(patriotic music beginning) (patriotic music fading out) - Welcome to "North Dakota Legislator Review," I'm Matt Olien, sitting in for Dave Thompson this week, and my guest is representative Jeremy Olson, Republican from Arnegard.

Thanks Jeremy for joining us.

- Pleasure to be here, and very honored to be asked as a freshman- - Of course!

- to join you.

- Yeah, thanks for being here.

This should be a great conversation.

First off, I'd just like to ask your background and where you're from originally, and kind of what your regular career was or is outside of the state legislature.

- Well, you know, I grew up in western North Dakota, Watford City, Arnegard area.

Our family farms in that area.

Grew up, graduated from Watford City.

I was very fortunate I got a appointment to attend West Point to become- - Wow.

- an army officer.

So was able to serve my country as an army officer for several years.

Eventually got out and, you know, different jobs throughout the years.

Eventually, you know, as my dad says, the prodigal son finally made his way back.

Back in 2011, we made our way back to Northwestern North Dakota with the energy boom.

And it was great because a lot of people I graduated high school with end up leaving the state.

But then the energy boom brought us back, you know, had good jobs, good paying jobs, good opportunities, good place to raise our children, and that allowed us to come back here, and I've been working in the energy industry ever since coming back.

- Where'd you serve in the Army?

- I served initially in Fort Riley, Kansas, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

I deployed over to Kosovo in 1999 and 2000, and ended up leaving on medical discharge in end of 2002.

- So you're a freshman?

- Yes.

- Legislator.

Give me your perspective on how it's been, learning curves, that kind of thing.

- [Jeremy] Well, if learning curve's really high, I guess.

- Yeah.

- But I gotta say, I've been very fortunate.

We've had a lot of good mentors, good mentorship.

Even before the elections happened, we had the Rich Warners, the Mike Lefors, you know, putting on education stuff for us, you know, in the summer and the fall leading up to it.

So yes, there's a lot of information, a lot to take in, but by the time we got in in December, it wasn't new.

It was a lot, but it was a review of stuff that they had to help prepare us for before, because we had such a large freshman group.

It's not, you can't go business as usual, you have to develop a good mentorship, a good training program.

And I was linked up with a great mentor, Representative Pyle, and I've been very fortunate.

- So what are the days like for you?

What's the typical Jeremy Olson day?

- Well, get up, try to do some exercise with one of my colleagues.

He's one of those guys that, if I don't show up in the gym, I'm gonna hear about it.

So it's a good accountability partner there.

And then get in, usually, you know, get in early, and committee meetings, going through a lot of different, whether it's A or B committee, going through a lot of information, and then the hearings.

And now that we're at crossover, it's a little bit of a different pace.

It's kind of a, "hurry up and wait and then really work hard," really quick when you're on committees.

So that's a different...

The last couple weeks have been very, has been a very different pace than the first, you know, six years.

- [Matt] Because we're nearing the end.

- [Jeremy] Because we're nearing the end, yeah.

- You represent western North Dakota.

What are some key issues that you've addressed, or want to see addressed, or maybe even still need to get addressed for your section of the state?

- So fortunately I was able to get into two great committees that are beneficial for western North Dakota, Energy and National Resources, and Finance and Tax, and both committees, we have a lot of, went through a lot of bills that had some very positive impacts on the western counties and energy country.

As the Bakken matures, as it's been there, you know, we've been in it for greater than 10 years now.

We're entering a different phase, and it's not the rush, it's not the boom it used to be, but we're still growing.

But we still need to sustain growth, but now we're competing with Texas, and we're competing with New Mexico for resources, for investment dollars.

So some of the bills that came through helped to attract, are meant to help attract business, help to attract capital investment into western North Dakota for the energy.

And those are the bills that I put a lot of energy in, not just to help bring in investment into the drilling, and the completions, and the production, but the bills that I, you know, been focused on are things that we're not gonna see the benefit for maybe 10, 15 years from now.

As, again, as the Bakken ages, we're gonna go from a primary recovery to a secondary recovery.

And there's a lot more oil in there that we're just not able to get with today's technology.

- [Matt] Okay.

- We're gonna have to go to a different phase of recycling, of a secondary recovery.

- Capture?

- Capture.

- Recovery.

- Yeah.

Either through carbon, natural gas, or other means of doing that.

So putting the policies in place now to allow the infrastructure to be placed over the next decade or so.

It's very far reaching, it's very forward-looking, but it's stuff that, you know, when do you plant a tree?

When's the best time to plant a tree?

20 years ago.

When's the second best time to do it?

Today.

So we're thinking things that, yeah, that we need to do 15, 20 years from now.

We're planting the tree, the seed right now.

- [Matt] And what are a couple of these very specific bills that do attract, do you think will attract people?

Are they in, are they taxation or how do they, how do you, what are the specifics of those bills that would attract or address these issues?

- One of the bills, it will give a tax break for restimulation.

So you have seen some of these older wells that are just not, perf... You know, as the well ages, its production declines.

And there's a point where you can do a restimulation, or a refracture, and bring more life into it, bring more production to it.

One of the bills would allow a tax break for the production, for that new production that's brought on.

Basically it's incentivizing a company to go in and restimulate a well or bring more production.

They'll basically give you some, a break on some of that new production up to a certain amount of time, up to a certain amount, number of barrels.

Again, it's a win-win, but it gives us, gives oil and gas companies a incentive to do that.

Other ones are helping to get a more consistency on their extraction taxes and royalty taxes.

They took off, we took off the 1% pop that came up this summer.

- [Matt] Okay.

- That, I believe, was a factor in us not being able to recover as quickly as we could have, because that was a large increase of taxes from the energy producer's perspective.

And that money could have been reinvested.

So we're very blessed.

We make a lot of money through the energy industry, our state does.

And we're giving tax breaks, (indistinct) to a lot of our citizens.

But we also want to make sure that we're taking care of the people that are feeding us, - Right.

- the Energy Companies.

- Finance and Taxation committee.

What have you done on that committee, and tell us some key bills that have come out of that committee or still need to come through.

- I think that's one of the best committees there is.

Chairman Headland is a phenomenal chairman, a great leader, and a great mentor.

Lot of the bills that are going through are geared at... Let me rephrase this.

- Go ahead.

- When you have an excess of revenue, like we do, - Which we do, right.

- it's a blessing, but it's also a challenge.

And the challenge- - 'Cause everybody wants something.

- the challenge is, exactly, when someone, you know, when you have a lot of excess, there are a lot of groups that want to have a tax break, a lot of special interests that want to have a tax break for their particular interests.

And you know, a lot of 'em are very good.

A lot of 'em have very good cases to make with it.

But when you do that, when you nickel and dime, you're taking away the total amount that's available to give a tax break to the largest group of people.

So part of the challenge is it's easy to say yes, but it's hard to say no, with the overall goal of wanting to give the most tax relief to the most people.

It's been, the challenge has been waiting through a lot of these special interest requests, and big focus has been on tax relief, whether it be income tax, property tax, or on a combination.

And at this point in the conference communities, it's probably gonna end up being some sort of a combination.

I believe that the best way to give a tax break is not to take it in the first place.

Other types of taxes are gonna be redistributing it from another source.

But like I said, it's gonna be some sort of a combination in the end.

- But we will see, there will be some form of tax relief, property income, other things?

- [Jeremy] Yeah, probably.

I mean, still looking in the crystal ball, but yeah, probably be some combination of income tax relief, property tax buy down, we'll buy down some sort, and probably some sort of a homestead credit.

- Mhm.

- So those seem to be the three tiers that's kind of making its way through the company.

- What's a homestead credit, for the layperson?

- So a homestead credit is basically, where you live, if you're at a...

The way we're doing... Based on age, you would get a tax credit on the property that you reside in, your main residence.

- Okay.

Here's a question I have, and I've heard people chit-chat about this.

If the state has this much money, what would be the opposition to providing like a tax rebate, or everybody getting a check for a thousand dollars, or something like that?

Has that been kicked around?

And it sounds like you're probably not in favor of that, and the legislature's not gonna do that, but I'm just throwing that out there.

What would be the opposition or problem with that?

- I think it's trying to figure out the best, - [Matt] Mhm.

- the way that you get the most effect for the most people, having a tax break or a tax incident like that, for some people that won't have an income tax.

You may, it might not mean anything, 'cause you're taking a tax break of someone who doesn't have an income tax to begin with.

- [Matt] Mhm.

- You know, there's certainly arguments for it.

But like I said, when you're trying to cut the pie, if you cut the pieces too small, then those pieces become less and less significant, so... - [Matt] What are those hearings like, Jeremy, when people come before the hearings, you know, a lot of people lobbying for tax breaks, lobbying for this or that.

Tell me about those.

And those must be pretty interesting, and to wade through it all.

- Yeah, they're very interesting, and a lot of times they're quite emotional.

- Mhm.

- When you get certain, like I said, you get certain special interest groups, and they have very good points.

They have very good stories to bring.

And some of them we agreed with, you know, "Hey, these are, you know, "these are things that are gonna help, "this will help attract bioscience in North Dakota."

You know, "This is where this will bring business in, "this will bring workers in."

You know, those are things that are gonna help."

Other ones, while they are...

While they are good, they're not, they don't do a lot for the most amount of people.

So those are the ones that we have to be very conscious of, you know, like I said, it's when you have a lot of money, it's hard to say no when you have a lot of money, but at the same time, you gotta realize that you still gotta, we still gotta live within a budget.

We still gotta live within our means.

- What's the western area water supply?

I know that's something that you work with, and near and dear to your heart.

- [Jeremy] Yes.

western area water supply came about in early, you know, in early 2010s.

Part of the boom, you know, we were an area with farms and ranches, and not a lot else.

Everybody was on their own wells and stuff like that.

Then all of a sudden you get this huge influx of people, industry, commercial, oil and gas.

And the biggest thing, one of the biggest resources that need is water.

So putting the western area water supply in was a very monumental task that had to happen in a short amount of time.

And so what happened is, I believe back in the 2011 session, that it was created, and the infrastructure was able to go get, you know, get funded to lay the pipes, get the water, get the infrastructure going, and it's been going ever since.

So it's been a project that has been absolutely needed.

There would be no, the Bakken would not look like it is today without that.

But at the same time it's something that took a lot of money to do, because we needed it fast.

And we're at the point now where it's struggling financially, we're trying to get it on par with different area water supplies in the state to get the right cost share with the state in it.

And that's what we're trying to do with the western area water supply now.

- And will that be taken care of in these last couple weeks of the session?

- Hopeful- - Is that your goal?

- Yeah, abs- - You're hopeful.

- It ab absolutely should, yes.

I believe, we're working on it now.

I just came from a meeting on that, and we're trying to work out the details on that, for the financing of that.

Hopefully it'll come to a good conclusion early next week.

- Workforce development.

That was a big hot topic at the start of this session.

You know, I live in Fargo, and there are restaurants that close every week, Taco Bell, whatever, if they don't have enough workers, that's the kind of this holdover from Covid, - [Jeremy] Mhm.

- is shortage of workers and things like that, and getting workers to the state.

What has been done, if anything, for workforce development, that you think can help with some of these issues?

- Workforce development is huge, whether you are, and I would also add into it childcare.

- [Matt] Yeah, that's another one.

- 'Cause I think they're very closely related, and very interrelated.

Having the ability to have childcare will allow more workforce.

But the workforce development is huge.

Having different programs trying to recruit, retain, and in different areas grow our own, such as in Watford City, there's different programs to have trade schools, have trade associations, even within the high school part, trying to get young high schoolers, young adults into different trades early on to keep 'em in our area, to keep 'em working, versus moving outta state like I did.

recruiting from out of states.

And we're also, you might have heard the lieutenant governor's, former lieutenant Governor Sanford, he's in charge of a task force now, trying to recruit foreign skilled workers, - [Matt] Right, right.

- particularly from the Ukraine, to help win the oil and gas industry.

We have to, we can't look at traditional- - Gotta look outside the state.

- Yeah, absolutely.

We have tens of thousands of open jobs, and we gotta be creative on how we fill them.

We would have more drilling rigs right now if we had more workers.

We'd have more frat crews if we had more workers.

The choke point is workers, is workforce.

- [Matt] Mhm.

And the childcare conundrum has, what's been done about that, or is something going to be done about that?

Or is it kind of up to local entities to handle that themselves?

And tell me about that.

- [Jeremy] Yeah.

Childcare is, whether you're a democrat, whether a republican, whether you're a big city or a small town.

Childcare is absolutely an area that is crossing all lines, is important to every facet of business.

And like I said, workforce development is a huge part of it.

If you have a parent that has to stay home with a child, you're taking a potential worker out of the workforce.

If that child has a childcare option, you know, that other parent has the opportunity, if they want to go into the workforce.

So they're quite interrelated.

I believe, you know, a lot of it has to be, I don't think there's a one size fits all.

Don't think there's a cookie cutter.

I think the private-public partnerships work very well.

Helping to fund, you know, state helping to fund local groups or local entities to figure out their own ways of doing it.

For example, Wolf Pup daycare in Watford City.

I've had representatives from, you know, the eastern side of the state use that as a kind of an example of how it was done right, of public-private partnerships, and putting some of that together.

So I think the locals, this county, the city, have the best ideas, because they know their areas.

What they'll need help with is the funding on some of that.

So having that, having the funds, but letting the locals figure out how to do it is probably the best way.

- Term limits.

So the voters voted for term limits?

- [Jeremy] Yes.

But it looks like the legislature isn't in agreement with that.

How did you vote on that, and how do you tell someone who voted for term limits that the legislature's not gonna go along with that, it looks like?

- Well, the term limits bill ended up failing- - Yeah.

- In the Senate.

- [Matt] Right.

- What it, the bill that went through the house basically set at 12 years, but it also included the different executive staffs.

- [Matt] Okay.

- Executive positions in the state.

I voted for it.

And I thought it would be good to bring that to, you know, bring that to the... - [Matt] It's kind of a compromise, is what you voted.

- A compromise?

Yeah, I think so.

But, you know, my thoughts is, I've got, you know, for me, I'll only have six years in the house, because I'm doing an unexpired two-year term.

But, potentially.

(both laughing) But the... - Do you like to say you're gonna run again, I assume?

- I like it.

- Okay.

- I like what I'm doing.

I really do, I am having fun.

- But finish up your term limit thought too.

Sorry to interrupt you.

- But yes, with the term limits, the challenge is we meet up to 80 days, two times a year.

There's not a whole lot of time to build experience.

You've got some people that have been in there for quite a while.

You know, it takes three or four terms, from what I'm hearing, to get competent, to get good at a subject matter, to be in a position where you could become a chair, or vice-chair, or be in a good leadership position, having a good, having built up a lot of tribal knowledge.

If you're only gonna be there a total of four sessions, you know, by the time you're getting that knowledge, you're out.

So, you know, one thing's gonna have to happen pretty quickly.

You're gonna have to start growing your leadership really, really early.

But the way I see it is, you know, I was fortunate.

I got a lot of mentorship, I got a lot of guidance, before I started and when I'm here.

Who's gonna be the old man in the mountain when the most experienced person has only been there, you know, four, you know, three or four terms already, three or four sessions?

So you're gonna lose a lot of knowledge.

And I think it creates opportunities for less control in the legislature, and more control maybe with the bureaucracy.

So that could be a challenge in the future.

Not having a background knowledge of how it works.

- Got about four minutes left on the show here.

Governor Burgum has started to veto some bills.

Some have been overridden, some have not.

What are your thoughts on a couple of these, like the 80 mile per hour bill, the pronoun bill, the so-called pronoun bill in school, and then also the ranked choice voting, which affects Fargo, which could be headed toward a court challenge, I think?

Just some thoughts on those and how you voted.

- Well, the function of the governor that is one of the functions of the government is he has the opportunity to veto.

Government is not meant to be efficient.

It's meant to be slow.

It's meant to be very inefficient.

And that's a good thing, because imagine if you had one side, one group, that could go through and make so many changes so fast, you know, what would we have?

Having things move slow is usually a good thing.

Regarding the vetoes, I wasn't present for the pronoun one, so I wasn't able to vote on that one, I was out.

The 80 mile an hour bill, I voted that way too.

- For the bill?

- For the bill.

- [Matt] Okay.

(indistinct overlapping speech) - [Jeremy] I voted to override, I voted on the override as well as that one.

- Okay.

- There's, you know, there's some things that, okay, there's some things in our wheelhouse that I think that was, you know, probably, you know, best left at the legislature, and the other ones, I could see where the governor might have his priorities.

But again, that's where it comes back to us to override, you know, that's just the way that our constitution is, is, you know, action and reaction.

It's a large chess game.

- Devil's advocate question, as we wrap up and get close here.

You know, not everybody is in favor or wild about everything that happens in the legislatures.

You know, there's been some editorials written about that the legislature isn't forward-thinking, is anti-LGBT rights, things like this.

Well, how do you react to that or things like that?

- Honestly, I didn't come to Bismarck for that.

I'm a nuts and bolts guy.

That's why I'm on finance attacks, that's why I'm on energy natural resources.

I'm looking at the mechanics.

I'm looking at, you know, how are we going to fund our government?

how are we going to make sure western North Dakota is taken care of?

Social issues... Yeah, you know, they're, yeah.

I'm a republican.

I'm very conservative, but I think some of these issues tend to be a distraction in the larger picture of trying to run a state government.

And they take a lot of time, they take a lot of energy.

And, well, while some of them are, you know, some of 'em are needed, you know, some of them are, I believe can be distractions.

- About a minute and a half left.

What are the key things you need to see get done here in the last couple weeks on your committees?

- Biggest thing is gonna be what's the tax breaks gonna look like, yeah.

You know, what's the final version of that for me and for my area, western area water supply.

And then, those are the two big ones.

And then, not so much in my committee, but the Purge retirement, how's that gonna settle out?

Because that's gonna affect a lot of people in a lot of different ways.

And that's, those are, you know, it's coming, it is gonna come down to just the last few big items.

And that's just where the negotiations and the conference committees and the leadership meetings are gonna happen, and all those details are getting hammered out.

- And you're involved in some of these conference committees?

- I'm involved in the western area water supply one.

- Okay.

- That's the only one I'm involved with as far as the big ones, you know, near and dear to my heart.

- Yep.

- The other ones, that's higher math.

That's stuff for the higher leaders to, they're hammering those out.

- Last question, about 30 seconds left.

Dave always asked this of every guest he has.

When do you think this is gonna end?

- I have no idea.

- What's the final day?

April 20-something?

(laughs) - Hopefully the end, hopefully the last week of April, - Okay.

- 'cause the first week of May, I have to head down to my daughter's college graduation.

(laughs) So hopefully it's done before that.

- Okay.

Jeremy Olson, thank you so much for being here.

- It was a pleasure, thank you.

- Jeremy Olsen, Republican representative from Arnegard, North Dakota.

I'm Matt Olien for "North Dakota Legislator Review."

Thanks for watching.

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