or indirectly affect our relations with the united states. daniel: all right, i'm cognizant of the time, ambassador. i really appreciate you coming today. i hope to get to pakistan this year. i really appreciate you coming to visit. as i said at the beginning, i want you to consider csis second home in washington. i'm grateful to the folks who came out today. i thank my friend and colleague ambassador raphel for being here. and please join me in thanking the pakistani ambassador to the u.s. [applause] thanks a >> we take you now live to a

discussion on housing policy with solutions when the bipartisan policy center featuring the montana governor. you are watching live coverage here on c-span. >> good morning everyone and welcome to the bipartisan policy

center. i'm the executive director for housing policy here. this will be the eighth conversation in our housing leaders speaker series which aims to spotlight individuals who understand the foundational importance of housing and have made significant contributions to improving housing affordability. we are thrilled to have one such guest with us today and that is the 25th governor of the great state of montana. prior to assuming the rains, the governor represented montana in the u.s. house of representatives after 34 years in the private sector where he was a highly successful software engineer and businessman. assuring housing affordability is a national challenge but it is especially difficult one in montana which has become one of the nations fastest growing states. perhaps a victim of its own

success is a very attractive place to live and work. with housing demand exceeding supply, rents and home sale prices in the state have driven -- risen dramatically over the past several years. the governor has made identifying and advancing bipartisan solutions to housing affordability, the challenge a top priority. two years ago he created a housing task force with a broad mandate to make housing more affordable and attainable for montanans. the recommendations of the task force and the efforts of the montana legislature have produced a series of new laws that streamline the housing development process and dramatically reform zoning and land use in the state. some have dubbed it to montana miracle. governor i want to thank you for making housing a top priority and i want to thank you for joining us and welcome your wife

who was with us here today. before starting our conversation let me remind our virtual audience that if you have questions for the governor you can post them to our twitter account throughout the event using the #bpc live. you're also welcome to submit your questions and the youtube chat and we will save time at the end of the event to take questions from our in person and virtual audiences. governor, thank you for being with us. host: thank you for having -- gov. gianforte: thank you for having me. dennis: let's go further -- 30,000 feet. even governor for three plus years. how is the state doing and what are your priorities besides housing. gov. gianforte: i ran for two reasons. montana had not been living up

to its full potential, we export the best beef in the world, we export a lot of grain and we export our kids because we didn't have jobs. i'm a business guy and our first focus was really petting the economy going. that's where our focus has been. it's been both jobs so kids can stay if they want to, and protect our way of life. we were able to pass a really conservative budget where we funded essential services in 2001 in 2022. that brought us into -- we have the great blessing of our legislature only meets for 90 days every two years so we did not see them until 2020 in that session we came in with a significant surplus. on about a $5 billion budget. what we did was we gave $1

billion back to the people of montana in tax refunds and lower rates. we invested $300 million in behavioral health, we rebuilt our expanding capacity in our prison system, we increased our reserves. we still have money left over so we paid off state debt. i don't know of another state that's done that. but that was applying basic business principles to budgeting. so our economy now we have had 24 consecutive months where unemployment has been 3% or less. it is good we are creating the jobs. dennis: creating jobs, you are creating more demand for housing , people are coming into the state, been reading about that. why did you start focusing on

the housing affordability challenge and how have housing costs changed since the time you've been governor to today? >> the reason we focused on housing was it is probably the number one issue facing working families because we want our nurses and our teachers and our police officers to live in the communities where they serve and when housing prices get out of reach not only is the dream more difficult to obtain but the people who are the fabric of the community can be there. dennis: we are going to take questions at the end. >> will you give your children a right to a livable -- will you give david, richard, rachel a right -- >> please sit down this is not

the time for questions. we will take them toward the end of the event. but thank you for coming. gov. gianforte: thanks for coming today. dennis: where were we governor. gov. gianforte: we were talking about why affordable housing is so critical. >> we do not have enough time to worry about the economy, we need to -- generations now and save this planet. >> it is our right to a livable future. we deserve to live the rest of our lives in safety and security.

we will not stand here and listen to the governor talk about things when pressing concerns are coming in on all sides. children deserve a livable future. all the children of america and the world deserve a livable future. >> end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. end, fossil fuels greg. end fossil fuels. end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels.

end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. end fossil fuels, greg. end fossil fuels. >> to soak up more cash for his reelection bid during a three-day sweep of the state for trip the campaign announced they'd collected 42 million contributions during january for

422,000 donors. mr. biden ended with $130 billion cash on hand. officials say it's the highest total amassed by any democratic candidate at this point in the cycle. his campaign manager called in a disputable show of strength. mr. biden will travel to california, it was from his return that the white house that he had brief conversations with reporters about the future of discussions with the house speaker mike johnson over funding for ukraine. the headline out of that is biden would meet with johnson "if he has anything to say." the president talking with reporters per years a bit of that conversation. >> i'd be happy to if he had anything to say. [applause] >> never a dull moment here.

we were talking about housing. why did you make housing such a priority? gov. gianforte: as i mentioned we want teachers and police officers to live in the communities where they serve. as prices increased it was less attainable so this was i've said many times this is the number one issue facing working montana families and we have to do something about it. >> you issued an executive order establishing the task force. tell us how that works. gov. gianforte: this is a process we've used a couple of times now on big thorny issues because we knew there was not a single button to push to lower prices and the problem was so big we could not buy our way out of it. we assembled a really diverse team of nonprofit leaders, county commissioners, city folks, state officials.

people from the private sector. builders, realtors and we brought them together and i brought them together in august and said we need results quickly we are heading into our legislative session so they assembled in august. i got my first report in october. lancaster really broad net and give us a range of ideas and they did. i got the first report in the middle of october. the second report in the middle of december. we went to work in the legislative session and ran the table. dennis: do you think the fact you had broad membership and the fact you a tight deadline with a very specific assignment for the task force as part of the secret sauce to make that effective? gov. gianforte: it allowed us to build consensus around what could've been a very thorny issue in a quick way. given that we came into the session without bipartisan

support we were able to get that done. dennis: the task force at 36 recommendations. did you have to muscle the legislature to say -- gov. gianforte: our legislature is independent thinkers. we had to build consensus around these issues. we always brought it back to we wanted our teachers, our police officers, our nurses to live in the communities where they served and that something everyone could support. that's in my experience when susan and i had a chance to serve in congress we would ask people to dinner at our home on capitol hill every week and we would just when you break bread with people and share time together and you focus on the key principle you're trying to achieve it's a lot easier to build consensus. >> some of the things the task force recommended was to allow

multifamily residential and single-family zoned areas to allow add use without parking minimums associated with it. these are some of the things they recommended. it seems like it was a supply issue and using deregulation as a means of decreasing housing density. is that right or was it more focused on supply and how to build more homes? gov. gianforte: that was the problem. in part because everybody discovered montana is more beautiful than any other state in the country. the show yellowstone in the pandemic combined that everybody was moving. if they weren't moving there is a permanent residence they bought a home a second home and took that out of the inventory. so it was our population over the last 10 years growing by 10%, the number of new doorknobs

has only grown by 7%. plus we added homes taken out of inventory for second homes so we had a supply problem and that was something we recognized early in the process so we focused on supply issues. i would say there were seven buckets of forms. the first was we recognized that government regulation accounts for about 40% of the cost of a home. we had to reduce that. i'd one builder who told me he was building a multifamily apartment building maybe 15 units or so. he had a year delay in permitting that added $700,000 to the cost. the only option was to add that into the price. so the first thing we did was we changed our land use planning

regime so builders could get permits faster. we want to make sure the public has input into how communities grow but what this new law is it allows them to adopt a growth plan going through all the public hearings. but then when a builder walks in and says i want a permit if it matches the growth plan they just hand him the permit. you don't have to go through public hearings. the overall growth plan has gone through the process. that's reform number one. it also forced we require jurisdiction -- local jurisdiction to adopt a whole bunch of changes in their zoning rules. the second major problem we found is there's all kinds of infrastructure programs low-interest loans for municipalities, but they are all focused on urban renewal, they

will pay for replacement of water and sewer. we did not have any infrastructure funds for new water and sewer in new subdivisions. we had a surplus fortunately, we put over $100 million in the homes loan program which provides low-interest loans to communities to do water and sewer for new subdivisions but we required they have at least -- so it was more workforce housing and because we -- before we did that a builder would have to put the water and sewer infrastructure in which made the homes less affordable. this way the ongoing tax obligation of the home paid back the bond over time so that's a change. the third area we allowed add use as a right to a single family in the state. it could be an apartment over

the garage. but this increases infill and provides first-time homes for these people we want to have in our communities. we also change the zoning at a state level to allow apartments in all commercial areas so we had floor apartments, not all zoning allowed that. we ended exclusionary zoning which in many communities it requires big houses on big lots. they are more expensive when you do that so we allowed smaller houses on smaller lots. anywhere in the state were a single family home is allowed we allow a duplex. that was done statewide. we change the way we do local design review. most of the local design reviews in our state are volunteer boards and they all come to that with their own particular agenda.

maybe they like cedar siding, maybe someone likes a certain species of tree. so we abolished the volunteer zoning review boards in the state and require that professional officials at the local level review that and their requirements on builders are restricted to safety issues. so they can require a sidewalk because you don't want people walking in the street but they can't tell you you have to plant trees. so it's things like that. because we recognize we have a supply problem if you wanted more homes we need more carpenters and plumbers and electricians so we changed our apprenticeship ratios and in the process quadruple the number of apprenticeship slots. since we made the change we now allow journeyman to supervise to

apprentices whereas before we required two journeyman for every apprentice. we now have added more apprentices in 2022 then 18, 19 and 20 combined. we have over 3000 people on the building trades apprentices. the last thing in that category of trades education, we added a state tax credit where we will pay any business up to $3000 scholarship money up to 50% of the cost of tuition to send employees to trade school. dennis: i can understand why this has been dubbed the montana miracle. these are actions that blue states would be envious of. i know montana is a pretty red state. gov. gianforte: i had a blue governor say how did you get that done. dennis: how did you get it done?

gov. gianforte: what's most gratifying is we are seeing results now. results two months ago in one of our largest communities where in the last year because of the increase in supply the vacancy rates for apartments has dropped from just over 1% is way too tight of a market to just over 6% in that market and the average rental rate has come down by 20% in the last year. we are getting anecdotal evidence some more things are happening so the free market has responded to these changes in reduction in red tape and increase of workers and rental rates are calming down and vacancy rates for apartments are going up to something more reasonable. dennis: there have been at least one challenge to a number of these provisions through the court system in montana. would you talk about that and

what's going on with the status. dennis: we -- gov. gianforte: we think those are particularly bad decision so we are appealing them. we think we will prevail. >> the task force did its job. in the five months deadline. usually when you have a task force or commission -- gov. gianforte: i put an engineer in charge. dennis: it is still around and still kicking. you reauthorized it as i understand it till 2025. what else is on it? gov. gianforte: the charge to the current task force is twofold. we made all of these changes. we want to know if they are working. they are studying the outcomes of policy changes being adopted. anybody who's worked with us long will know i think better is always possible.

so as we study changes we made and the impact they are having the question becomes how can we do better. we are able to look at another phase of policies. our legislature will be back in 2025 for 90 days. >> is that a hard and fast rule? gov. gianforte: yes. [laughter] dennis: i was going to ask you nationally you sort of answered my question but nationally there has been anecdotal evidence that there is a dearth of skilled workers, never fully recovered from the great recession and a lot of those folks left the business because housing was being built. is that still a challenge? you java program. -- you have a lot of programs. the education technical which

helps with paying the scholarship. the other thing we've done is i don't think the nation has done a good job of exposing k-12 students to alternative career paths particularly in construction trades and manufacturing. u.s. little kids what they want to be when they grow up, they say policeman, fireman but that's who they see working. one of the reforms we have adopted is something called the workplace learning experience. so any montana i school student can spend two to 20 hours a week on a jobsite and get a high school graduation credit for it. we are partnering between the local chambers of commerce in montana the local chamber recruits their members for internships fry school students. and then there's a full-time person at the high school and they placed those students with

those companies in the private sector. it's a full gambit. they are spending time in law offices, architectural offices, manufacturing, heavy equipment operators across the board. students may still decide they want to go to a four-year degree program but they may end up becoming an apprentice. they've taken this step hiring an individual to do workplace learning experiences for k-8. you might ask the question how do you expose a seventh grader to a construction trade. they do field trips. they go out to a jobsite. they see people putting up homes. instead they may still want to be fireman or a policeman but they also might say i want to operate that machine that cuts metal. >> you put that little seed in

their brain and it sort of blossoms. before entering politics you started a very successful software company. do you see any possibilities for new technologies. there's a lot going on in the construction space but new technologies, ai playing any role in speeding up and reducing the cost of building new housing. places like montana, rural states it is -- there is no scale for homebuilders. you can just build one or two homes and make a living. off-site construction is a possibility. >> i think it is ripe for innovation, we did recruit as we improved our business climate, we recruited manufacturing business to montana.

they will hire 450 employees to build manufactured homes. we're the first state in the country to actually incorporate into our building codes the ability for 3d printed homes. i don't know if anybody is doing that yet. we are the first state to actually do that. and we are sorting to experiment with ai. 40% of the cost of new construction is going to regulation. one of the particular problems we have, i don't think we are different than other places is they get edited over decades and it sort of like remodeling an old home where maybe some of you had this experience, there's shack carpet in the living room and someone is put linoleum over it and then they put hardwood floor on top of that. it is bad.

>> it's like an archaeological dig. >> we issued a massive relief tape effort and we went through every piece of code in every agency and i signed into law almost 200 red tape relief bills this last legislative session. they are still too complicated. one of the things we are experiment in with now is putting our state regulations whether it's building codes or environmental quality into an ai model and rewrite it at a high school graduation level. we will edit it but we like the regulations we have to have for public safety and protect the environment to be understandable by a mainstreet business person. we learned that our regulations requires a phd plus postdoctoral work to understand them. that's beyond the reach of most entrepreneurs. dennis: ai can help make sense

of some of the zoning laws that exist throughout the country. i know you are way out in montana but you spent two terms in congress. i am a little hesitant to ask you this question but where does the federal government fit in? what can congress do to make it easier for your administration to ensure montanans have access to reasonably affordable housing? what can they do with anything? gov. gianforte: stop spending so much money. the money supply is what's driving inflation. it is inflation that's driven up the price of homes. that would be number one. and the number two, just stay out of our way. dennis: do we have any questions. >> to lower housing costs do you

support accommodating immigrants who have the ability and desire for housing and oppose tariffs on construction materials regardless of the president in office. gov. gianforte: i think we should encourage legal immigration to the country. my primary concern is illegal immigration that's been occurring. we've seen about 10 million people, illegally into the country and that places a burden. >> what about tariffs? gov. gianforte: i'm of the milton friedman school. >> how are you using housing initiatives to recruit more businesses?

gov. gianforte: we initiated a new program. at the department of commerce we created a program called a red carpet program and as we've adopted more pro-business policies and lowered taxes, what we offer companies interested in moving to montana is a sanctuary for freedom and free enterprise. and a work ethic that won't quit and a quality of life that inspires tremendous work. we have had some great successes. the manufactured home business will become the largest employer , we just recruited a business, german manufacturer in lewistown which will be 500 employees in that community, a $90 million investment to glendive that is 350 employees. it's not too hard, i hope this

doesn't get me in trouble but all you have to do is knock on the door in california and say you want to move back to america? dennis: we have a question from our virtual audience. in addition to rising home prices, montana has also seen some of the sharpest increases in homelessness in the country. what is driving this trend and how is the state addressing the problem? >> we saw it in our hometown, we had people living in rvs on the streets down the street from our home. it is tragic, that is why increasing the supply of homes is so important to make it more attainable and that's what we took the actions we did. we've also seen these illegal immigrants have been relocated to every community in the united states and we are seeing that as well.

we have an obligation to take care of them when we are -- when they arrive. dennis: you mentioned on homelessness you mentioned the lack of supply being a big part of the problem. earlier in the conversation you mentioned you devoted some spending for mental health assistance. how do you see the problems, a supply issue or a combination of factors. >> the two sides of the coin or mental health and addiction. we've seen a 78% increase in fentanyl over the last year in montana all coming across the southern border. as a total local law enforcement, 80% to 90% of the inmates in county detention centers have behavioral issues. we ask the legislature and they gave us $300 million for behavioral health which is a massive investment and we are using those funds in a couple of

ways. one is we are going to the point of need because we want to help people get healthy. one of those places is bringing behavioral health into the county detention centers and into the state prison so that people can get healthier and be productive members of society. we are also prior administrations on community base mental health. we are bringing those mental health services back. we have also a bipartisan commission because i don't have appropriations authority, only the legislature has appropriations authority in the only meat for 90 days every two years. what we did in the legislature working together with our administration we created a behavioral health commission and of the legislature delegated appropriations authority to them for this $300 million. so at their hearing of the

community they have the ability to spend the money between legislative sessions. i think i've approved five or six programs under that commission so far like behavioral health in the county detention centers. these mobile crisis response teams, that sort of stuff. >> off the previous question i know your predecessor -- deal with it in terms of courts along with federal funds, etc.. it's very complicated to me. >> it is complex because every time you add an incentive or put your finger on the scale it

produces results preyed some desirable and some undesirable. during the pandemic we had a lot of people out of work. the economy slowed down. and the federal government allowed the states to add supplemental unemployment benefits and the unintended consequences. that might've been necessary during the height of the pandemic, when i get into office the pandemic was over. we were the first state in the country to eliminate supplemental unemployment benefits. 26 other states followed us and what that did was it shifts the emphasis back to going to work so that people could have the satisfaction of holding a job. the prior administration had shut down many small businesses across the state implementing masked mandates, we -- i think montanans can make those

decisions for themselves. there's nothing wrong with wearing a mask but it should be the individual's decision not the government doing a mandate. that was really a key piece of getting our economy going. >> got another question here from our virtual audience and then we get to you linda. what is the biggest take away from the montana miracle. that other states should implement to help with their own housing supply challenges. gov. gianforte: i would say the task force is really the unique thing. i can stand up and tell you my opinion. but when you bring a broad section of bipartisan folks together around a table with a very clear charge to produce results, it happens. if you search on the internet for montana governor housing task force, the minutes from the meetings are there, the agendas.

the committee is all there. it's a model. anybody can copy. i steal good ideas all the time. >> i run early childhood program and we've done some work in montana mapping the need for child care. i'm curious as to what your hit -- plan is for the economic development. just your thoughts on that. >> we've made some significant investments in your right, the child care workforce is the work force behind the workforce. if we don't have them, people can join the other businesses. we put over $100 million into grants to childcare providers, that was the first thing. the second thing was we had a labyrinth of licensing requirements that made it difficult for childcare to

operate so we've modified those to make it easier. we expanded licensure to allow more in-home care which makes a lot of sense and a lot of our rural communities where you are not can have a big center someplace but a mom or dad who decides to stay home with their kids might take three or four kids into their home. that could be a real help for other working families and that community. we had to change licensure rules to allow that to happen broadly. >> one question from our virtual audience, have you run into any opposition to some of your pro housing ideas from republicans, the montana legislature is run by republicans or local communities and if so how did you go about trying to persuade them to get them on board? >> human beings do not like

change. any change. right or left that's just the nature of human beings. i would say the key thing and what we did was really to always focus on what we want the outcome to be. no one would disagree that we want our teachers, nurses and police officers to live in the communities where they serve and we always try to bring the conversation back to that. i find the same thing is true when we talk about education policy. our goal in education policy ought to be to help every child reach their full potential regardless of the background or circumstances or abilities and when you use a noble lens to look at a really competition at issue, it can really sympathize -- simplify it. dennis: was their concern about

sprawl in montana? improving density in the communities we have a built deck having to build out further and further away. gov. gianforte: this was really interesting because this challenge brought together people on the same side of the table who never worked together because as we looked at zoning changes and got rid of exclusionary zoning, of the builders love that because it meant they could do denser, they could turn inventory faster. the conservation groups loved it. when did we ever have the builders and conservation people love the same side of the table. we had the same goal which was to allow teachers and nurses and police officers to live in the communities where they work. >> thank you governor. montana in industries like construction and building considering the cost of living they have to work hard to

provide for their families. regardless of whether you blame this administration are not for the outlook. dennis: the people who work in the building trades. gov. gianforte: they are making a good income. i was with an electrician in billings montana last month and they are adding high school graduates who come to work at $25 an hour day one. while they go to school at night , every time they pass the set of courses they get a raise. when they get there for full journeyman certificate after four years of school, they have no debt and in billings, montana they started $80,000 a year. that's a starting salary for an electrician. so there's a lot of people who spend four or six years getting a graduate -- bachelors degree. these are great careers, it is noble work, the noble work of

building shelter for human beings is inherently good and worthwhile. we are telling that story to high school student so they can consider that career choice. >> this is a good one from her virtual audience. montana has a high percentage of elderly households compared to other states, how is your administration working to ensure there is sufficient accessible housing for elderly montanans? gov. gianforte: a lot of them have been in their homes for a long time and don't want to leave. as property taxes continued to kick up, it's difficult on a fixed income, this is why allowing them to have an adu, allowing them to put an apartment over the garage, add second income which can allow people to stay or maybe their kids live across town and they

put the apartment in for grandma so it works both ways. higher density and more affordability helps the nurses and teachers but also helps the elderly as well. affordability helps everyone. dennis: are you looking at property tax relief for elderly montanans? gov. gianforte: we dramatically expanded our property tax relief for lower income montanans. often that is elderly. we also just kicked off the property tax relief in this last session we gave almost $4000 back to every montana family in tax rebates. there was a one-time event out of her surplus. we need to do more to get property taxes down. >> i want to hear more about the

ai system. gov. gianforte: i think ai has a lot of promise. we don't know how we will use it yet. i mentioned rewriting the regulations at the moore education level. we sought to make sure they are still accurate. the other way we are doing it, we are doing an experiment, it is an experiment. we have a lot of social welfare programs, food stamps, rental assistance, job training, you can go on and there's literally dozens of programs and it's very difficult to navigate that. so we have a number of job service offices around the state

and primarily about 200 people. they tend to cater to a lot of difficulty finding employment. and the counselors in those offices tend to use a particular program, whatever their program is. we are doing in ai experiment that will rationalize dozens of programs. we are calling it prosperity portal which will look at all the various social welfare and job training programs and build a path to prosperity for that individual based on their particular situation instead of some job service office that has a hammer in the world looks like a nail. i don't know where that's going to go but i hope i can report back on progress there. >> i think i will close with a final question.

governor, you did not have to engage in public service and you put yourself in the arena twice when you ran for congress, you did not have to do this. what drives you and what words of wisdom do you impart to other younger people who might want to pursue a career in public service and politics. gov. gianforte: my wife and i have been incredibly blessed. we've lived the american dream, the last business we started in our home with $5,000 and it grew to 1100 employees in 17 offices around the world. publicly traded for eight years. it was great. and then i recognized how policies were impeding myself and others from attaining certain results.

so for me i think i -- the founding fathers always envisioned that people in public service would have put the career in as a lawyer or farmer or businessperson and then gone into public service later. so for me i believe to whom much is given, much is expected. this is an act of service for us. we saw our four kids don't live in montana anymore. but if i'm out with a group like this and i ask how many of you have kids or grandkids who don't live here anymore, almost every hand goes up. it was because montana was not living up to its full potential. being able to take that business experience brand -- bringing into public service it is truly the honor of my life. i love the work. that is what motivates me. dennis: thank you for your

public service and for what you are doing in housing and thank you for joining us today. a little blip in the proceedings but i want to extend and encourage everyone to give a round of applause to the governor. [applause] and to the first lady. [applause] dennis: that's all the time we have, please stay tuned. mark your calendar for february 28 where we will have a webinar on homelessness with dish moderated by henry. mayor daniel rickman of columbia south carolina and the former mayor should be a great conversation. thank you for joining us and have a great day.

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