 195 to help pharmacists better serve patients across our state. Thank you for your time and consideration. Great, thank you very much. Representative Tomaszewski.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. McKnight, for your testimony. Would you support adding language that specifically excludes abortion and/or psychiatric drugs from being prescribed? Mr. McKnight, I really don't have an opinion on that.

As far as I'm aware, the Attorney General has already come out with a statement showing that that is already a law in existence. So I'm not sure if you need to double up on laws.

Thank you. Representative Ballard. Thank you. Mr.— could Mr. McKnight repeat what he does again, please? Mr.

McKnight, can you repeat your position and title? Sure. I'm a pharmacy systems analyst. For those out there who don't know what that is, that's okay. I fix robots and I work on computers.

I would consider myself a pretty smart guy, but I work around a lot smarter people and that would be Pharmacy. Okay. So can I just— okay, thank you. Can I ask you a quick question? Did you read the statement that the— I think it was the Assistant Attorney General came out with?

I did. Okay. Are you aware that that had nothing to do with the CPA, meaning the— I think it's called comparable collaborative program agreement?

Uh, no, I— again, not— law is not my jam. I, I'm a systems analyst. Okay, that's really what I'm best at. I just see the gaps that we're experiencing in healthcare, and I think this could really make a big difference. Okay, I don't see any further questions.

Mr. McKnight, thank you very much for calling in. Uh, next up we have Eric Holland calling Calling from Anchorage, if you can state your name and your affiliation.

Hello. I was originally going to start with good afternoon, but I think good evening is probably more appropriate now. My name is Eric Holland. I'm a lifelong Alaskan and UAA graduate, and I'm currently a student pharmacist in the UAA Idaho State Doctor of Pharmacy program with over a decade of experience as a technician and intern in Anchorage community pharmacies. I'm calling to voice our student body's strong support for House Bill 195.

The program that we are completing is a partner program with Idaho State University, with classes attended in laboratories and classrooms on UAA's campus simultaneously with our Idaho-based colleagues. Our Alaskan cohort represents a minority of the total classroom size, with my own class outnumbered almost 7 to 1, though it varies year to year. Consequently, our curriculum is inherently designed to help prepare us to work in clinical settings in Idaho, where pharmacists have been permitted to prescribe medications and perform clinical services based on their education, training, and experience for years. This is what's known as the standard of care regulatory model, and it's in line with the way physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals are already regulated here in our own state. This type of model allows pharmacists to play an expanded role in providing preventative health services, treat common health conditions, and manage chronic conditions, especially those with a high medication burden.

It's also in line with the way pharmacists have practiced within the federal healthcare system, like the VA and Indian Health Service, for decades. The data coming out of Idaho, these federal systems, and the growing list of other states that have expanded pharmacists' scope of practice has shown that patients are seeing increased access to care as well as decreased costs for that care. Me and my classmates strongly urge the committee to pass House Bill 195 so that Alaskans can reap these benefits in their communities and so that we don't lose good pharmacists for more expansive job opportunities outside. Pharmacists have the education and expertise required to provide these services. They simply lack the regulatory framework that permits them to be offered to the majority of Alaskans.

The intention of this program that I'm attending was to help educate and train pharmacists right here in Alaska. This bill represents an opportunity to keep them here. Thank you so very much for your time. Great, thank you for calling in. We've got Representative Ballard.

Is he still on the line? Yes, he is. Sir, can I get some clarification? Did you say you're going to school right now in Idaho?

I'm sorry, you were a little muffled. I think you asked me if I'm based in Idaho. I'm in Alaska. We're on the UAA campus. And you're going through pharmacy school right now, or you are a pharmacist?

I'm currently in pharmacy school. I'm obtaining a Doctor of Pharmacy. Are you aware of the amendment that Idaho has in regards to prescribing the, uh, metasporin, the abortion pill, that is in their actual bill? That would probably be—. I, I'm so sorry for interrupting.

I'm sorry, I can see my apologies. Representative, can you repeat that? Are you aware of the amendment that Idaho has in their current bill that's similar to this one that says that you cannot prescribe the abortion pill?

Representative Allard, I'm not— I think that would probably be a question that would be better answered by Dr. Brandy Sigmundson or the president of the Board of Pharmacy here in Alaska. Thank you. I was just asking you because you had brought up the Idaho law and the Idaho law says you cannot prescribe the abortion pill. Thank you.

Do we have any further questions? Seeing none, thank you very much. Mr. Holland for calling in. I'm going to swing back up to Alexandria Hoffman calling in from Palmer. If you can state your name and your affiliation.

Hi, my name is Alexandria Hoffman and I'm from Palmer. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Excellent. First, I just want to preface this with saying that I love pharmacists.

I have a profound respect for their work, and so I'm excited for how this can open up their scope of practice. However, I am also a nurse. I work in prenatal women's health. I've heard some reports that this bill might expand access to abortion medications without physician oversight or ultrasound, and I'm just concerned that this could pose some severe safety risks to women, especially in rural Alaska. Particularly they don't have access to ERs and emergency medicine as much.

I would strongly caution that the abortion medications are not appropriate for over-the-counter prescription, I would say. Without professional health history and ultrasound, there's no way to tell if a woman is within the FDA recommendation for like that 10-week window. That can be very important just to prevent like severe hemorrhage, incomplete abortion, and infection So anything that can happen when a woman has a miscarriage can also happen when she takes abortion pill, right? Another concern I have is that ectopic pregnancies can be a very real complication. They estimate now that 1 in 50 pregnancies can be ectopic.

In the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, says the mean time to have a rupture of an ectopic pregnancy is actually almost the exact same as the mean time that women take the abortion pill. And for that reason, sometimes we tell women, you know, go home, you might have bleeding and cramping. And those are also the first early signs of having an ectopic rupture. So just from my professional perspective, I think it's very important for them to see a doctor and have an ultrasound before they have that procedure done, right? And then also me, it's like we can't get some low-risk anti-nausea meds or muscle relaxants over the counter in the US.

So it's surprising to me to consider doing a drug that could cause severe bleeding over the counter as well. That seems slightly inconsistent to me. Um, I'm all for making medications readily accessible to the public and decreasing congestion at doctor offices. And for all those reasons, I like this bill. I just think that maybe if we could introduce that amendment that they put in the Senate bill that excludes the abortion drugs.

That would be fantastic. Yeah, so that's it. Thank you very much. Great. And thank you for calling.

Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Thank you very much for calling in and testifying. My understanding from your testimony is that you're a nurse.

Yes. Thank you for that. And as a follow-up, Co-Chair. Follow-up. Thank you.

So you were just testifying about the use— It sounded like you were testifying about the use of abortion-inducing drugs. In your professional experience, in what clinical setting were those being used or have they been used?

Usually they would— so ideally they would see a medical provider and hopefully have an ultrasound beforehand. My understanding is that's not currently Alaska law, but it is like a standard of practice and most providers do perform an ultrasound beforehand just to prevent those complications we were talking about. A lot of women, they can be like months off of how pregnant they think they are, which is no fault of their own. It's very complicated to calculate at times. So yeah, for that reason, I think it is important for them just to see a doctor beforehand.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Representative Bynum. Thank you. From your professional experience, would that be a standard care of a physician to be able to make those kinds of determinations? Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no further questions, thank you very much, Ms. Hoffman, for calling in. And I think we've got 5 more people on the line. Susan Tullow is next, calling from Fairbanks. If you can state your name and affiliation.

Miss Tolo, you're very muffled. Are you on a speakerphone?

Yeah, if I can hear you better before you can hear me. Sorry, we can't hear you. If you're on a speakerphone, maybe if you could jump on to the regular phone, not the speakerphone.

Okay, can you hear me better now? That's great. Yeah, we can, we can hear you great. Thank you. If you can state your name and your affiliation.

I can hardly hear you now. Oh no, we can hear you great if you want to go ahead and give your testimony.

If you want me— what? I'm sorry, I can hardly hear you. Sound like far, far away. Yeah, if you could state your name and your affiliation and proceed with your testimony.

Susan Tulo. I'm just calling as a concerned citizen in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay. I hope, like I said, you can hear me, but I can't hear you. So, I'm just very concerned about abortion in general and to make it more easily accessible by these pills being distributed without any medical care. And in the rural, like the last lady just said about rural Alaska, where they have no hospitals. There's a lot of— seems like there are a lot of complications, bleeding that can happen.

They can die, the mother. And, um, it's just not a good place in Alaska. It's not good any at all. I'm very much upset about all these drugs. When this all came about, abortion, you know, the guy who started it made up a bunch of lies to get people to go for abortions.

I have the video Roe v. Wade, and it tells his story because he changed his mind later to stop it. But he started all this push on abortion, and it was all about money and about selling body parts. And so now, if all over the state people can get these drugs in the bush, wherever, I don't know how much it's still about getting money for body parts. It's just so horrendous, this whole thing. It's a— the pills to kill babies is not a choice.

It's murder. It's a sin. It's a crime. It's illegal. It should be illegal.

I don't know, maybe it's not because they're allowing these things, but it's just very upsetting to me that, that this can go on and that, that Alaska is pushing this kind of stuff. By letting it be easy, more easily accessible through pharmacists without doctors. And even like Planned Parenthood Place, I understand they use abortion pills too, a lot now, more than, than they do the other way. And so they are the ones also getting money for body parts. This is not in any woman's interest to be pushing these drugs.

I wonder if, if our government is getting money about these things. I hope you guys are not trying to push this so you get kicked back. I guess that's all I like to say.

Okay, uh, thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you for calling in. And next up we have, uh, Deborah Stallman and then Felicity Young and, um, Jesus Benavides. So with that, Deborah Stallman, if you can state your name, your affiliation. Looks like you're calling in from Eagle River.

Uh, yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, my name is Deborah Stallman and I'm from Eagle River, and I'm just representing myself. Um, I've listened for the past hour or so to people's testimonies, and, um, I just want to say I do appreciate the pharmacist and the services that they provide and the counseling. I've been counseled myself at a pharmacy here when I've had an illness.

I don't underestimate their ability and their training, but the drugs that we're talking about that they do prescribe, antibiotics or other medication, are all to help the patient. They're all to promote health. And the, the difference, the obvious difference, is that an aborting drug such as methotrexate or Pristone, whatever it is, is for the termination of a pregnancy. It's not for a life-saving measure. My daughter had a miscarriage and she was prescribed this.

She went to the doctor and they prescribed prescribed her, and she needed this drug. So I was— there was a time when in the States they were worried about doctors prescribing this for people who actually needed it. My daughter's— the child had died in her womb, and she needed to get this— needed to get the child out. And so they gave her the medicine. I was thankful for that.

But she had some complications and she started hemorrhaging and she had to go to the emergency room and get eventually a D&C, right? So that was very disturbing and very emotional for our whole family. And she needed medical care and this— and we live in Eagle River, all right? And she was able to get that medical care and they were able to to stop the bleeding with a D&C. So, the— what I'm saying to you all is I feel like this bill sounds like, from what people are saying, that it would increase pharmacies' ability to prescribe life-promoting drugs like antibiotics for the ear infection for the person who had the daughter with the ear infection.

She would be able to get that and not have to scream all through the night or whatever it was. But in this case, you're dealing with a medication that can cause serious side effects, one of them being bleeding. And, and have— oops, sorry. Anyway, my, my recommendation to you all is to dig deep in your heart and think, yes, let's put this bill forward but remove the, the condition of prescribing abortive drugs. Thank you very much.

Thank you for calling in, uh, Miss Stolman. Uh, next up we've got Felicity Young and then Jesus Benavides and finally Ken Hakaba. So Felicity Young calling in from Wasilla, if you can state your name and your affiliation.

Yes, my name is Felicity Young and I'm from Wasilla. I'm just calling as a concerned citizen in opposition of House Bill 195 as it's written. What concerns me is that I have been prescribed misoprostol twice for miscarriages. In both cases, I ended up with a retained placenta and that required surgical intervention. The second time, I was grateful to have been admitted to the hospital for monitoring during— while taking the misoprostol because I hemorrhaged and I needed emergency surgery and a blood transfusion.

Had I been anywhere else, I wouldn't have made it. This is a common occurrence with this drug. I've talked to a lot of women who have very similar stories like the lady who just called in. And I'm shocked that a drug as dangerous as mifepristone is being considered as part of a bill that would allow it to be dispersed without direct medical oversight. This would result in terrible outcomes for rural Alaskan women especially.

And this is all over and above the fact that we're talking about a drug that's often used as an abortifacient. You've heard many Alaskans express these same concerns. We're asking for an amendment to lay these concerns to rest.

Miss Young, just want to make sure, uh, is that the entirety of your testimony? Yes, thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay, uh, Representative Moore. Thank you, Miss Young, for calling in and engaging and being a part of the process.

I really appreciate your phone call. Thanks. Okay, thank you very much for calling in. Next up, we have, um, Jesus Benavides calling from Anchorage. If you can state your name, your affiliation.

Yes, my name is Jesus Benavides. I'm calling, uh, calling as a representing from myself, uh, personal experience with, um, abortion. My first wife had an abortion, and it wasn't until later on that I went to college, got my degree in human services, and I noticed that that caused psychological trauma. Later on, I learned that the Catholic Church has a service for many women that need healing from their abortion. They attend attend a program called Rachel's Vineyard.

I do not know what the process is about that, but I know that it is a program that helps women who had abortion that later on have guilt issues and some of that. I also learned that even a miscarriage, normal miscarriage, may cause a mental trauma. And it is just obvious that biologists, know that abortion is killing of human beings. Um, and, um, uh, Norma, uh, the lady called, uh, Roe v. Wade, uh, that's a fact that Norma Jean, I believe was her name, she had, uh, mental, uh, trauma that, uh, she, uh, uh, uh, looked for help for and obtained psychological help for that. So that's also on the record.

For the many pharmacists that have called, I'm disappointed that they are all pro-helping people but avoided or just did not know about dispensing abortion pills. And again, that's my main premise for being against HB 195. Yeah, the other gentlemen mentioned that they assured that, you know, abortificents would not be prescribed. Well, from what I've heard, you know, it's doubtful. Does the bill need to be amended or not?

If it's unsure, please avoid passing the bill. And if you care about women, find ways of helping those, uh, women that seek help for their, um, prior abortions. And that's my statement. Great, thank you very much, Mr. Benavides. I don't see any questions or comments, so, uh, the last person I've got on the list here is Mr. Ken Huckeba calling in from Wasilla.

If you can state your name and your affiliation.

Hi, my name is Ken Huckeba. I'm a unaffiliated. And to the Finance Chair, this is an appropriate place to have this discussion. One thing we've noticed, that I've noticed when I researched this before with all the other previous testimony, is that physicians are— typically require proof of malpractice coverage of $1 million per claim and $3 million aggregate. And Alaska had a program called the Medical Indemnity the Corporation of Alaska, but that no longer exists.

Pharmacists have no equivalent coverage for these things. And when you heard the previous testimonies, these can be pretty calamitous if you have any of these things cause problems out there. So the risk is there. The coverage for the citizens is not there. And that— I just wanted to call your attention to that.

Now, one would ask, why was that not included in this bill? And as another addendum to it, or amendment I would like to see is that if you're not of legal age, you can't do this, of any medication whatsoever. This is inappropriate. So I would like to see those amendments made to require the people to be covered with the coverage that physicians have, if you're going to do this, and exclude people that cannot make these decisions or should not be making decisions for themselves. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hakuba. And Representative Moore? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hakuba, for calling in today and engaging in the process.

And I always appreciate people from the Massou calling in, so thanks so much. Okay, I just want to double-check, is there anyone in the audience who would like to testify? Is there anyone online who I may have missed who would like to testify? I don't see any. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and close public testimony on HB 195.

And if anyone would like to still provide written testimony, they can do so by emailing us at [email protected].

Again, that's [email protected]. And, uh, I really just want to say thank you to the public. Thank you for your patience and appreciate your calling in. And I have a comment from Representative Allard. Thank you.

Are we— are you going to— can we make any comments, Chair, once the public— can I do that now or do you want us to hold off? Oh, feel free to make a comment now and we will be bringing— we will bring the bill up again. So we'll have more opportunities, but feel free to I have something here and I want to be able to put it on the public record and I will actually give everybody copies of it too. My staff can send that out. So I wanted to read a couple of things and this came from Dr. Steinmartin and it says at number 19:24 is that when we looked at their Alaska and I'm quoting so it's It's free speech they're saying and then I'm quoting it so it kind of sounds a little bit different.

That when we looked in there at Alaska they scored us lower because we can't order or interpret lab. However, our Board of Pharmacy adopted a standard of care regulatory model 2 years ago. And then she goes on to say and now what that basically says essentially is that if it's, you know, if you're trying to decide if it's what it's within your scope of practice, if you can do it, if it doesn't explicitly say that you cannot do it, then it is— if it's in your education and training, then you're pretty much good to go. And then there was, I believe it was somebody else that was speaking, but they said, so the problem is that it's not addressed anywhere at all. So when I read that, I thought, well, it seems like actually can order interpret labs.

So we took that to the Board of Pharmacy and they're going to be clarifying that we are in fact able to do that, which is imperative to do that to be able to monitor. Then I'm going to skip down to another— they were talking a little bit about something else, but then the section reads at 20.42 says, so that section of law where we're adding prescribed and administered to us and permanent law, said it's imperative to get that in there, but already it seems it's a pretty narrow lane. And then they go on to speak about the difference between— oh wait, I apologize.

Then they go on to speak about a little bit of the difference between a clinical pharmacist, quote unquote, because all pharmacists are clinical by nature of their work. They are all treating patients and taking care of patients. And yes, it looks a little bit different in a community pharmacy and than it does in an inpatient setting or a primary care clinic. But pharmacists are all trained to a doctorate level. And so, when you get out there and you're training and your pharmacists already have an education and training to do this, and honestly, ultimately, in order for us to be able to give the ability to innovate around this once generation opportunity, opportunity that we have with rural health.

We have 5 years to get this done and make these services happen. The reason I'm reading that is because it's clear in these statements that if you leave certain language out, then it doesn't mean it's not able to happen. So I really think that as a body, we— I don't think it's a problem putting in there that they just can't prescribe the metoprostene and other abortion inducing drugs, and we have those amendments ready. But I really want the committee to look at this and what was said, and I will pass this out. It was during a podcast.

Thank you for giving me that moment. Great, thank you very much. I was just about to ask, I didn't think that Ms. Signe Martin had testified. I've got her listed here as available for questions, but I would like to circle back. Ms. Randi Signe Martin, Were you wanting to testify or were you just available for questions?

Hello, Chair. I was on for questions. Okay, great. Perfect. Okay, so, um, just to clarify, Representative Ballard, what you read was from a podcast and not today's testimony?

Correct. That was a podcast that, um, I call her Dr. Brandy, but it's Dr. Slayne Martin. I think is how you pronounce it. Okay.

May I ask her a question? Sure. Representative Ellard. Thank you, Dr. San Martin, for being here. My question would be, would you be okay if we just put that amendment in there saying that the meta— my friend cannot be prescribed and/or administered or dispersed?

Ms. San Martin.

Through the chair, Representative Ellard. I think that at least for me, the— where this all lies is, you know, that those are policy decisions for the legislature to decide. The Attorney General has come out and said that that's already not allowed. It's not within the education training of pharmacists. So, I believe it's already not in the scope.

But I would leave that to you all to make those decisions ultimately. Okay, so, Representative, thank you. So the Attorney General said, um, what he did on, uh, and it was actually the— I think it's the Deputy Attorney General Parker, it wasn't the actual AG. So my question would be, when the AG was, um, came back with the decision saying this would not have anything to do with abortion and the— this wouldn't interfere with— or we wouldn't have a problem because they're for pharmacists weren't able to prescribe it. Do you recall any questions bringing up to the Attorney General about the collaborative, uh, I think it's practice agreement?

Was that question asked to the Attorney General, or was that left out? Do you know?

I don't. It wasn't specific, but it also wasn't left out. I thought that the question was in general, does this entire still allow pharmacists to prescribe for abortion. And so my understanding when I look at it and I look at the law overall, so my understanding of the pharmacy law, for example, is that pharmacists can delegate tasks to technicians within the technician's education, training, and experience, so long as the pharmacist feels comfortable delegating that task. Except there's one section of statute that says These things are only for a pharmacist.

And when I look at the abortion statute and how it says this thing called abortion is only for a physician, like, that tells me that that cannot be conferred onto a pharmacist through a collaborative practice agreement. Or as now the Alaska courts have said, maybe other advanced practitioners who have the ability to perform actual surgeries and those kinds of things, right? That's all outside of a pharmacist's practice. And I think that there's a lot of comments that have come up today that really misconstrue that. Like, pharmacists do not do those types of procedures.

That's definitely outside of our scope of practice, right? So I— when I read that, I think that, that authority specifically cannot be conferred onto a pharmacist, um, because of that specific reasoning. Representative Ballard. Yes, thank you. So I'm going to go back and circle back and ask you a question.

I know it's policy. I'm asking you as a doctor, your opinion. Would you be okay in the bill to have it exclusively say that we cannot— that pharmacists cannot prescribe, dispense, or administer the mifepristone pill, the abortion pill?

A simple yes or no is okay. Through the chair, Representative Allard, we had this conversation in on our Senate bill companion, and we as advocates did accept that or something similar as an amendment. I think there are challenges to that amendment as I've actually talked to some other senators. Like, there's concerns that that could not be constitutional and there could be challenges there. I've also heard, or as I've like dug into it deeper, right, I've also seen that there could potentially be— when you say abortion medication, medication.

That— I mean, there are a lot of different medications that could potentially cause the loss of a pregnancy. And so, does that bring in other unintentional consequences? So, I think, yes, as advocates, we have said, yeah, we're not trying to do abortion in pharmacy. Absolutely not. That is a conversation we've had extensively.

But I don't— the language is really challenging to get to a place where there's not some other consequences that go along with that. Thank you. And can I just do one last follow-up, please? Representative Allard. Thank you, Doctor.

I really appreciate your honesty and your candor being here today. My other question is that you had testified probably a week ago, I believe, that you were on board with— you liked how Idaho had done their law. And in fact, several people have brought that up. And Idaho has the amendment exactly what we're looking at doing in the state of Alaska. So would that mean that you don't appreciate Idaho's law anymore since they have an amendment that says you can't prescribe anything that would induce or, um, you know, speed up a process of an abortion?

Through the chair, Representative Allard. Actually, I— after we had spoke in that hearing, um, I went back and, and talked with my colleague who is the— our law professor in our College of Pharmacy in Idaho and actually has the knowledge around that because I wasn't familiar with that piece. So what she told me— she wasn't able to be here today, she was going to try to call in and testify on this. Um, so that actually is not— was not an amendment to their bill, or it's not— and it's not in pharmacy law, it's actually in criminal code. And it was a trigger law that the legislature had passed totally separately from pharmacy.

It applies to all providers equally, and it was passed as a trigger law for the Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case that put this question of abortion back on the state. So that actually had nothing to do with pharmacy. And I will see if potentially she can be here on Thursday to maybe speak more about that since she is a professor of law and she's very, very knowledgeable in that area of Idaho law specifically. Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate it.

Can I just do one comment? Representative Ballard, thank you. I just want to remind the committee and those who are listening that legislative legal had— did come back with a legal memo telling me and stating that because of the collaborative, collaborative practice agreement, that abortion, according to the bill that they had helped assist and write, that it would be possible for a physician to administer, dispense, or give— when I say give, I'm not saying put in the mouth of— but prescription to an individual that is looking to have an abortion. And through the CPA, and as a reminder, that very specific question was not asked to the Attorney General or to the Deputy General that I'm aware of. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Brandy Signe-Martin, if you could just put yourself on the record officially, just give us your title. I don't think we did that earlier. It looks like you're maybe— well, if you could just state that.

Yes, thank you, Chair. Brandy Signe-Martin. I am a pharmacist by training and the Executive Director of the Alaska Pharmacy Association. Great, thank you very much. Also just want to remind folks that we are getting pretty late in the day here.

We've been going quite for a couple hours now, and we do have this bill coming up again on Thursday at 1:30 PM. But if folks have questions right now, certainly willing to take those when— while we've got folks online here. So next up I've got Representative Bynum, then Representative Hannan. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Through the chair, I have a couple quick clarifying questions. The first is that there was— Representative Allard had read into the record some items from a podcast. I was wanting clarification on the name of the podcast and the date of the broadcast distribution for the record. Representative Allard, do you want that information right now, or do you want me just to send it to the committee, co-chair? Uh, sending it to the committee is fine.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Representative Bynum. And then as a second clarification, Representative Allard had mentioned, um, had mentioned the legal memo, and I just wanted to make sure that is the legal memo that was distributed to this committee, uh, dated April 1st, 2026, uh, that was given out to the Committee, and is this the— it was work order— I'm sorry, it was April 1st, 2026.

It was distributed by Rep. Allard's office. Rep. Allard? The memo reference. Yeah, that was distributed by me, if that's on there. Okay.

Is it—. Commissioner Bynum? Thank you. Is this the memo you were referencing just a few moments ago? Yes.

Thank you. I don't have it to quote in front of me. If I did, I'd quote it. Thank you. And then just another quick clarification.

I know that we— Co-Chair Foster, that there's been a lot of conversation about dispensing mifepristone, I believe is the way it's pronounced, as an abortion-inducing drug. I do believe that that is not dispensed by itself. That is a part of a cocktail, as you would say, to be able to perform the duties— I'm sorry, to perform that activity that's listed in Chapter 16 under Statute 18-16-010 under the performance of a physician licensed by the Medical Board. So I'm not sure how that may or may not impact what some of the testifiers had said. But my comment would be is that if there was a desire to put specific language about medications, which— some of which have been mentioned— can be used for other purposes than what's prescribed in law as regulation of abortion, that we probably should look for a different way to put that in statute.

Maybe that the scope of practice Doesn't include that, but I guess that would be a question for amendments and not something that we need to address now. But I look forward to having that conversation. Thank you. Oh, one other item, Co-Chair Foster. I did have a conversation with the Acting Attorney General about this letter or this information that is provided in the slide deck on slide 6 of the presentation that was given to us on April 7th, or was scheduled for April 7th, and I believe that he had indicated to me that somebody from the Attorney General's office would be willing and ready to comment on their opinions and be available to this committee, and I wasn't sure if they were online now, but if they are not online now, I would request that they be available the next time we hear the bell.

Okay. I don't believe they are online, and just double-checking. I'm pretty sure they're not. So with that, we'll make sure that's coordinated. And I have Representative Hannon and then Allard.

Representative Hannon. Thank you, Chair Foster. My question is for Dr. Sine-Martin. Dr. Sine-Martin, is mifepristone used in any other— prescribed for any other conditions besides termination of a pregnancy? Yes.

Ms. St. Martin. Through the chair, Representative Hannan, it is. It is prescribed for a handful of things and mostly for the treatment of endometriosis.

Follow-up. Follow-up. And in a clinical setting, when a doctor, for say, needs to prescribe mifepristone because say the case that was described earlier, the baby has died in utero and they're attempting to not need a surgical solution. Once that clinical prescri— clinical diagnosis is done, a physician would prescribe it in that clinical setting for the doctor to administer. Would that be correct?

Through the chair, Representative Hannan, yes. How My understanding is that the— it would have to be administered while the provider was right there, and they would also have to have a surgical plan in place, which is one of those pieces I was speaking to a little bit earlier, that, you know, those types of procedures are not within the scope of a pharmacist. Right. But thank you.

Okay, next up we have— let's see here— Representative Allard. I'm good. Thank you. Okay, okay. Seeing no further questions, we will be taking this bill up again on Thursday at 1:30.

And so with that, thank you very much to everybody who called in. And with that, let's see, our next meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at 9:00 a.m., and at that meeting we'll hear an introduction to SJR 29, Senate Joint Resolution 29. That's for the constitutional amendment on education funding. And if there is nothing else to come for the committee, we'll be adjourned at 5:45 PM. Thank you.