Chuck Yates Needs A Job

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1:44 Hey, everybody. Welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job the podcast. We're going to walk out today. Policy geek. I always wanted to be governor of Texas. I was never going to be good with details,

1:56 but I will try details today. My guess, Dave Marchese. Dave, how are you? I'm doing well, Chuck. How are you? All right. So I want to hear about your background, but I think we met in

2:13 98. I was actually doing a private placement for Energy Research Corporation, which now people know is fuel cell energy background as a banker at Stevens. And as I recall, I lobbed a cold call

2:27 into Tom Glanville at Reliant. And he said, let me give it to the smartest person I know everything about that, except for the last part where he said, let me give it to the monkey that works the

2:39 spreadsheets and the power points is correct. So that's where we met, was I mean like late 90s, right? Yeah, late 90s, I think it was '99 or 2000. So because that was, I started there in '99,

2:54 that was when I was doing fuel cell stuff with Reliant. It

2:59 was one of those, I came from a construction background, went to business school, ended up, you may recall that that was the time that everybody got out of business school and went to Enron El

3:10 Paso, Reliant, DynaG. We were all these 25-year-old, smart, smartest guys in the world. You actually contemplated an offer from Enron with an offer from Goldman Sachs. I mean, that's not too

3:27 far-fetched to say. You being someone theoretical, not me, but yes. I hadn't either. I had an offer from Goldman, they yanked it back. That's a whole different story Never got an offer for men

3:40 around that.

3:43 Enron aside, just 'cause you know Tom. So what was really funny is I interned for Tom and then I went to work for him full time. I could not get an interim view with Enron at all. They were at

3:54 Vanderbilt where I went to undergrad and business school and, you know, I couldn't get in the door. Even tried to show up, tried the old, like sitting there ready for the interview. That didn't

4:03 work either. So, didn't know who I was. They're just like gone. So they find out I worked for Glanville, who had just come over to Reliant from Enron. Then the phone started ringing. And, but

4:17 Tom had locked me up already. I really enjoyed doing what I was doing. You know, didn't know that September 11th was gonna happen. Enron was gonna happen. Reliant stock would go to a dollar.

4:29 None of that was, none of that we saw coming. But when it did, Tom and I sold off all the investments we did there So I was in the secondary market for a little bit, and then I spent a year on

4:42 those. Structuring desk at reliant learning swaps options derivatives all the energy stuff Then I got in back into the private capital game, but on the storage side So I spent 10 years at a private

4:56 equity fund Called Haddington ventures and I think we probably saw each other off and on then You know Haddington was midstream focused. We were very storage focused Was a great run really learned

5:11 quite a bit from those guys Then got the itch to go start my own company I know fortunately that never that never caught me being a former private equity guy You know, look it's Chuck Yates needs a

5:25 job the way you get a job. I mean, that's my other joke, right? So It was so hard for me to find a job that I had to Create my own company twice. Nice. You know, who's gonna hire me? Yeah So

5:40 got back by energy spectrum out of Dallas great guys there really supported that first iteration. We built an underground storage asset that we sold to Energy Transfer in March of last year. And

5:53 then took a little bit of time, but not much had a set of acquisitions on the books.

6:01 And we ended up buying two natural gas storage assets from Southern Company. And that closed, the first asset closed in November, the second, it's here in Texas, in Beaumont on Spindle Top. The

6:14 second one is in California, and that won't close until the CPUC approves it. And I am actually looking forward to doing business in California. If I ever own an asset in California again, please

6:27 just kick me square in the nuts. Yeah, my view on that, and I think it's part of what we're gonna talk about today, which is I believe that as underground storage developers, We have a unique

6:40 skill set that's out. applicable to two of the biggest things in energy transition right now. One is hydrogen storage, the second is CO2 storage. And I think that as participants in the California

6:53 market and then as folks here in Texas, we're looking to add acreage to our position that we bought from Southern. When we do that, we'll have acreage for sequestration

7:05 And I think that California and the energy transition needs people like us because we do understand how to drill wells. I mean, we know how to take gases, put them on the ground and keep them there

7:19 until you want them later. And if you don't want them later, we can keep them down there forever if that's what you want. So that's where I think that transition and using the people and the skills

7:31 that we have here in Houston to grow that across the country is where we ought to go. We did it for wind in Texas. We became, for a while, I think we were. If Texas were a country, it would have

7:42 been the largest wind power producer and largest installed wind capacity in the world. And that came about for three reasons. The first is we're blessed with a resource. You've heard that before.

7:55 And we have a lot of resources. Well, wind is one of them. But honestly, our resource is not that much bigger than anybody else's resource. It's just that we know how to develop things here in

8:05 Texas. So we had a structure, a market structure in place. That was critical And then there were economic supports for wind development. One of those was with the state. One of those was federal.

8:18 And smart Texans and developers here got together and took advantage of those economic incentives, of the market structure that existed and the natural resource we had and created the largest, if it

8:33 were a country, the largest country in the world of wind power. We're in a position to do that with CO2 as well on sequestration.

8:41 you're on the advisory board right for the carbon neutral coalition and that's Corby Robertson's effort right in there. So talk about that because it's my understanding we've got a lot of legislation

8:56 that's potentially happening in Austin here soon. So keep going. Sure So gosh it's been almost two years now when we

9:09 first saw that there were regulations that needed to be clarified on permitting for sequestration. I think Corby saw this coming. I work with Will Robertson who I've known a long time to and that

9:22 was kind of how I got introduced to it. I like Will Same. That's really how I got involved in this. Will and I go back to similar ways that you and I go back. I see

9:37 you're interested in underground storage. maybe you should participate. And this is, you know, a couple of years ago. So different world may have been COVID, pre-COVID. I can't, frankly,

9:48 can't remember.

9:51 But what Corby put together is a group of folks in this carbon neutral coalition that have a diverse background, that have a background in, you know, in my case, keeping gases on the ground and

10:06 keeping them there. You know, we've got, we do some 10 berries on there, very active. They do a lot of work. Of course, they know CO2. But then you have other folks that maybe do some more

10:19 like land sequestration by growing grasses, some rice professors that do that. And then on the hydrogen side, there's a whole group. I'm in the CO2 working group. There's a hydrogen working group

10:32 as well. You know, that has more to do with sort of this creation and growth

10:39 of the hydrogen infrastructure, which we also have here in Texas to start, you know, the most hydrogen pipeline, and I think the world is in Texas right now. So they invited me to join, and this

10:55 advisory board and just talk to folks that we're doing this. I have been working on some of this, they call it the EPA Class 6 is the injection permit for CO2. I've been working on that for some

11:10 time was working on it at the prior iteration of Kalichi, and now we've rebuilt that and we're going to do it again What I think has

11:22 been most effective about this organization, the carbon neutral coalition, is that it's a very steady hand and it looks after landowners and some of the things that landowners feel like, they need,

11:42 if there's going to be more rules and regulations about CO2 sequestration. It goes to environmental groups where, you know, how are we going to make sure that we are truly reducing CO2, goes to

11:56 industry, how do we implement these things, and capture the CO2 and put it underground, and then, of course, folks like me, well, we'll keep it there. I'm the guy with a shovel behind the

12:07 elephant I got you, because my understanding of the issue, and it's very rudimentary, is we have rules, regulations, procedures in place to basically yank stuff out of the ground, mineral owners,

12:23 land owners, how we all play together or not play together nicely, but at least we know what the rules are. We don't really have the reverse in place, right? Is that kind of the fundamental

12:35 problem? How do, how do we stick stuff? We're very close. So as a storage developer, I've been on this issue as I've done gas storage in Texas because you do need to get the consent of the

12:51 landowner as well as the mineral owner. It's a funny thing and it's not even settled law. Who owns the space you create when you take a mineral out? And then when you think about the sequestration,

13:04 what are we doing? We're injecting CO2 into a saline aquifer. I like to use the

13:11 sponge analogy when I talk about reservoirs. It's just a sponge full of water, oil, gas, whatever it is, and you stick a straw down there. And what we're doing is we're pushing and making a

13:21 bubble in the sponge of CO2, while we're pushing the salt water out of the way. The trick where the

13:29 mineral owners get involved is that that brine is a mineral and they have rights as mineral owners.

13:38 Also in other types of reservoirs, if you're putting CO2 into hydrocarbon reservoirs and it's a little easier to understand sort of where the lines are drawn. But all of that can be simplified. And

13:52 I think that's where we've got some good legislation in front of the current legislature that can solve a lot of these problems. So give me an example of that What's a piece of legislation that's

14:10 proposed? Who's for it? Who's against it? When are they gonna vote? All that good stuff. Sure. Let's walk. I'm governor. I'm ready to sign something. Yeah, you're gonna get me. I get wonky

14:21 on the technical and less about exactly how these things work. So you probably know more about how the legislature works than I do. But I will give you a general idea of what I know. Okay. So

14:31 given digital wide, Wildcatters steals your notes before you sit.

14:36 down. So I'm not allowed to have notes. And so I'm going to get bill numbers wrong and sponsors wrong and all of that.

14:44 But generally, there are a few areas that we're looking that the carbon neutral coalition and others, Texo is also got a bill proposed around this similar issue. So where carbon neutral and Texo

14:60 are working on exactly the same issue as this idea of ownership of the poor space. So who owns it? Is it the surface? Is it the mineral? Let's get that straight. You know, I think the obvious

15:14 conflict there when people don't own both minerals and surface is one side says, I want to get paid, the other side says I want to get paid. So I think that's the conflict.

15:27 Generally And the landowners claim to to that is so so we take. Because we take oil or gas and both out of the reservoir. And then we say, wow, people are willing to pass to take CO2 out of the

15:45 air and let's pump it down here and leave it forever. The landowner claim is all of that infrastructure is going to be up here. And number two, the mineral owner only owned the oil. They did not

16:00 own the dirt And the judge back in 1850 in Pennsylvania said, I own the dirt all the way to the center. That's basically the concept. That's basically the concept. Okay. Got it. Got it. And

16:12 then, you know, you can, there's all, it starts to get into, well, can we work around the mineral owner or can we, can we make sure we don't impede the mineral owner? You know, one of the

16:21 things about these classics permits, only a few have been issued And the EPA would prefer, and I think we as, as operators would prefer, that you don't, you know, poke holes through the bubble

16:35 of CO2. let's make sure that you're not drilling through, that's CO2 we just put down there. I mean, there are probably safe ways to do it. Look, we drill through all different types of

16:45 reservoirs without damaging the reservoirs. At the same time, you know, what we're looking for is to make sure that we have this, we can hold the CO2 there for between 50 and 100 years. That's

16:58 sort of forever in our world. So where you also impact the mineral owner is the access to the mineral owners mineral that might be below the bubble of CO2 that you have created. And there are

17:13 solutions that directional drilling, you know, making different bubbles, however you want to look at that. But

17:20 I think broadly we're all aligned. And I actually don't see cleaning up that issue as sort of one of the bigger issue issues liability a and. There's

17:35 we, the CNC has worked with the legislature about, you know, trying to address who is liable for the long term of the CO2. You know, one of the, the jokes I've heard is, well, I mean, what

17:51 are you going to do? Create LaCroix. That's, you know, I mean, see what CO2 hits the water. And this is the water that we're disposing this of is saline water. So it's not drinkable. It's what

18:02 did the one eight and 10, 000 feet. Yeah. And what did the, what did the Romans do when they wanted to really screw an enemy? They salted the field, right? Yeah. It's a salt's bad. Salt's bad.

18:14 There's these, this is salt water down, you know, some of the, the freeo is like 6, 000 free. Oh, am I seen or the two places we're looking? So North Dakota as a state, um, solve this

18:29 problem by saying how we're taking all the, we, the state of North Dakota, took all the liability. for CO2 being released, you know, any sort of release. Because, you know, as part of getting

18:41 this tax credit that's driving a lot of the economics around these projects, you have to certify to, you know, the EPA and the IRS that, yes, you're keeping it down there.

18:52 So, that is, the state-taking liability is a solution. North Dakota went with, that's, you know, not a very Texan way of doing things We all like to, you know, say, hey, I'm a developer,

19:08 I'm gonna be a responsible, responsible operator. So, really, what we're looking at with the CNC is more of an approach of, you know, let's make sure that the type of nuisance lawsuits that can

19:23 sometimes come around, you know, someone who's not really an effective party, making a claim, like someone coming in and saying, well, some CO2 leaks. and therefore, because I live on the

19:37 earth, I'm a claimant and I can sue you for the leak in your CO2, whereas the landowner is not damaged, the locality is not damaged. No one in that area is concerned that there's a little more CO2

19:49 in the air that's already

19:52 a lot of CO2 and nitrogen.

19:56 So I think that's an important bill. I think the third thing is on the economic side. Let me ask you this about, and maybe this is getting way too wonky, but when you look offshore and you have a

20:12 lease from, in effect, the federal government to work offshore, if you ever own that property, you are in the chain of title forever and you're liable for something, onshore, and I was like

20:29 guilty of this, trust me, as a private equity guy, I mean through sale and purchase agreements. we would push the liability off to whoever bought the asset from us, right? And so, I didn't ever

20:44 do it, but some unscrupulous people sold to companies that then turned around and went bankrupt. Have y'all kind of fought through that issue of, 'cause at the end of the day, if it's not gonna be

20:55 the state of Texas, somebody's balance sheet is gonna stand behind whatever problems are caused Is that getting too land man geeky for you? Not really, I mean, look, I get that question. I get

21:08 that question from investors. And, you know, and from landowners, because we're in conversations with a lot of landowners about, you know, tens of thousands of acres. And these questions come

21:20 up, well, you know, look, Dave, you just sold that last company energy transfer. What happens when you sell this one? I know you're promising me this, but like you won't be around.

21:31 You know, we've done a couple of things in our models. We use a sinking fund that would go with the asset. So, you know, that's one way to do it. Insurance is another way to do it. The

21:43 insurance companies are excited to sell expensive products. So I think, you know, I like the sinking fund idea and really putting a number on. Look, this is a trust that will go with this asset

21:60 as long as this assets around And it's gonna be there and the trust is there for, you know, the resolution of problems like this. Gotcha, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, some way to do that.

22:11 Yeah, cool. So who, okay, so we basically have this problem who owns the space and we're gonna go figure out mineral land, we're gonna try to limit in terms of just what kind of litigation can be

22:28 brought, who can be a claimant, That makes a lot of sounds because you don't want to be tied up in court. We're going to address some way, shape or form, sinking fund, insurance and the like.

22:41 Who is violently opposed to something in this and is going to gum up the works? What's kind of the. Because what you just described to me seems that maybe you get a bottle of wine and six people get

22:56 in a room and hash it all out It looks a bit like a Frankenstein, but then you get there, you have somebody, the railroad commission, whoever implementing this, and it takes shape over time and

23:10 works reasonably well. Or is there a flamethrower that comes in? I don't know. It sounds like you know how to do this. You may be Matthew McConaughey's lieutenant governor.

23:21 You know. All right, all right, all

23:26 right I don't, I don't know that there's no. violent opposition to any of what we're describing. Okay. I do know that, you know, I hate to even say the word. There's, well, you're probably

23:40 familiar with unitization. That is a real sticky subject with landowners and we're trying to,

23:50 landowners will have a violent, I didn't bring this up because to me it's not, it's not an issue. We go and negotiate with landowners and if they don't wanna sell, we'll go find another place.

23:60 But

24:02 this issue, there's another issue which we don't have legislation out there about that is being talked about, which is how do you make sure that you get all of it and what happens if you have a

24:13 holdout? And there were some bills proposed that had something that looked like a unitization that didn't use the word. And define unitization as you would, and I'll even take a stab at it too,

24:28 Mom's watching the podcast. So let's tell mom what unitization is. Okay, well, I was, I was, so you probably know it better than I do because I've never done it. So in the midstream or in

24:38 storage, it's not something we do. We go out and we get all of it. My understanding of it is that it's a way to, it's like condemnation we would do on a pipeline to where you would, if you've got

24:54 99 of the landowners, the one percent of the landowners get paid what you pay the other 99, but they have to sell. I don't, is that? Yeah, I think the way I think about unitization and every

25:06 land man watching this podcast right now is just about to cringe. But you know, you've got, let's say this square right here is the reservoir. And you've got 15 different people that have, um,

25:25 that own. pieces of this in here, and we can do one of two things. I can lease this 640 and I can go drill, but I'm actually draining this over here. And so if another oil and gas operator owns

25:40 the offsetting ranch, we might sit there and compete with each other and spend too much CapEx chasing volumes and all. Why don't we just treat this whole square and all of the operators in there?

25:55 Why don't we treat it as one? And we all get a percentage of whatever we contribute. And that's creating a unit. And so you're basically trying to take the ownership and the land position and

26:09 convert it into a unit which is actually the reservoir. So I don't believe that's what anybody's proposing on CO2, it's a different issue. It could, where I think it could play a part is CO2 into

26:26 a reservoir. And if that reservoir is just bigger than the people I lease, you know, they have what's called force unitization. In Oklahoma, they call it forced pooling where we can, to your

26:42 concept, we can make that 1 participate. Yeah, I guess what, and this is a great conversation because I've never, I hear people use the word unitization. I just used it wrong.

26:55 So I think the way you were saying was forced pooling. It's not even forced pooling, right? Because the only people you're impacting when you CO2 sequester are the people on the property that own

27:10 the property that's directly above, otherwise you've got a problem. So what we do in storage, I never understood this because you just described in a simple way.

27:27 Thanks, hey mom, about how that works in the upstream, in the midstream, what we would do for storage is we determine where that, 'cause we're making a bubble. 'Cause you're making it out of a

27:36 salt cavern. Well, no, this isn't a reservoir. I've done this in a reservoir. We're making a bubble in the sponges, the unit. Okay, we're making a, we're sticking straws in and we're making

27:47 bubbles in the sponge. My bubble never leaves the sponge. And as long as I lease all of the sponge, I'm not impacting anybody else except for the sponge. So I go, lease the whole sponge. And if

27:59 I can't lease the whole sponge, I don't have a project. And why I think the legislation has to address

28:08 unitization and potentially forced unitization is because the economic value is created when you lease the whole sponge. And if you can't lease the whole sponge, you don't do it But now we're saying

28:23 somebody owns. the space. And if I come here and I just lease the small little spot and I start forcing stuff, if I'm the farm next over and my space is getting filled, but I didn't lease to you,

28:41 that's why you're going to have to address that concept

28:46 because I'm just going to go to that farm next door because you can model. I got these cool 3D models and where it's going to go. I mean, look, you know underground. It's not always going to go

28:54 exactly where you think it's going to go or come out like

28:59 it's. Unfortunately, I had some of those. So I, you know, I still, I have a storage developer's mindset is you go get, not only do we lease the sponge, we lease, we do buffer rights outside

29:14 of where we think it's going to go. And, you know, you just do that. Like the, I'm currently negotiating on 4, 000 acres and on those 4, 000 acres we'll probably put. rewells and looking at

29:26 where those three bubbles are in 3D.

29:31 Excuse me. Looking at where those three bubbles are in 3D, they won't come anywhere near the property boundaries. And we're doing that on purpose. Like we're using that entire acreage as both

29:45 storage space and buffer space. And I think that's maybe what's being missed a little bit is that, you know, look, we don't need, I as a developer, I can't speak for the CNC, I can't speak for

29:59 other developers. As I approach this, I don't even need what you just described as force pooling. I just, oh, I need as let's see here on it. If we're gonna save the planet at some point, we

30:12 have to force a lot down there, these concepts potentially pop up. I think it's, the other thing is a lot of the folks, and we have some of these bigger organizations part of CNC and otherwise.

30:24 they're securing 50, 000 acres, 100, 000 acres of CO2 sequestration rights. And so they wanna be able to put anywhere on that 150, 000 acres, oh, well, and put the bubble. Well, inside that

30:41 150, 000 acres, there's probably some checker boarding that needs to be cleaned up, and it seems like they wanna use this to clean that up. And it's probably just easier to address it now Anyway,

30:50 as we're doing legislation, so that

30:57 makes a lot of sense. And in the end, I mean, my view is, I wouldn't be for anything, and I wouldn't be part of an organization that was for taking something away from a landowner and not

31:08 compensating them in exactly the same way as your other land owners are compensated. Like that to me is, it's not who I am. And I don't think having dealt with the CNC folks, that's not who they

31:19 are either. Sure, sure, yeah, and at the end of the day, just, even if we have bad rules, it's better to have rules. Yeah. It kills me as a libertarian to actually say that. So that's cool.

31:32 So this is happening right now and kind of, and do we spec something past, maybe this session or - Yes, this session. Okay. And as a libertarian, you skipped over the stuff, the incentives that

31:46 I think are important that you might not like 'cause it's money going on. Oh, I know. It's incentives. Yeah You know, a couple of things are happening. I don't know if you're familiar with the

31:56 section 313 tax abatements. This is, you know, I've used these in the past, big projects. This is not just, this is a cross-industry where you can go, if you're contemplating putting a project

32:08 in, you know, Wharton County versus Harris County, you would go to the two counties and you would say, look, you know, as a storage provider or as somebody who's building a big asset, You know,

32:21 my three biggest costs are. people, taxes, and insurance. So we would go to the taxing authorities and say, look, we have a choice between location A and location B, and those tax incentives

32:37 would bring us to the conclusion that your location A is better. Would you please think about abating those taxes? And the 313, section 313, allowed that. We've done it on prior projects

32:52 That, my understanding, maybe had some not-so-great actors, like you had described earlier that took advantage of that and got some deals and didn't really deliver the jobs. Typically, you have

33:04 to commit to local procurement and bringing jobs, both of which we did on our last project and made sure that we tracked this stuff on spreadsheets and once a quarter, show it to the counties and

33:20 the taxing authorities So 3-13's coming back. You know, I shouldn't say that it's it's a different type of tax abatement That really needs to be passed to make Texas competitive. Louisiana has this

33:34 in spades So projects especially where we are on the golden triangle. You can put a project in Jefferson County or you can put it right across the river in Louisiana and That is one of those where

33:48 you'll see that push and pull because the tax The taxes will make a big difference. So That's important to us and what would the legislation do that's being proposed in Texas basically give counties

34:03 The ability to give a bigger tax break just to give one at all get one at all. Okay, 13 is gone Gotcha, you know the last legislature or I'm not sure exactly. Yeah, okay, three thirteen died and

34:16 hasn't been replaced So this is replacing that with something that's you know maybe got a little more oversight and a little more. because it's tighter. So that's important.

34:27 Also, there are currently in the

34:32 TCEQ programs, and there are dollars in the budget for something called the TURP, which is these TURP funds are for

34:43 improvements to reduce pollution. And so what some of the current legislation has proposed is using TURP dollars in a way that allows the acknowledgement that equipment that reduces CO2 is reducing

35:05 pollution, which the EPA says. And I think, regardless of your definition of pollution, I think it's still in there. So cutting loose some dollars that we otherwise have in the budget to

35:19 incentivize these projects and this goes back to my whole let's. what we did in CO2 capture and sequestration here in Texas that we did for wind and that what you need is you we got the federal

35:33 incentives so we've got this 45Q what would be great are some investment incentives and there are programs like Terp that allow for investment investment tax credits or investment dollars from

35:51 programs for capture and sequestration projects and so a couple of the bills are around that it's it is less in line with your libertarian leanings but at

36:03 the same time it's look it makes us competitive and that's you know you look at what happened with wind and we ended up with billions of dollars of federal money in the state of Texas invested in the

36:19 ground. Because we had these other incentives, in that case it was the structure of the wreck market, the renewable energy credits, and that really allowed us to attract all of that capital. So

36:33 what we're trying to do is use these to attract federal capital and attract projects and attract customers to the state of Texas You know, it's interesting as a libertarian, you have these mixed

36:45 emotions, it's like the motorcycle helmet ball, right? Libertarian in me is like, you want to ride without a helmet? Great, knock yourself out. The person that pays monthly for a family

36:58 insurance plan is like, no, idiot, you have to wear a helmet because I don't want to pay for you to be on life support for 20 years, you know? Exactly. And so it's the mixed emotions. I get the

37:09 total point because at the end of the day, if we're going to pump a bunch of CO2 in the ground, if we're going to have sequestration, we might as well be doing it. here in Texas. Because you're

37:20 right, we've got the skill stuff for for it. And I like, I like what you're sitting here saying is we got to have some some rules on just how this works. So we can get beyond years and years of of

37:34 suing each other over this. Let's have some rules. And then let's allow the counties to provide some tax breaks for it. So we can compete with other states because the idiots in Louisiana and

37:45 Oklahoma will figure this out too. And then it sounds like being able to use some of the state already approved funds on these projects as well. So how do people reach the carbon neutral coalition?

37:59 Well, we've got a website. I think we will most likely hopefully some people will be listening to this because of a LinkedIn post that they saw CNC has been pretty active posting some of these

38:12 things on LinkedIn. You can reach out that way. And then, you know, There are, if there's contact information that people need, they can reach out to Kalichi or they can reach out to the CNC to

38:26 get specific folks to talk to on that. And I think generally too, there's just the, not just CNC, not just what I'm trying to discuss here, but this is an interesting legislature. In the, there

38:41 are a lot of reasons why it's a cool time in Texas, and I think as citizens here, it's important that we go read the stuff, talk to your, you know, talk to your representatives. And it sounds

38:56 almost a little cheesy like, talk to your representatives. But at the same time, I think we, those representatives here in the state do a great job of listening to their constituents. And I think

39:11 we as constituents can do a great job by being educated about some of the bills that are there, not just the ones I talked about. and seeing what's important to us and saying those things to our

39:21 legislature. Well, you know, I had Will Franklin on the podcast who ran for a state rep, this previous cycle, and he said this, and I believe I'm quoting it correctly, there is not an energy

39:37 professional serving in the legislature right now. It's a bunch of lawyers, and I'm not here to denigrate lawyers, but we can bitch about the government if we want to, or we can actually

39:49 participate in the process, like you're saying, and it goes a long way if somebody that puts an underground storage is sitting there talking about, okay guys, let's figure out who owns the space.

40:02 You should have a say in that. I don't like you to have a say in that. I'm not running for anything. I think it's been, thank you to the founders of the carbon neutral coalition for the new.

40:16 putting this group together because I'm just one voice in, I think the advisory boards got 10 or 12 folks on it. And honestly, it was Corby's vision two years ago. This is not a over in

40:28 legislature. Let's talk about this now. He is a landowner. He is an energy professional, saw this and he and Will both said, we should do exactly what

40:40 you Chuck just said, which is, let's bring the knowledge of energy professionals to the folks that are making the decisions and hopefully we can at least communicate clearly what we know and how we

40:57 think the best path forward would be on some of these issues to reduce CO2 and possibly a hydrogen economy and all of those other corporations. I think Corby has always taken his role as a statesman

41:11 if you will if we'll use that kind of as a broad term pretty seriously and he ought to give respect for that because he could, he could have done a lot of other things in life, but I think he's

41:21 always wanted to make a contribution. And he's usually active. If he were sitting here, he could give you the bill names and the legends. But he, I mean, the guy, it's, it's always amazing to

41:31 me to be on a call with that, that advisory board is so impressive. I feel like the dumb kid and the smart kids class, and, and especially then, you know, he's, he's got it all down All right,

41:44 last thing I'm going to say on the podcast, because I've got to give a shout out last night at dinner, my 17 year old daughter, Sarah, proclaimed 1972 in that

41:55 , the libertarians actually earned one electoral college vote in the presidential election. And me, the self proclaimed libertarian did not know that, the true statement. So there you go. There

42:10 you go. Dave, thanks for coming on and talking about this Well thank you for having me and it's good to see you and. you know, let's do it again and talk about other cool stuff. Awesome.