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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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Conservatives have long understood that conservation is not about locking away America’s natural treasures, but stewarding them through responsible use so future generations can enjoy the same public lands that earlier generations worked hard to secure.

Just six years ago, President Donald Trump paid tribute to that legacy when he signed the original “Great American Outdoors Act” into law. That bill established the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF), which budgeted for countless infrastructure projects within our most precious landscapes. But that program expired last year, threatening the future of America’s natural inheritance.

Read more in Fox News here.

Congress should honor Teddy Roosevelt and conserve our outdoors for the next 250 years

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The Midwest and Northeast registered some of the worst air quality in the world last week as wildfire smoke shrouded cities from Minneapolis to New York in an apocalyptic haze. More than 100 million Americans were under air-quality alerts, with smoke even reaching Washington, D.C., by the weekend.

Most of the smoke came from Canada, where about 900 wildfires were burning by Friday. Over 100 were burning in northwestern Ontario alone. Fires are also raging in northern Minnesota and across the western United States, where another brutal fire season is underway. Nearly 80 large fires are uncontained nationwide, and more than 3.9 million acres have burned this year.

Read more in City Journal here.

Why America Keeps Choking on Wildfire Smoke

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This week, a reptile from the Florida Keys was added to the endangered species list. The Mole Skink may have a better chance of survival due to recent changes in regulations and an improved scientific landscape.

The 50-year era of “don’t-touch” conservation may have ended three weeks ago, after the Trump administration narrowed the definition of harm under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Harming an endangered species used to encompass damage to the land the species lives on. Landowners with endangered species were limited in how they could steward their plots of land. After all, endangered species’ recoveries relied on proactive efforts by landowners, which will remain intact regardless of the changing incentive structure of the ESA. The unnecessary penalties landowners had to incur were lifted, and conservation efforts will be able to fit the needs of the land and life rather than keeping the overburdening punishments of the ESA. 

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Harm once covered habitat degradation as well as direct injury to endangered plants and animals; now it covers only the latter. With the new ruling, construction projects will still prioritize recovery plans, and harm to species will still be minimized. Under the old rule, construction projects were curtailed due to the possible risk they could have on the local endangered flora and fauna.

However, shielding endangered species from all types of harm is like wrapping a child in bubble wrap: safe, perhaps, but unable to grow up and experience life. That excessive prevention has stifled American industry, and with it, economic progress. With the bubble wrap removed, endangered species must now coexist with American innovation, including the genetic technologies and procedures emerging to help save them.

>>>READ: To Save the Sequoias, Bring Back Good Fire

For instance, on June 25, Colossal Biosciences and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched the BioVault initiative to catalogue the DNA of every species listed in the ESA. Colossal Biosciences’ manager of conservation, Stefano Arango, announced that this “partnership aims to collect, sequence, and preserve living cells, reproductive tissues, and genomic material from more than 2,300 ESA-listed species so future scientists, wildlife managers, and conservation organizations have more tools to support recovery and resilience.” 

“America leads the world when we embrace innovation and put our best minds to work solving big challenges,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

But a genetic archive is not a cure. It is insurance against a worst-case scenario we should never reach: extinction. 

But BioVault should be understood as a complement to conservation on the ground, not a substitute for it. A genetic archive may preserve options for future researchers, but it cannot remove threats to extinction or manage a working landscape today. That requires landowners and local communities with the knowledge and incentive to act on the ground. 


>>>READ: Interior Announces State Management of Grizzly Bears

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and endangered species policy should reflect that principle. Supporting recovery and resilience beforehand will ensure species don’t reach that point. The goal now is balance: enough room for resilient nature to adapt and for America to build. Whether the rule change delivers a better future for Americans and the more than 2,300 listed species, something the previous ESA regulations, focused solely on non-human organisms never achieved, remains to be seen. 

A better ESA would reward measurable recovery, active habitat management, and private stewardship rather than rely so heavily on restrictions. It would also treat invasive species like the threat they are, and reward prevention and management of them.

In many cases, conservation requires active stewardship. By actively combating drivers of extinction, such as invasive species, the ESA would be stronger. Better prevention requires targeting the cause rather than the victim. Since 1973, when the ESA was passed, the law has prevented the killing, trapping and harming of any listed endangered wildlife — a provision that still makes sense. The federal land-use restrictions tied to habitat no longer do; habitat can be better shared.

Landowners and developers should be rewarded for stewardship, rather than penalized with outdated restrictions.

Airlines instruct passengers to secure their own oxygen masks before helping others. The same logic applies here: caring for other species shouldn’t come at the cost of our own progress. Conservation efforts can expand even as mining, oil, and other industries see a revival. 

The ESA was created for a clear reason: “various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development.” Now, thanks to that same growth and development, species can be genetically preserved. Preventing harm to endangered species no longer has to mean harming human progress. That is the symbiosis this reform is reaching for. 

Endangered Species Modernization and Genetic Rescue Will Flip The Script On Conservation

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking steps to speed up progress in plant science by calling on universities and stakeholders to help build new AI tools that can translate the huge amount of germplasm data the agency collects.

Through the Genesis Mission and the Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA), USDA is expected to launch an Agricultural National Science & Technology Challenge later this year. The Challenge will ask innovators to create practical solutions that pull together different types of information—like images, field data, and lab results—so scientists can quickly spot important plant and seed traits and develop crops that are more resilient and productive.

Read more from the USDA here.

USDA Asks Partners to Develop AI Solutions to Accelerate Crop Innovation

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Not long ago, the artificial intelligence boom lifted pretty much any stockwith a story to tell about serving electricity to data centers. Investors are getting more fretful about whether there will be enough power demand to go around. 

For them, selling into a tight market in the 2030s would be a nice way to fund the continued commercialization of their technologies. 

Exhibit A is Oklo, the nuclear-reactor developer backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Its shares have lost roughly 75% of their value since it briefly hit a valuation north of $25 billion last October, around the peak of AI power mania. Oklo has deals to provide more than 14 gigawatts of power for Meta and others, but has yet to secure key permits, let alone build a power plant. 

Read more in the Wall Street Journal here.

Investors Are Getting Pickier With Their AI Power Plays

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Many American power plants are stuck in a dysfunctional express lane. Energy Resource Interconnection Service, or ERIS was created to give generating facilities a faster, leaner way to connect to the grid without waiting in the main queue. Instead, in many markets, ​​ERIS today places fast-trackers on the same slow schedule as projects in the main line. When new, highly competitive generation cannot be connected to the grid in a timely way, a key affordability and efficiency opportunity is left on the table.

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The distinction between ERIS and its busier counterpart, Network Resource Interconnection Service (NRIS) is an important one, and relates to the grid’s capacity to handle newly generated power. With NRIS, developers want full, firm access to the grid, so the grid operator studies what new infrastructure must be built so the plant can inject power even when the system is stressed. This creates increased certainty for the generator, backed by detailed studies and upgrades, but also more cost and longer timelines; ERIS is supposed to be different.

When a generator joins the ERIS queue, it agrees to be turned down, or curtailed, when the local grid is under strain. It doesn’t demand firm injection rights at all times. In principle, that flexibility should allow operators to study ERIS projects under lighter criteria, because the plant can be dialed back rather than forcing the grid to be rebuilt around it. That should mean fewer required upgrades, faster interconnection and lower costs than NRIS. 

But ERIS is failing to deliver these advantages today. Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Duke University have shown that ERIS projects are increasingly facing similar upgrade costs and multi-year wait times as NRIS ones. Some of that reflects a genuine decline in unused capacity on our existing infrastructure, but it also reveals a deeper flaw in how energy‑only projects are studied.

When transmission providers study a non-firm project, they often use highly conservative planning assumptions, treating ERIS resources as if they must deliver even when grid capacity is scarce. In other words, they model ERIS projects as always needing to be accommodated, and then identify and assign major network upgrades to make that possible. That approach runs counter to the fundamental purpose of ERIS: to manage scarcity by curtailing flexible resources, not by asking flexible participants to unnecessarily upgrade the system. 

>>>READ: A Consumer-First Framework for Transmission Reform

There is a more efficient way to handle these constraints, and it’s called operational redispatch. Redispatch is simply when grid operators turn some plants up and others down so electricity flows keep the equipment operating within safe limits. If an ERIS plant sits behind a constraint, the operator can run generation on closer to where power is needed—on the other side of the constraint—and temporarily turn the ERIS plant down. When such a bottleneck isn’t present, the ERIS plant runs and displaces more expensive generation.

Texas’ grid shows what an operationally grounded, energy‑only approach can look like. The ERCOT “connect and manage” model allows new generators to interconnect quickly as long as baseline reliability standards are met, without requiring them to fund large transmission upgrades just to begin delivering power. Economic congestion and operational constraints are managed through redispatch, curtailment, and market signals. This framework has allowed the Lone Star State to connect more generation than any other major U.S. region, while keeping average electricity prices among the lowest in the country. Nonetheless, the state’s reliability and planning debates underline why broader consumer-first grid policy remains imperative.

Congress now has an opportunity with the Grid Connection and Congestion Management Act, introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), to ensure that energy-only does not translate into energy-never in FERC‑regulated markets. The bill paves a path forward on ERIS by directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to establish a true energy-only service option. This offering should define clear study assumptions focused on reliability, limit when ERIS projects can be assigned upgrade costs, and study projects independently to ensure efficient application processing. In exchange for accepting curtailment risk, ERIS developers should enjoy cheaper, faster access to the grid where it’s available. That trade is squarely in the interest of consumers, as long as the costs of any necessary upgrades are fairly allocated to the customers and projects that actually benefit, rather than quietly shifted onto captive ratepayers.

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

To be sure, none of this replaces the need to upgrade and expand the broader power grid. New high-voltage transmission that links regions and interconnections remains vital to keeping electricity both affordable and reliable over the long term. But reforming the Energy Resource Interconnection Service process can help inject competition into power prices across the United States while making better use of the equipment that ratepayers have already paid for.

With new electricity demand on the horizon, getting affordable generation online quickly has to be part of the solution. Fixing ERIS is an early, sensible way to move the needle. Congress should give FERC the direction it needs to reopen this fast track, so competitive projects can get onto the grid and help lower utility bills for American households and businesses.

Energy‑Only, Not Energy‑Never: A Better Path for Generator Interconnection

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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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Subscribe for ideas that support the environment and the people. 

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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