I'll direct you to the disclosures contained in our SEC filings and in our safe harbor provisions included on the second slide of this presentation. Please also note this presentation includes non-GAAP financial measures. Please see the non-GAAP disclosures, definitions, and reconciliations also included in the presentation today. The webcast is being recorded. The archived replay of today's webcast will be available for one year, beginning at 6:00 P.M. Eastern Time today and can be found in the Financial Results section of our website. I'll hand the presentation over to NorthWestern CEO, Brian Bird. Thanks, Travis. Good morning, folks. I know many of you would have liked to heard from us yesterday, but the reason we're having the call this morning is to diminish the amount of travel necessary on Sunday. Our board meeting ran late on Tuesday. We decided to have the call here on Wednesday morning. To start on regarding the second quarter, we are very, very busy on the regulatory front, as you're well aware. We recently filed a South Dakota electric rate review, and obviously we're waiting for a decision on our multi-party settlement in the Montana rate review. Hopefully we'll hear from that real soon. Regarding Yellowstone County Generating Station, a lot has happened since the first quarter. During the second quarter, we had a tremendous amount of support from the governor and the legislature in Montana, which helped us resume construction of the facility, and we're ramping up that construction as we speak. We have invested over $200 million of the estimated $275 million in the project itself. We continue to operate in strong and growing service territories, as is seen by very, very low unemployment, some of the lowest unemployment in the country. As a result, we're also seeing very good customer growth, which, you know, didn't necessarily help us here in the second quarter, but it's going to help us on a going-forward basis with our business. Lastly, on this page, I think it's important to point out, and this is one of the great things about NorthWestern, is the workforce we have here and the culture we have here, and I think certainly being acknowledged by Newsweek as one of America's great workplaces in 2023. Pretty cool announcement for us. There's only 11 utilities acknowledged, and the only one in the small cap space was NorthWestern Energy. That, of course, came on the heels of 2022 of also being acknowledged as a Great Places to Work. It's a great tribute to our employees, and we're very excited about that acknowledgment. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Crystal. Thank you, Brian. I'll begin my comments on slide four here. Just to conclude Brian's comments on working with a great team, I think the Newsweek acknowledgment of what work we do here and the great people we work with is a pretty fantastic thing. I'll turn myself to second quarter performance. Before getting into a bit of detail, we've added a couple of slides to hopefully give you a bit of color as to how we're thinking about the quarter. While Brian acknowledged their results are a little bit lower than we had hoped for the, for the quarter, but in line with our expectations and how we think about the year. To give you a little bit of color here, Q2 results lower on a GAAP basis by $10.7 million, or $0.22 of EPS, vs the prior year's second quarter. How do we think about that $0.22 of spread? We were impacted by shoulder season weather, and you all know Q2 is our lightest quarter from an earnings perspective. You can see a bit of variability there depending upon weather. For this year, Q2 2023, that was $0.03 of unfavorable weather. I would note last year we had more favorable weather for us. That was $0.04 last year in Q2 of 2022. When you compare those two, that's a $0.07 swing in our earnings due to weather period over period for second quarter. In addition, you're all familiar with our equity issuances, so there's about $0.03 of drag with relation to shares outstanding, impacting results for, again, Q2 2023 vs 2022. In addition, as we had talked to you at the end of Q1, we had just concluded hearings in our Montana rate review and reached a settlement there. We've provided a bit more detail, I would say. As you all know, we do not have guidance out for 2023, and won't update you on our expectations fully until we've seen outcome from the Montana Commission. What we have done here is quantify the impact of the Montana settlement to both our Q1 and Q2 2023 earnings if it were approved, as is, with no adjustments. Again, this is meant to give you a bit of an indication of what we see as the impact of that settlement to our financial statements. In 2023, this would include impacts to both the revenue line and tax implications and would contribute about $0.15 to our Q2 earnings based off our estimates, again, if the settlement were approved as is. Slide four provides you a bit of that color, again, comparing quarter two vs 2023 vs 2022. $0.22 there. There's definitely variability in weather and how that impacts our performance. I'll dig into that in a little bit further detail in slides coming up. You think about that $0.07+ $0.03 of equity drag, and if we were able to record the impact of that settlement, contributing another $0.15, and you'd see a more comparable number as to how we think about that. On slide five, again, you're all familiar with our Q1 results. We had favorable weather then and some solid results. Brian talked about the customer growth that we continue to see underlying that. You would see the impact of the settlement. Again, the Q1 would have been $0.20. That would bring that to $0.35 total on a year-to-date basis. You can see on a non-GAAP basis vs the numbers that you would see year to date at this point, $1.40. You adjust that, we'd be $1.75 at halfway through the year. That gives you some indication as to how we are thinking about our earnings, as we conclude a half year basis and from a 2023 perspective. With that, I would take you to slide six and dig a bit more detail into the detail of the quarter results. From a net income basis, $19.1 million in net income, as compared with $29.8 million in Q2 of 2022. That's a $10.7 million reduction. On an earnings per share basis, $0.32 compared to $0.54, that's a $0.22 difference. Again, that's the color I just gave you, a bit explaining and bridging that difference of $0.22 from last year's performance. Slide seven breaks that down. You can see, we had favorable utility margin overall of what actually falls to the bottom line for us, and that was driven by favorable, on the electric side, offset by unfavorable on the natural gas side. I have a slide upcoming that'll give you a bit more detail on that. Then you can see a continued push of what I would call the cost of running the business. Operating costs, interest, and depreciation, leading us to the $0.32 of earnings contribution from a second quarter basis. Slide 8 provides a bit more detail of the margin performance. I would always highlight the positives, right? The first positive, interim rates and the criticality of the Montana Commission's decision and with regard to that. Those interim rates are just over $31 million, our settlement overall is about $81 million. You can see the impact there in Q2 of that contribution. I also would mention our property tax tracker, that's not something we talk about a lot, I think most of you know from a bill comparability perspective, in Montana, we collect property taxes or ad valorem taxes for the state, that's about 15% of our customer bill. In Q2, we typically negotiate our valuation with the Department of Revenue, a variety of factors in that, we saw a decrease in that valuation vs the prior year. We have a tracker in place. It's not a full tracker because it contains a haircut, typically, that haircut is one minus the tax rate has been detrimental to us. This year, we happen to have a positive from that in negotiating a lower valuation. You can see $3.3 million vs last year in Q2, a positive there in the margin line. PCCAM is the next item here showing favorability. $3 million favorable, again, vs Q2 of last year. PCCAM has not been my favorite thing to talk about in the past, so I do have to take a moment and highlight the positive there. What we saw is certainly consistent with the shoulder season weather impacting us volumetrically in lows. The flip side of that is we also saw more moderate pricing, more importantly, the impact of that interim rate base being much closer to what is the final base we've agreed to, and a reasonable amount to have the 10% sharing around. That's $0.04 of favorability for us when comparing to 2022. Not that I want to relive it, but for 2022 full year impact, I'll remind you that we had $0.10 of drag from that PCCAM mechanism. When we're thinking about 2023, seeing prices moderate, importantly, that's a huge impact to our customers and their bill, and the amount that that $0.10 is compared to, but also in how we think about dragging our earnings. To see favorability here in Q2 and to think about what that impact was last year, this is certainly one of the things I'll say as a positive for Q2 and how we think about that. Moving more to the right side of the bridge here, you see detriments primarily related to weather. I would highlight both the electric transmission and retail electric and gas volumes, all impacted by weather. When we think about our transmission business, the ability to move power across our lines to elsewhere, a cool, wet spring, certainly we saw less demand for that. Having been in Missoula, Montana yesterday, I can tell you that weather has changed. It was quite warm in our service territory, but that certainly drives demand on the transmission side, and we have a little bit of a rate change there as well vs last year in that formula rate. You can see the lower electric and retail volumes, both electric and natural gas. I would tell you that we underline the customer growth there, but in a shoulder season, you can also see the impact to what ultimately ends up being margin. I would also mention we have irrigation loads, that's something that with a cool, wet spring, we didn't see come through, impact there and also a little bit of softness in the industrial side. We do have some Bitcoin miners on our system, we saw a little bit lower loads there. Overall, again, a bit of favorable on the utility margin that falls to the bottom line, a lot of moving pieces in there for the quarter. I'll move on to slide 9 talk about our operating, administrative, and general costs. Again, I think us and everyone else is impacted by pressures of these lines. We are focused on maintaining a sustainable level of operating costs, I think managing a lot of the business in a very reasonable way. You see the largest impact here is really the compensation and benefits of our people. That cost of labor impacts us and everyone else, and it's something we certainly expected for 2023, and you can see that is the most significant driver in our operating costs up vs 2022. Slide 10. Again, I highlighted this at the beginning, but this is our reconciliation non-GAAP, for hopefully you to get a picture of what the weather piece that we adjust out. Again, our weather model isn't perfect. You'll see that there's cooling degree days and heating degree days, both in a shoulder season like this. While it may not be perfect, it is consistent, and we try to give you our best view into our estimate of weather impact to us. You'll see in 2023, $0.32 on a GAAP basis, adjusting out unfavorable weather of $0.03 gets us to $0.35. What I mentioned earlier in bridging that $0.07 gap in Q2 of 2022, we had $0.04 of favorable weather that we backed out. Moving on to slide 11, I'll just mention our cash flows and financing plans. Again, the impact of interim rates has been significant to us, both the base rates that we will earn on and also adjustments to that PCCAM mechanism. You can see some favorable cash flows here. We had also previously announced our plans for $75 million of equity using our ATM, remaining out availability there in 2023. We did start that program up in Q2 and issued approximately $10.8 million, we do expect to issue the remainder in 2023. With that, I'll move to slide 12 and again, reiterate that while you're all awaiting a full update from us, and we do expect to do that, we are awaiting the Commission's decision, and it is a very significant outcome for us. With that, we won't be providing a broader update at this point. While Q2 results are certainly impacted by weather, the results are otherwise consistent with our expectations, and we await the Montana Commission's decision to provide that update. As you can see, with the cost of our business, you know, that settlement is critically important to us in the sense of being able to cover the cost to serve our customers. We feel good about what we've placed in front of the Commission. We will be checking in with you after we receive that update. With that, I will turn it to Brian. All right. Thanks, Crystal. On slide 13, we've spent a tremendous amount of time talking about this already in earlier calls. Obviously, you know, a settlement's been reached, and we're waiting on an outcome from the Commission on that settlement. The only thing I'd want to say about the settlement itself is just to remind folks that all parties to the settlement are the only parties that provided any testimony on revenue requirements. Those interveners who were opposed to the settlement didn't even provide testimony on revenue requirements. Something that I'm sure the Commission's considering as they make their decision. Secondly, just anticipated next steps. All the briefings been done, as we wait for a decision here during the third quarter, I could argue that could be in August, it is anytime in the third quarter. We're waiting patiently for an outcome there. As I move on to slide 14, really talking about the South Dakota rate review. You know, it's the first rate review we've filed since 2015. Much like Montana, it's overdue in terms to come in and get recovery of the significant amount of investment we've been making in all of our jurisdictions. In South Dakota, $267 million has been invested during that time period. I think many of you know, just over $80 million of that is associated with the Bob Glanzer Generating Station that was built. That's a big part of it, but a lot of T&D investment's been made as well. A matter of fact, 99% of our re-requested increase, of that $30 million, approximately 99% of the increase is associated by that investment. We've done a really nice job in their jurisdictions to manage our costs, it's really a function of getting a return on the return on our investments we've been making. Speaking of investments on page 15, from a capital investment perspective, you know, the five-year history here, again, pretty impressive, 16% CAGR of that investment over that time period of $2.1 billion. A tremendous amount of investment still necessary in our system. The next five years looks to be $2.4 billion, 2/3 of that continues to be investment we need to make in our T&D business. You've heard me talk about capacity challenges at this company. Certainly on the supply side, there will be capacity investments. We don't know what those are beyond Yellowstone County, those will be coming as well. Those are not included, obviously, in that $2.4 billion. Of that amount, 2/3, again, T&D, tremendous amount of investment there. That rate base growth is going to be approximately 4.5% over that five-year period. With that, just in concluding, I think in fairness to, you know, our customers too, we shouldn't be waiting this long from a rate case perspective. We want to see increases that are more in line with inflation and then try and manage those cost increases to be less than inflation. Matter of fact, we need to be also fair to our investors and come in for more timely recovery of our investments we're making, and obviously for returns associated with those investments. You'll see us obviously manage these rate reviews that we're currently in, but being more, more attentive to what our actual returns are vs our authorized returns and likely being more frequent filers. With that, I will turn it over to Travis to handle any Q&A. Excellent, Brian. Thank you. If you're joining us by computer today and would like to ask a question, please signal your intent by using the raise hand button that's typically found within the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. You can also press Alt Y on a PC or Option Y on a Mac to raise your hand. Please ensure that your microphone is unmuted if you are in the queue to ask a question. If you are dialed in by phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Again, star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. If you have not provided your name and your Zoom ID or you're dialed in by phone, please be listening for us to announce your Zoom ID or the last four digits of your telephone number to identify you that your line is open and ready for your question. Again, please just make sure your line is unmuted on your end. We will take our first question from Shar Pourreza at Guggenheim. Shar, your mic should be or your line should be open. All right. Hey, guys, can you hear me? Hey, Shar. We sure can. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Brian, I just want to kind of just dive into this a little bit more, and I think you kind of modestly, you know, you sort of did touch on it a little bit, but I guess, is the Montana case getting delayed? How is sort of the work sessions been going? Is there any indication, just so investors can get a little bit of relief here, that maybe a final order could deviate from the settlement you entered to with the case's, you know, primary intervener? Maybe just a little bit more color on the process, that'd be great. Yeah, I would say, I would argue that we're really not seeing any delay associated. This is not unusual to see this kind of timing. I think we'll see something relatively soon. I don't know when the schedule is actually going to be for a decision, but I do expect it to try to be relatively soon. I think that as you saw on the hearing itself, the commission did a fantastic job. President Brown did a fantastic job of running the hearing itself. I just think, we've seen very, very good response from the commission in terms of on other issues. I expect that we'll find on this, we'll hear something relatively soon. I think regarding the settlement itself, I think, as I pointed out on the call here, the settlement is the parties that all agreed on this agreed on all the revenue requirement matters. We covered many different topics. We struck a very good balance amongst the parties. I think it's very compelling in front of the commission. That doesn't mean they can't try to do things, and certainly, that has happened in the past, but I anticipate in light of the very good settlement that was put in front of them, it's going to be difficult for them to make any adjustments. Perfect. Just lastly, maybe a little bit more of a question for Crystal, but as you're kind of thinking about the timing around issuing guidance, could South Dakota's rate case impact, I guess, what guidance could be issued? Meaning maybe only a roll forward of the capital plan vs touching on the EPS growth rate. I guess, how do we think about South Dakota in the mix here? Sure. Thanks, Shar. On the South Dakota side, I would just tell you, and we didn't put a timeline in here, I don't think. Maybe Shar will correct me here, but there is a statutory six months once you file that is basically a waiting period for interim rates. Mm-hmm. When you think about impact to 2023, we filed that in mid-June. The earliest interim rates would apply would be mid-December, so it's really not a 2023 item. How we think about that's a 2024 item and will not impact our timing of giving 2023 guidance. Obviously, the biggest impact to us as we think about, you know, a settlement of over $81 million of revenues vs $31 million of interim rates is that Montana decision. Mm-hmm. We're very focused on South Dakota as well, but that'll really be a 2024 item. The biggest thing on giving guidance is, you know, Brian mentioned in your question, you know, briefing on the legal side, you know, the attorneys have to have the last word. That could come through the end of June, early July. The commission has work to do to put together a final order. Mm. We know they're working on that. Once we see an outcome, and then if we need to see that final order for any clarity. Mm-hmm. that will dictate the timing of us coming out with guidance. We know you're all anxiously awaiting to hear from us, but the South Dakota rate, which won't delay that guidance issuance. Okay, perfect. Brian, just last one for me is, do you have a clear line of sight now, I think, with Yellowstone, is there sort of anything else that you can see could derail it, or should we just assume that it's been de-risked? As we pointed out, you know, the third quarter of 2024, we are back to full staffing, if you will. We're again, when you ask everyone to leave, and now you've asked everyone to come back, we're getting there, and I think the timing's been delayed a little bit, but anticipated to still the third quarter. We feel good about getting the plant down. You know, you saw the% of spend, the amount of work between now and then, is a lot of finishing work, as you'd say. I think we feel very good about the process and primarily having that resource, hopefully in time for, you know, peak weather in the summer, but definitely needing it before the winter season at the end of 2024. Got it. Perfect, you guys. Thanks for taking my questions. See you soon. Bye. Thanks, Shar. Thanks, Shar. We will take our next question from the line of Jeremy Tonet at JP Morgan. Hi, this is Robin on for Jeremy. Can you hear me? Hey, Robin. Yep, we can hear you. Hey, you mentioned your goal to maintain sustainable operating costs. Was the -$0.06 year-over-year headwind from increased labor and benefit costs driven more by one-time items or more structural expenses? Based on the current Montana rate case settlement, any color on 2023 O&M expenses or O&M growth trends more broadly? I would take your question in two parts, in the sense of, is it structural or a one-time item? It's definitely structural. Since I don't have 2023 guidance, I would point you back to my 2022 bridge, where we laid out that we needed to get to a more sustainable level of operating costs. While we manage the rest of the business, we benchmark ourselves on an electric OAG perspective, with our mid-cap peers and even some larger caps, both on a per revenue and per customer basis, we are very low. We know that we have to have a reasonable amount of operating costs. The reason I lead in with that is we captured those costs through 2022, from a known and measurable adjustment perspective in the Montana rate review. What you see here is structural increases in our base cost of labor. That's the biggest driver. We do see that as something that we'll continue to focus on recovering our costs as we go in. I think there's probably not anyone listening to this call that didn't get a pay raise in the last couple of years. If you saw the labor markets and the tightness there, that's what this represents. From a year-end perspective, we haven't given you that kind of guidance more clearly on the operating costs. I would tell you that we would expect a little bit of moderation there vs what you see in the% increase on a strict quarter-over-quarter basis. Those costs are definitely structural from a labor and benefits perspective of just the cost to do business and labor. Okay, great. Thanks. Then, on a year-to-date basis, you know, you're estimating that your pro forma EPS is about $1.75, assuming the Montana rate case gets approved. You know, I realize you haven't provided guidance, but just speaking high level, would it be reasonable to assume, you know, similar shaping, similar cadence in the back half for around $3.50 for the year, or just any high level guidance there? Thoughts. While we are not giving guidance, the comment I would probably make is that's probably reasonable now. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Robin. We will take our next call from Paul Fremont at Ladenburg Thalmann. Thank you very much. First, my first question would be on the Supreme Court constitutional challenge for Yellowstone. Can you give us any update on where that stands and whether hearings have been scheduled there? I think from our perspective, we feel good about the decision that the Supreme Court made on Yellowstone. That was certainly helpful. We are already hit. As a result of I believe it resulted in the stay that we received. It was helpful in that regard. I would just say that we're continuing to move forward with Colstrip. We have our permit that we need. Could there be future challenges on the plant? Certainly, we anticipate to continuing to move forward, build the plant. I think you saw the support that we have in the state for the plant and the need for our customers. We'll continue to forge through and make that happen. Paul, just follow up there, that there's been no movement in the schedule of that Montana Supreme Court filing. Once we have something, we'll update on that, but no change in the sense of when that might get docketed. Great. Then in terms of the timing of guidance, would that occur on the third quarter call, or would there be like a special call after the Montana Commission acts? That's a great question, and it will probably depend on exactly the direction the Montana Commission goes. I can't give you certainty, but certainly if we do decide to do something before Q3 call, we will make you all aware of it. The last question for me, with the South Dakota rate case filing, is that going to impact potentially you giving or delaying guidance for 2024, or is that not going to affect that? Paul, just as I earlier made the comment, there's statutory six months on that filing of before you can receive interim rates. We are working with them on, or with the South Dakota Commission. We've received data requests there. With regards to impacting either 23 or 24 guidance, it won't impact our timing of 23 guidance. With regard to 24 guidance, we certainly hope we can work with the Commission and resolve that docket in a timely fashion. Whichever way we go, it may either assume no outcome there or something in the lines, but I don't think it'll impact our guidance timing for 2024. It would contain certain assumptions if we have not reached a outcome in that docket yet. Great. That's it for questions for me. Thank you so much. Thanks, Paul. The next question we'll take is from Sophie Karp at KeyBanc. Hey, guys. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Good morning. Yes. Hey, first, maybe on the settlement approval process here. I was just curious if we should be thinking about any specific, you know, accounting adjustments or any discrete items that might accompany that settlement in the quarter when you receive it? Sophie, Crystal here, right. The thing I would just highlight for you, I think you're all aware that we received interim rates October 1st of 2022. Pending the outcome of the settlement, the impact will be retroactive. The thing I would just mention is there will be what I would call out-of-period impacts, in the sense of we would record some adjustment related to 2022 results. That's the item I would highlight, is there's likely impacts to that settlement that are related to out-of-period items. Certainly, when we record that, we will highlight and separate what is 2023 and ongoing structural vs what might be related to prior periods. Got it. that would basically be the difference between the interim rates and the rates authorized in the final settlement, final order? There's a variety of things in there, and certainly the discrete difference between interim and final is a piece of that. Got it. Got it. Okay, thank you. My other question was, I guess about the weather, right? The mild, rather mild shoulder season so far, and you flagged the negative impacts on volumes and margins. I was curious if you could comment on how the third quarter is shaping up so far, if there's a, you know, enough weather in the summer months so far to potentially maybe negate some of that negative impact from the second quarter on the full year results? One thing we'd say, and I think everyone's can appreciate this on the call, the U.S. as a whole continues to see extremely hot temperatures. Crystal mentioned earlier, we were in the high 90s in Montana yesterday. We continue to be hot throughout our service territory, and so July certainly is going to look good from a load perspective. I can't other than that, I really can't speak to how things are, will play out. All right. Thank you, that's all for me. Thanks, Sophie. We'll take our next question from the line of Jonathan Reeder at Wells Fargo. Hey, can you hear me okay now? You bet. Hey, thanks for taking my questions. Hey, good morning. Just want to know, Brian, how should we be thinking about the potential implications of the Montana IRP? I mean, I know the conclusion that, you know, more resources are going to be needed in the early 2030s. You know, it's pretty consistent with how you've talked about it in the past. You know, once you have the additions of Yellowstone and the additional Colstrip ownership. I know the IRP noted that the earliest an RFP would be potentially issued is mid-2024. Kind of what needs to transpire between now and then for you to move forward with, you know, an IRP and seeking more resources? Yeah, I think one thing, Jonathan, we need to also deal with is, you know, EPA's proposed rules here, are certainly could impact our coal-fired fleet. We need to seriously take a look at that. We need to work with the EPA and others in the industry to fully understand how that impacts our business, but more importantly, help get to a point where we can continue to operate those coal-fired plants to help us bridge, if you will, to cleaner resources. I think the timing associated with that IRP is appropriate where it sits today, but we're also going to have to probably accelerate some of our plans as a result of continued pressures from the EPA. Okay. In terms of, like, moving forward with, like, an RFP, would you be waiting to see? Like, I know the commission doesn't kind of rule on the IRP, but I think they do make comments. Like, would you be waiting to see what those comments are? Or is it, you know, completely all internal to this analysis around, you know, EPA's rule impact and stuff like that? We will, after the rate review's decision, we will continue to have a dialogue with the commission, make sure they're aware of these challenges. You know, we have given them a bit of heads up when the rules came out. They're certainly concerned about it. There'll be a dialogue and obviously from that will come forth with a plan in terms of how we address the IRP. Okay, great. Then kind of going to one of your comments and, in the remarks, just given that Montana's historical test year and, you know, mindful of the recently filed South Dakota rate case, how close do you think you can earn to the authorized levels, you know, when we look out to 2024 and beyond, you know, or perhaps, you know, kind of asked another way, how many basis points of structural regulatory lag kind of exists for you guys? Sounds like a great Crystal question, Jonathan, so. Jonathan, you are asking the, you know, our internal dialogue here. The CEO would like to pressure the CFO on that exact topic, but I'll give you my, you know, last year, I think we were in the 7.5 of an earned ROE from a 9.65. Obviously, we have to improve upon that. This rate case will move us, what I would suggest, and I think I've said publicly before, is around 100 basis points, is my guess. It will take another rate case, and we're thinking about that, to continue to work on. I think Brian started the call with saying our focus of regulatory execution is getting closer to our earned ROEs with a more reasonable amount of lag in there, given it's a historic test period. I would tell you that this will take a huge step forward. It won't get us all of the way. We're focused on, again, given the amount of investment, critical investment that's needed in infrastructure, making sure that we will be in for more frequent rate cases to address that. I would tell you after this one, I would suspect we'll be around, assuming the settlement is approved as is, that's my caveat that I'll say to everything, probably around 100 basis points of lag. I think other thing I'd add there, Jonathan, you know, having only 75% of our deemed rate base that's eligible to be earned upon, it's just way too low. We can't afford to put ourselves in that situation on a going-forward basis. No business would have, you know, three-quarters of their investment recovered. They want to be closer to 100% of that. Obviously, we just need to be more frequent to make sure that we're getting more frequent filers to make sure we can recover that investment. Yeah, no, agree. I mean, the case in South Dakota, you know, seems like a pretty large case. Did that surprise folks when you filed it, or, you know, had you kind of communicated the magnitude of the case coming and everything? I think the, you know, the commission is very supportive of the Bob Glanzer plant, and matter of fact, the commissioners were there for the opening. They understood that we would be coming in shortly after that large investment, and I think they know about the P&D investment associated that came with it. I can't react to the headline number at all, but I certainly know they are aware of the investment we've been making to support our customers in the state. Okay, great. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions and good luck on the Montana outcome and as the South Dakota process progresses. Thank you. Thanks, Jonathan. All right, we will take our next call from what I believe is the line of Paul Zimbardo at BofA. Paul, is that you? I just see a telephone number. Yes, it's Paul Zimbardo. Can you hear me okay? Perfect, Paul. Yep, we can hear you. Great. Great. Thank you all very much. Just to follow up on that $1.75 annualized question. Just what does that assume for the second half of the year on a cost perspective? Because, if I have it right, I think earnings tend to be a little bit first half weighted. Just curious what it assumes on the cost side, perspectively. Paul, you are fabulous at asking the guidance question in yet another way. The $1.75, I would say it this way, points to you for that one, is quantification of the settlement, if approved, as is to our first quarter results. We haven't given all of the guidance things that you're exactly asking about, which is the shaping of the back half of the year. I would tell you, we will give you more color on that once we see an outcome from the Montana Commission. No further details on that at this point. Crystal, may I offer one data point? Travis, you can always offer more than one data point if you would like. Paul, I was just reminding, Crystal did mention this earlier, but just as you're thinking about the, you know, even if you're looking back to 2022, that PCCAM pressure, we had the power markets blow out a bit in the third quarter. We had that $4 million of drag just on the PCCAM sharing alone in the third quarter, another $1.3 million in the fourth quarter. There was a lot of pressure in the fourth quarter last year. In addition, the property tax in the fourth quarter that we ended up truing up once we got our mill rates in. If you're, if you're bridging from last year to this year, there's, I would point to more, more tailwinds than headwinds. I think what Travis is nicely pointing out is the known and knowable. Yeah. You all heard me at the end of the year where we came in just south of our guidance and things that pushed us outside of that range was definitely that PCCAM impact of $0.10 total to last year. When you think about... Again, the assuming the Montana rate case outcome gives us that full base, you can already see the impact of power prices coming off, combined with a reasonable amount of base, PCCAM costs. It's certainly something that I think I would like to say will not be headwind for us this year, like it was the last couple of years. That's a great point that Travis is following up on there. Okay, excellent. Message received loud and clear. Thank you for that. I know you got asked a little bit about it, but just in terms of the weather in the quarter and, what you showed on the actual vs adjusted, the pretty large declines in electric, gas, even after you adjust out the weather, do you think some of that could be the breakdown of a shoulder period, weather normalization? I know you've had kind of this volatility in the past, so any color perspectives you could provide there would be helpful. Paul, what I would tell you is that, having worked closely with the prior CFO and his frustration at times on Q2 weather model impacts and how we get better at that, here we are, talking about our Q2 and our weather model impact. I will tell you it is absolutely consistent, and we want to present to you an approach that is always consistent, but I would certainly not tout it as perfect, and particularly in a shoulder season, when you look at, you know, light amount of both cooling and heating degree days and what the model does with that. We present to you what it spits out, but it may not fully capture what is weather impact to us. Again, it would be consistent. Something that you guys can think about as you're looking at the numbers. Okay. Sounds like the bias is towards the understating of the weather drag, effectively. I would certainly say that is a reasonable conclusion. Okay, great. Then the last one, if I have it right, you're planning to give him the five-year capital refresh slash roll forward with the next update. Just if there's any flavor on the base transmission distribution needs, any way to quantify it, even in terms of miles or some kind of heuristic, so we can calibrate there, would be helpful. Thanks again. It's a great clarification. I would, I would clarify what we expect to update once we hear from the Montana Commission. That would certainly be 2023 guidance from an earnings perspective and how we're thinking about that earnings perspective rolling forward. From a capital plan perspective, we did roll that forward at EEI last year, and consistent with our underlying planning processes and board approval, I would not expect a major capital refresh if we give that guidance earlier. The capital refresh we would do annually in that kind of November, December timeframe. I would separate the two a bit. The only other comment I would give there is, you know, that structural T&D investment there. There's a lot of work to be done on the system, and plenty to capture there. Again, I wouldn't expect us to update that until, more along the November timeframe for that longer-term capital look. Okay. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul. Next question in the queue is, Chris Ellinghaus from Siebert Williams Shank, or it could be Chris Ellinghaus, one of the two. Yeah, it's a good question. Either it's Chris or Chris Ellinghaus has a terrible cold. Both. First question for Brian. You mentioned that it's, you know, on a typical schedule for Montana, or this is normal. Lots of things are normal in Montana, I suppose. It's a pretty long process for a settlement to be approved, sort of on a national basis, four or five months. Is there a way to improve upon the process in any way to, you know, have, you know, settlement reviews not take four or five months? I think it's a fair question, Chris. I think Crystal made a good point earlier, though, that, you know, the briefing schedule brings you know, well into June. As we sit here a month, by the time the commission staff can kind of put together a summary of everything and provide advice to the commission, it doesn't appear that unreasonable. If they could reduce the briefing schedule, again, it's around a settlement, that I think would be helpful. I think Crystal summed it up well, the lawyers get the last word. I think that would be my recommendation. You have a settlement, why do we need to have all of that briefing associated with it? That would be my only thing. Again, I think the hearing and even this time period that we're waiting has been reasonable compared to some delays we've seen historically. Chris, the only thing I would add to that is the timeliness of interim rates we received while the commission works out this process, that having received interim rates effective October 1 last year, is really critical to then, if the commission needs to take a bit more time to fully get the order drafted, the impact to us is less significant. On that point, we had never received interim rates that quickly from the commission, so we certainly appreciated that. Right. Also, Brian, you talked about the customer growth. Given where customer growth is and sort of the, I'd call it, the acceleration in decarbonization in general, you know, are you thinking that sort of the tenor of your CapEx today is adequate for what you're seeing in terms of, you know, adjustments to load growth and customer growth? You know, do you see potential for adjustments to just the T&D component? Obviously, you talked about, you know, needing some additional capacity later, but do you feel like you're on the proper tenor or is there upside to that? My perspective, Chris, and I think there's a lot of discussion in this country about, you know, gas usage and thinking about long-term investment there. We continue to see great demand in our gas business as well, and that, of course, is concerning that from a capacity standpoint and from a transmission perspective. Also, electric transmission capacity is certainly much more important today, so I do feel upward pressure associated with addressing those needs. I have concerns there and obviously on the generation front. My concern there is pushing us to make decisions in generation modes. At the same time, we're trying to do something from a cleaner perspective, we're being pushed to do something sooner. We're doing something sooner, it's in addressing capacity and long duration capacity, we're going to be doing something that emits carbon. I'm trying to understand why... I understand the push to do things quickly, but with the technology where it sits today, we need a more reasonable period of time to address our capacity needs. Not 2027, we need more like 2037 to adequately do what the nation wants us to do to have cleaner generation. I think everyone on this call knows it's going to be extremely difficult to do that in the next five years. I, Chris, I would just say, there is a tremendous amount of investment we, this company needs to do to address our capacity needs, period. Sure. Okay. One for Crystal. You already gave us a really good start on the pro forma numbers, and I won't ask you to give us a guidance number, but when you do give guidance, given that you've already sort of given us a look at the first and second quarter, will you give us sort of your view of the seasonality of the remaining stub? Sure, Chris. I think that's a reasonable answer. I just from an overall seasonality for us, I would tell you that as I think about it, while I'm not giving guidance, we are winter and summer peaking, so we're a dual peaking utility. The amount of peak there, as you guys know, stays very cold December, January, February time. I think three months of sustained load impact vs when we see our summer peaks, those are typically a shorter amount of time. You know, Q4 and Q1 are really important to our earnings, Q3 as well, but a little less impactful than our summer peak. Particularly if we don't have the PCCAM drag, that usually offsets some of that favorability. That's the seasonality color I would give you as to how I think about it, and then I'll be mindful of that when we do give guidance as to how we're thinking about how that plays out throughout the year. Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Chris. With that, we have exhausted the queue, so I'll turn it back to Brian for any closing remarks from him. Hey, great questions. I appreciate folks thanking us for taking your questions, but more importantly, we appreciate you asking them. Again, we really appreciate the support all of you have provided to the company. Thank you. All right. Thanks again for joining us. That brings the webcast to a close. You may now disconnect.