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Conservatives have been vocal about our climate for years. Those voices won’t be ignored any longer.

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The Trump administration plans to announce Wednesday that it has reached a broad nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that could lead to the country enriching its own fuel for nuclear reactors, U.S. officials said. 

The accord is intended to further bind the United States with the Saudi government as the war with Iran strains the relationship. The Trump administration, according to officials, estimates it will provide billions of dollars for the U.S. nuclear industry — starting with Westinghouse, which designs many of the reactors sold abroad.

Read more in the New York Times here.

Saudis Reach Deal With U.S. That Could Let Them Enrich Nuclear Fuel

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The far-left environmental lobby has a problem with Rep. Bruce Westerman’s proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act. The Sierra Club calls them “nothing short of a tragedy.” The Center for Biological Diversity simply calls it the “Extinction Act.”

These slogans are alarming and completely disconnected from what the bill does and from the stubborn reality of a law that is failing in its very mission.

The ESA is one of the most important conservation statutes ever enacted. Its founding purpose was to pull imperiled species back from the brink of extinction and restore them to thriving populations. That is precisely why its failure demands action.

Read more in the Washington Times here.

Congress, amend the Endangered Species Act

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Americans’ attitudes toward data centers have grown increasingly sour and politically polarized in the past six months, a trend that signals trouble for the artificial intelligence industry and leaders of both parties, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll.

While growing opposition to the sprawling, server-packed data hubs is coming from both sides of the political aisle, it’s especially evident among Democrats, whose opposition to the projects has grown much faster than antagonism from Republicans, according to the July survey conducted by the independent polling organization Public First.

Read more in Politico here.

A growing political reckoning is coming for data centers, POLITICO Poll shows

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This article first appeared on National Review (www.nationalreview.com).

Time and again, a lighter touch on climate policy yields better outcomes for both individuals and the environment.

Here is a fact that should embarrass every climate activist: States with the most liberated energy markets in America are producing better environmental outcomes than the green mandators of Europe — and doing it without impoverishing their people in the process.

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Freedom, it turns out, is a remarkably effective environmental policy.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. For decades, Europe has proclaimed itself the vanguard of the environmental movement. Germany’s Energiewende — its sweeping top-down energy transition initiated in 2010 — was announced as the model every serious nation should follow. Germany shut down its nuclear plants, poured money into mandated renewables, and staked its future on wind generation in the North Sea and solar pulled from its perennially cloudy skies.

Germany does not stand alone. The U.K.’s Renewables Obligation scheme mandated aggressive renewable targets and layered green levies directly onto consumer bills. The Netherlands passed a legally binding Climate Act in 2019, committing to mandatory emissions reduction targets. Denmark required 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. With few exceptions, European nations liberally used the heavy hand of the state to force an energy transition and “de-carbonize” their economies.

The results were staggering — and painful.

Denmark’s mandates drove household electricity prices to among the highest in Europe. The Netherlands backed down from its emission targets after a revolt from the nation’s farmers. And Germany, formerly the beating industrial heart of the continent, is becoming a manufacturing backwater. German households already pay among the highest electricity prices in the developed world. Now, industrial giants like BASF are relocating production out of Germany, citing uncompetitive energy costs, and energy-intensive production in Germany dropped over15 percent from February 2022 to March 2026. Across the continent, the EU lost over 850,000 manufacturing jobs in four years.

The net impact is not environmental progress, but environmental arbitrage. When European factories close, production does not disappear. It moves — overwhelmingly to China, which generates more than 60 percent of its electricity from coal and has emitted more greenhouse gases than the entire developed world combined. Factory closures in Germany or Poland may cheer anti-industrial environmentalists, but only because they don’t see those factories reopen in Shenzhen or Guangzhou.

Thus, in return for economically immiserating their own people, Europe has not solved climate change. It has only outsourced it.

Americans are rightly perplexed by fatalistic Europeans who would rather endure unemployment, skyrocketing cost of living, and summers without air conditioning than accept marginally higher national emissions numbers. And Europeans can’t understand Americans who don’t take the “climate crisis” seriously.

In reality, Americans have always cared about the environment. We simply understand that enduring pain is not the same as being effective.

In America, we made incredible environmental gains with a growing economy thanks to the power of the market. As of last September, American carbon emissions dropped 20 percent since 2005. At the same time, from the mid-2000s, U.S. energy consumption remained steady for nearly two decades until it surged to record highs in 2024 and 2025, largely due to AI data center investments.

American emissions didn’t decline because California and Massachusetts out-Europed Europe, using mandates to make up for the rest of the country’s pollution. Rather, America is improving the environment thanks to a red-state energy revolution led by natural gas — which is replacing higher-emitting coal — with a little help from wind, solar, and batteries. Natural gas is the clear driving force behind this progress, but since many climate activists don’t view natural gas as green, let’s focus on wind and solar, where red states are still beating the greens at their own game.

>>>READ: How America Should Respond to China’s Industrial Dominance Playbook

Four of the top five states for total wind, solar, and battery energy generation — Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — are Republican states. Texas alone produced almost twice as much solar and wind energy as California. More than two-thirds of America’s added solar capacity in 2025 was built in states that voted for President Donald Trump, and 85 percent of clean-energy investments under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act headed to Republican districts despite every congressional Republican opposing the legislation. Green energy is flourishing in red-state America.

It’s no paradox. Ask any developer, and they will tell you why: Republican jurisdictions have lower taxes, fewer regulations, and a much more welcoming business environment. Republican states have renewable energy not because regulators demanded it, but because people had the freedom to build it.

Call it Econ 101. In a free market, producers naturally deliver the most energy at the lowest price to win the most dollars from consumers. Where that energy comes from doesn’t matter nearly as much as how much it costs. And red states would do even more if the federal government didn’t hold them back — the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ironically stifles renewable energy more than it does oil and gas.

>>>READ: From Net-Zero to Net-Abundance

Europe spent two decades proving that mandates impoverish people without saving the planet. At the same time, red states built wind farms, pipelines, solar arrays, and refineries by embracing the free market. The result is the most dynamic energy market on earth — and one that is getting cleaner every year.

This prompts a question for climate activists: Is it progress you want, or propaganda?

If the answer is progress, there’s never been a better time in history to embrace the power of freedom. It’s a win-win for people and the planet.

Red State Freedom Is Better for the Environment Than European Green Socialism

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As major fires burn across Colorado and Utah this summer, the broader Western lesson is hard to miss. Colorado’s Aspen Acres fire forced evacuations and destroyed more than 160 structures. Utah’s Babylon Fire passed 100,000 acres recently, the state’s first fire to reach that mark in eight years. Colorado officials also issued air-quality advisoriestied to wildfire smoke moving through the region. In the West, wildfire risk does not stop at a state line, and neither do the economic and environmental costs.

Wyoming knows that reality well. Wildfire affects rangelands, watersheds, wildlife habitat, recreation, public health and the economies of rural communities. It also affects core questions of economic policy: how communities protect infrastructure, how land managers reduce long-term risk, how businesses operate during smoke events and how states navigate federal rules that do not always fit Western conditions.

Read more in WyoFile here.

Wildfire prevention needs a better federal framework

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  • The levelized cost of electricity is on the rise for all types of generation, including renewables, but unsubsidized renewable energy “remains the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation,” according to Lazard’s 2026 Levelized Cost of Energy+ report, released Monday.
  • The forces driving a rise in LCOE for all types of generation include “higher capital costs, sustained interest rates, tariff pass-through and supply chain repricing,” Lazard said. 

Read more in Utility Dive here.

Renewables remain cheapest, but their LCOE is rising

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President Donald Trump said Sunday night he’s considering making Canada financially compensate the United States for economic damage caused by wildfire smoke that drifted from Canada into parts of the U.S. last week.

While speaking to reporters after returning from the World Cup final, Trump said he spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the match about the smoke that enveloped much of the Midwest and East Coast.

“I told him, ‘You got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air, our air’s been poisoned,’” he said. “I have a good relationship with Mark Carney, but, you know, we have got to stop the fires up there. If we can help them, we’ll help them, but maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs.”’

Read more in the Washington Examiner here.

Trump threatens Canada over wildfire smoke: ‘Maybe they should pay us some damages’

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Electricity rates are rising faster than inflation and are felt by households across America. After decades of flat electricity demand, the country is experiencing significant load growth, driven by hyperscale AI data centers, resurgent domestic manufacturing, and the steady electrification of buildings and vehicles. The need for new energy generation is growing as utilities aim to bring new natural gas, clean firm, and renewable capacity online over the next few years to keep power affordable and reliable. Importantly, this also means upgrading and expanding the country’s transmission infrastructure. Recently, the Department of Energy released the draft of its National Transmission Needs Study, the triennial, congressionally commissioned report on the state of the nation’s high-voltage backbone.

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The study’s topline findings indicate that the country needs a substantial buildout of new transmission infrastructure simply to keep pace with new demand. When a bottleneck in the transmission network prevents the cheapest power from flowing, grid operators are forced to rely on higher-cost resources, resulting in an uneconomic outcome felt by customers across the system. The study also finds that connecting regional grids delivers outsized reliability and cost benefits, and that many grid operators across the country are approving their largest transmission expansions on record. As the DOE report notes, incumbent utilities built 98 percent of new transmission from 2016-2024, and laws incentivize utilities to build small-ball lines that may not be the most cost-effective and that are shielded from competition. 

The need for additional transmission is not in dispute, though disagreements exist on how much is needed. However, how the transmission is planned and built, and who pays for it, are critical to ensuring that Americans receive power at the lowest possible cost. 

That’s the question a coalition of right-of-center policy groups took up earlier this year. In an April framework, C3 Solutions, Americans for Prosperity, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Abundance Institute, the American Conservation Coalition, the R Street Institute, and the Conservative Energy Network set out five principles for transmission reform, all centered on a simple idea: transmission exists to serve consumers, not to prop up any particular power source or pad a utility’s bottom line. 

For decades, transmission has been among the most poorly regulated parts of American infrastructure. Utilities receive a guaranteed return on whatever they build, which rewards new construction over cheaper upgrades to existing lines. Mandatory regional planning processes often crowd out voluntary, merchant-built transmission that could be delivered more efficiently and at a lower cost. States and localities can slow-walk permitting for reasons that have little to do with actual harm to residents. And in far too many parts of the country, there’s remarkably little transparency about how transmission decisions are made or who ultimately pays for them. Under today’s rules, the projects that get built are often the ones that are easiest to justify under a regulator’s cost-of-service formula, not the ones that deliver the most capacity per dollar. 

>>>READ: Closing the Local Project Loophole: The Case for Competitive Transmission

This group’s principles are relatively straightforward and should guide how the Trump administration and federal and state policymakers think about transmission policy reform: 

  1. Prioritize expanding and upgrading the existing transmission system. The quickest and least-cost ways to expand the transmission system are often upgrades to existing infrastructure. However, the cost-of-service regulatory model discourages transmission owners from pursuing upgrades voluntarily or from adopting solutions beyond in-kind replacements. Cost-of-service regulation should better align incentives so they do not favor any energy source over another and ensure “good utility practices” in adopting advanced transmission technologies and in the more efficient management of seams between regional transmission systems.  
  2. Remove barriers to greenfield transmission under the merchant transmission model. This model is economically advantageous because it relies on voluntary planning and cost allocation. However, it faces high regulatory barriers, under which it is routinely usurped by mandatory planning processes or deemed ineligible for compensation for providing key grid services. 
  3. Refine mandatory transmission planning and cost allocation practices, where necessary, to follow economic principles. Most of the greenfield transmission expansion will inevitably occur under mandatory planning and cost allocation processes run by utilities or regional transmission organizations (RTOs). The most economical manner to plan such projects is through robust cost-benefit and scenario analyses, planning horizons appropriate for long-lived infrastructure, allocating costs based on the beneficiary pays principle, and putting transmission needs or solutions out for competitive bid. Developers should have a reasonable expectation that beneficial transmission lines can be deployed.  This should include ensuring that developers have a credible means of proposing lines, that regulators evaluate them based on neutral criteria, and that, if selected, costs will be borne only by those who benefit, and only to the degree they benefit. 
  4. Streamline transmission permitting and siting. Priority improvements should be made at the state and local levels while protecting private property rights. These include tying permitting decisions to evidence of demonstrable harm (not speculation), improving information on project costs and benefits (including out-of-state), maintaining fairness across business models, and instituting appeals processes to vindicate the liberty of parties seeking redress on restrictive permitting and siting decisions. Any national changes to interstate transmission siting should only use federal backstop authority as a last resort. 
  5. Improve transmission governance. Greater transmission system transparency and accountability are needed across the country, but especially outside RTOs. Expanding the role of independent institutions, such as an Independent Transmission Monitor, to coordinate, audit, and assess transmission system operations and planning is warranted. Closing gaps in governance frameworks, such as the federal-state divide regarding local transmission projects, is imperative for cost containment. 

Interregional and cross-interconnection transmission can reduce costs for customers when lines are planned efficiently, and costs are allocated correctly. Greenfield transmission, combined with grid-enhancing and advanced transmission technologies, can enable the most economically efficient delivery of electricity to consumers. Simply adding new generation without evaluating how our high-voltage network can improve reliability at the lowest cost increases the risk of overbuild and stranded assets, costs that will fall directly on ratepayers. 

>>>READ: Blocking Data Centers Won’t Make Electricity Cheaper

As DOE opens its 60-day public comment period on the draft study, the real test for Congress and state regulators alike is whether the coming wave of transmission spending gets disciplined by transparency, competition, and robust cost-benefit analysis to protect taxpayers and ratepayers. 

DOE’s Transmission Needs Study Is Out. These Principles Should Guide the Policy

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Americans are worried about energy costs, grid reliability and falling behind China. The Supreme Court is about to weigh in on something that touches all three.

The case, Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, is one of the numerous climate litigation cases seeking to hold energy producers financially responsible for the purported consequences of climate change. Supporters view such lawsuits as an accountability tool; however, a more appropriate view is that these cases are a means of legislating through litigation.

In this case, Boulder, Colo., seeks to supplant established federal law with Colorado tort law. Federal law, under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other federal statutes and regulations, has long established the environmental standards that must be met by industrial and other operations that affect the environment. As they should be, these laws have been properly debated and passed by duly elected federal lawmakers. Colorado now seeks to start a patchwork state approach by subjecting businesses to local standards.  

Read more in The Hill here.

A Supreme Court climate case meets a changing scientific consensus

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“The endangered species list is not a dean’s list,” Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon said this week, standing near Big Sky, MT, with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the governors of Montana and Idaho. “It’s time this bear graduates.” After decades of federal control and an amazing tale of conservation success in America, the Interior Department has announced it will shift the daily management of the grizzly bear back to the states. Grizzly bears would, however, remain listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

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The proposed rule is a revision under the ESA’s 4(d) rule, which governs how a threatened species can be managed short of full delisting. While the full details will be released later this week, officials made sure to point out that this change would not come with an open season for the bear, nor its delisting. 

Northern Rocky Mountain governors and congressmen have long advocated for the delisting of grizzlies and the transfer of management back to the states. After two attacks in May, a fatal encounter in Glacier National Park and a separate incident that injured two hikers in Yellowstone, Montana Congressman Zinke tweeted “These tragedies are a sobering reminder that grizzly bear populations have recovered well beyond sustainable levels, and it is past time for the federal government to delist them and give states the management tools they need to protect both people and wildlife, “Delist the grizzly.” 

But have the Grizzlies actually recovered enough to be handed to the states to manage? Studies show they have.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the population in 1975, when the bear was listed, was a mere 700 to 800 in the lower 48. In 1993, the Service created a recovery plan that targeted recovery efforts in 6 ecosystems: the Greater Yellowstone, the Northern Continental Divide, the North Cascades, the Selkirks, the Cabinet Yaak, and the Bitterroot. 

>>>READ: What’s Going On With the Grizzly Bear Listing?

While repopulation efforts in the North Cascades and the Bitterroot ecosystems have been unsuccessful, many of the other recovery areas have met or even exceeded their recovery targets. Criteria for recovery include meeting population targets and a certain number of female bears with cubs identified. GYE’s recovery goal is a population between 800 and 950 bears. FWS counted 1,050 in 2024. The NCDE has 1,068 resident bears, exceeding their recovery goals as well. Every bear management unit that’s supposed to have females raising cubs in it does, in both ecosystems.

While more details are yet to be released, state management of grizzly bears can be beneficial for conservation. Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho all have existing grizzly bear management plans in place, built with years of input from state and federal wildlife managers. The NCDE and GYE already operate under interagency conservation strategies meant to guide bear management during the 5-year monitoring period following delisting. This move could also open the door to real incentive-based stewardship rather than top-down regulation, in which private landowners are rewarded for conservation. 

The Property Environment and Research Center has said in the past that moving management to the states, rather than a full delisting, can make litigation far less disruptive. Grizzly status has been changed numerous times since its delisting, resulting in a ping-pong match between states and the federal government. Each time there is a change, environmental groups sue. This middle ground is a great way to prove the states are ready to take over management. 

We’ve long known that states and tribes know best how to manage the wildlife close to home. Countless examples across the U.S. prove this, from the American Alligator to the Brown Pelican. It’s time to give the grizzly bears a shot at becoming the next conservation success story.

Interior Announces State Management of Grizzly Bears

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