What Made the Democratic Party Go Crazy? thumbnail

What Made the Democratic Party Go Crazy?

By Victor Davis Hanson

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

The Democrat Party abandoned the middle class for elites and identity politics—trading broad appeal for globalism, DEI dogma, and political self-destruction

The answer was not Trump alone.

Indeed, irony abounds when Democrats resonate with the claims of the vestigial Never Trumpers that the MAGA movement “hijacked” the Republican Party.

In characteristic projectionist fashion, the left is simply falsely attributing to their opposition the very hijacking that hit the Democratic Party.

The Republicans are still the party of conservatism and traditionalism. But in the last decade, it adopted an expansionary middle-class agenda that has led to record party registration, its first popular presidential vote victory since 2004, and control of all three branches of government.

The MAGA emphases also have accomplished what prior “moderate” Republican presidents and presidential candidates had sought but largely failed to achieve: making inroads with minorities and youth and substituting class commonalities for racial chauvinism.

Thus, in 2024, 55 percent of Hispanic men and somewhere around 25 percent of black males voted for Trump—along with a +2 advantage for Trump among young men in general (18-29).

In contrast, Joe Biden left office with below 40 percent popularity in many polls. His replacement, 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, despite a substantial advantage in funding and overwhelmingly biased, favorable media coverage, lost both the popular and Electoral College vote.

Since the election, a variety of data points show a steady erosion in Democrat Party favorability (24 percent positive polling) and voter registration (for the first time in memory, Republicans are out-registering hemorrhaging Democrats in new voter affiliations).

They are also on the losing end of a 40/60 split among voters on most issues—especially the border, energy, crime, transgenderism, and foreign policy—a truth that even the legacy media cannot disguise.

The Democratic implosion does not necessarily mean they will not win back the House in the next election. Historically, it is difficult for even an unpopular out-party not to pick up lots of House and Senate seats in an administration’s first midterm. But if Democrats capture at least the House, the vote will not be for their party’s policies or politicians as much as a reflection of their ginned-up opposition to Trump, the messenger of a radical and controversial counterrevolutionary message.

The Democratic project is bleeding out because it either does not address what the middle class is worried about, or it offers no solution to popular anger—namely over inflation, the out-of-control DEI commissariat, illegal immigration, crime, high energy prices and tyrannical Green New Deal policies, steep interest rates, unaffordable housing costs, and anemic foreign policies.

Instead of winning on issues, the left resorts to melodramas that no one believes in anymore: the planet is about to boil, requiring net-zero elimination of affordable fossil fuels!

Institutionalized DEI bias is necessary to make up for past and present “toxic” white supremacy/privilege/rage!

Illegal aliens are the oppressed who have a perfect right to enter and reside in the U.S. without legal permission!

The plight of a large and victimized transgender community is the new civil rights cause célèbre!

“Words matter” correctness seeks to coin strange vocabulary and usage—Latinx, “preferred pronouns,” “undocumented migrant,” “trigger warnings,” “safe spaces”—along with toppled statues, changed names, and a rebranded U.S. founded in 1619.

But while the public knows how the left/Democratic agenda is imploding, they are confused over why the Democratic Party is hellbent on such nihilist missions.

Why did Democrats become unrecognizable to the middle class, and who is responsible for their collective self-destruction?

There are four root causes of the wreckage of the Democrat Party.

Globalization

Globalization asymmetrically enriched the bicoastal, liberal elite—in big tech, international corporations, the media, academia, law, government, etc.—with new worldwide markets and audiences.

In contrast, muscular labor and resource extraction involved in assembly, manufacturing, farming, construction, mining, timber, oil, etc., were sometimes offshored, outsourced, or ossified due to “free” but not fair trade.

So Democrats went giddy at the millennium when both billionaires and affluent professionals—often from the new trillions of dollars in market capitalization in Silicon Valley and Wall Street—trended left-wing.

Who then needed the middle class when Democrats now had huge financial and political resources in government, foundations, NGOs, the media, and higher education to affect public opinion, change voting laws, and outspend Republicans?

So Democrats became a utopian elite cadre of the very wealthy who would patronize and take care of the subsidized poor, both as psychological penance to assuage their guilt over their own newfound global riches and to solidify poorer voters with expansionary entitlements.

Illegal Immigration

The left knew its issues were not winners, so they began at the millennium redefining “illegal immigration” as “legal immigration” or just “immigration” and even “migrant.” The result was that by 2025, 55 million residents and citizens of various statuses were not American-born—a record 16 percent of the U.S. population.

From 2021 to 2025, 10 to 12 million illegal aliens had been added to the pool of some 20 million existing resident illegal aliens. The left sought to mainstream these immigrants—from mostly poor countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia—into Democratic constituents, either in the first or by the second generation.

The left’s appeal was twofold: both generous welfare and support subsidies, and a DEI message that as the supposed “non-white,” new immigrants became “victims” the second they set foot onto U.S. soil.

As the instantaneously oppressed, new immigrants had concocted grievances of “racism” against the majority culture—to be redressed by progressive-provided DEI/affirmative action in appointments, hiring, and admissions.

New mail-in and early ballot Covid-era rules were designed to end the audit and authentication of ballots and tailored to accommodate those who might vote without the bother of citizenship.

The new immigrants understood that Democrats gave them an instant pathway to the middle class through racial and ethnic preferences, after the Obama-era new concepts of “diversity.” It had redefined the old affirmative action black/white binary of 12/88 percentages into a huge, victimized class of 30 percent of the population, who were now portrayed as oppressed by the 70 percent majority and thus deserving of special treatment. Class and wealth no longer mattered and were thus replaced by superficial appearance and race, and gender.

Ironically, however, the Frankenstein monster of massive illegal immigration and DEI pandering proved fatal to the old liberal Dr. Frankenstein.

The new radical first and second generations—e.g., an AOC, an Ilhan Omar, a Zohran Mamdani—demanded from the party of their condescending fossilized benefactors (a Nancy Pelosi, a Chuck Schumer, the Clintons, etc.) radical redirections on the issues. Suddenly, there were venomous anti-Israeli and unapologetic pro-Hamas protests on campuses, as over 1 million foreign students swarmed into higher education.

DEI took on an overtly and radically racist tone as evidenced most recently by Joy Reid’s vile pseudo-scientific rants about “mediocre white men,” the sick racist prior mutterings of New Yorker writer Doreen St. Feliz about dirty white and plague-ridden people in history, or the past craziness of Sacramento State President Luke Wood and his half-educated agenda of “eliminating whiteness.”

The Rise of the Guilt-Ridden Professional

Globalization did not just launch the Google creators, Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman, Lisa Jobs, George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg, and a host of other billionaires, but also a secondary class of millions of wealthy and privileged bicoastal professional underlings. From La Jolla to Seattle and from New England to Washington, DC, these credentialed and titled experts saw themselves at the end of history.

As the new degreed aristocracy, no longer was their time and money needed to address adequate housing, fuel, food prices, transportation, or health care. Instead, they were freed to worry globally, especially about whether red-state hoi polloi’s ignorance might endanger their own beatific lives.

Thus were born radical climate change psychodramas, the transmogrification of civil rights into racial bias and prejudice, and radical cosmopolitanism that saw the EU, the UN, Davos, and all their appendages as enlightened models to nullify the global losers in the interior of America, who were now dubbed clingers, irredeemables, deplorables, chumps, dregs, and garbage.

Higher Education

Elite universities have become fabulously rich and globalized. The bicoastal elite prized gilded letters after their names—BA, MA, MBA, JD, MA, PhD, MD—from the ‘right’ places: the Ivy League, Stanford, Berkeley, or the tony four-year colleges like Amherst, Brown, Pomona, Williams, etc. Alumni gave liberally to elite campuses and advocated that others, like-minded but even richer, top their donations.

Over a million foreign students flocked to higher education, paying 110 percent tuition, room, and board premiums—without background audits. Student loans surged to $1.7 trillion, delighting universities that jacked up their charges accordingly. To suggest that even a small percentage of 300,000 Chinese students were actively engaged in espionage, or that 50-60,000 students from illiberal regimes in the Middle East were at the forefront of the new anti-Semitism, was considered “nativist,” “xenophobic,” or “racist.”

Universities with new multibillion-dollar endowments opened global campuses abroad, without worry over the anti-American or anti-liberal values of their overseas partners. They sought billions of dollars in foreign contributions.

Endowments soared to 30, 40, and 50 billion in the Ivy League and elite campuses. Administrators and their staff grew exponentially to rival the number of students, all to handle the new all-purpose university (“Center for…[fill in the blanks of the oppressed or climate change brand]) that was therapeutic, left-wing, and indoctrinating.

The goal was no longer impartial education but overt ideological bias. Unquestioned was the campus orthodoxy that the U.S. was hopelessly traditional and conservative, so left-wing higher education was not so much prejudicial but a needed “balance” to a clueless American public.

No longer were crackpot ideas of the faculty lounge—the world would boil over in a decade, biological men could compete against and dress with women, and the most affluent and privileged nonwhite immigrants were victimized and eligible for DEI preferences—just esoteric. Now they were mainstreamed into the policies of the Democratic Party, as well as the administrative state, from the Department of Education and DOJ to the Pentagon, FBI, and CIA.

Add it all up, and there is no more Democratic Party as America once knew it.

The Democrats abandoned the middle class because they saw it as a global loser and themselves as worldwide winners. They now had the institutions and the big money, along with the leverage of millions of high-paid coastal professionals in law, the media, the university, and the administrative state to win elections by outspending, out-broadcasting, and out-regulating their clueless opponents.

Only the Neanderthals worried about how to buy a small house. The real winners worried about what the latest fad was in natural kitchen counters, cabinets, and flooring. Only the deplorables fretted about electricity costs and gas prices rather than their far more important carbon footprint. Only the blinkered thought about crime, because they lacked the intelligence or savvy to live safely and securely in the right zip code.

The elite university became the farm team for the new elite. Its position papers, grant-funded “research,” and the latest “studies” would supposedly provide the expertise, the “authorities,” and the “experts” to provide the necessarily “correct” analysis of climate change, race, crime, immigration, and foreign policy.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were the last Democrats to go through the motions of appealing to the middle class. But in retirement, they both cashed in, went global, and became multimillionaires by selling their name and brand—and so joined the madness.

*****

This article was first published at American Greatness and is reproduced here with permission

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The Odd Enemies Of Nuclear Energy thumbnail

The Odd Enemies Of Nuclear Energy

By The Editors of Capital Research

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

It’s silly & hypocritical enough that lefty climate nonprofits oppose carbon free nuclear power. But why are religious and civil rights groups joining them?

Anti-nuclear advocacy is a booming business. There are more than 300 anti-nuclear nonprofits in America, including powerhouses such as the Sierra Club, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Environmental Defense Fund.  Their combined annual revenue now exceeds $3 billion. But it also persists in unlikely groups such as the League of Women Voters (LWV), the NAACP, and Church World Service.

Why do they hold these positions? The answer is a combination of two factors: low information and what Mike Watson of the Capital Research Center has referred to as “Everything Leftism”.

Nuclear energy has a branding issue, and those who oppose nuclear power exploit the uninformed to push their agenda. A 2024 report by Bisconti Research found that the more people know about nuclear energy, the more likely they are to favor it. In the report, only 4 percent of men and 6 percent of women who were well informed strongly opposed its use. Within the uninformed camp, 51 percent of women and 44 percent of men oppose nuclear energy.

This is especially true on the political left. Pew Research found that while Democrats overwhelmingly support expanding clean energy initiatives like wind and solar, with rates of near 90 percent support, only 49 percent of Democrats support expanding nuclear energy.

The lack of support for nuclear energy among Democrats seems contradictory as it is the most powerful, scalable, and reliable clean energy source. Everything Leftism is to blame.

Everything Leftism is the idea that every material issue is connected and requires a holistic solution. Thus, every leftist advocacy group must align with the rest of the left on all other issues. This collective view underpins why racial justice groups and feminist groups take positions on nuclear energy. Everything Leftism turns climate change from a scientific debate to a societal injustice, allowing for headlines such as “Climate Change and Women’s Rights: Intertwined Crises”.

With environmental issues on the table for everything leftists, uninformed advocacy groups were persuaded to adopt the anti-nuclear platforms of leftist climate nonprofits. Often this results in countless groups signing onto petition letters like an April 2021 letter where 520 co-signers urged then-President Biden to oppose nuclear energy.

Back in the 1980s the National Organization for Women adopted a resolution that declared nuclear power to be “a threat to the health and reproductive rights of people.” This resolution was still included in their policy manual as late as 1996.

The League of Women Voters’ opposition to nuclear energy began with a 1979 Resolution and still persists. They signed onto an August 2021 letter to Congress which called nuclear energy “too dirty, too dangerous, too expensive, and too slow to solve the climate crisis.” In 2022, a local chapter of the LWV wished to consider nuclear energy alongside its other clean energy initiatives. However, the resolution was shot down by the national chapter because it referred to nuclear energy as “clean”.

Once these false narratives take root institutionally, they are difficult to dislodge.

The NAACP also passed a resolution opposing nuclear energy in 2018. They do not provide a reason for opposing nuclear energy other than deciding to lump it in with fossil fuels as unclean, unsafe, and unnatural. In the fifteen preambular clauses of the resolution, one mentions nuclear energy; the other fourteen only address fossil fuels.

The anti-nuclear clause states, “Instead of exploring fundamentally safer, renewable forms of energy, most fossil fuel industries are still clinging to the use of nuclear or more profitable, but equally, if not more harmful fossil fuels methods, such as natural gas and carbon capture sequestration.”

After wrongfully conflating nuclear energy with fossil fuels, they provide no other explanation for their opposition. Nevertheless, the resolution states that the NAACP “stands in opposition to nuclear energy and attempts to avoid the much needed, inevitable energy transition by merely converting from one fossil fuel source to another.”

The desire to be aligned with climate left activists and misunderstand nuclear energy led them to resolve against something completely unrelated to their mission to advance racial equity.

Even religious groups join anti-nuclear efforts.

Church World Service (CWS) is one of the richest faith-based nonprofits that signed a letter opposing nuclear energy. Their stance emerged out of CWS’ support for the “nuclear refugees” following the Fukushima earthquake and subsequent reactor meltdown. While this 9.0 on the Richter scale earthquake claimed over 19,500 lives, there was only a single fatality attributed to radiation exposure–a cancer diagnosed six years after the incident.

Yet, CWS’ initial compassion following this devastating natural disaster has developed into a blanket renouncement of nuclear energy. At least ten separate religious groups also signed onto a May 2021 letter rejecting nuclear energy as “unproven and unnecessary technology” and a “harmful energy source”.

The devil works hard, but anti-nuclear groups work harder.

*****

This article was published by Capital Research and is reproduced with permission.

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Regulating C02 Has Lead To Global Imbalances

By Duggan Flanakin

The global push to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, based on the questionable premise that increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere threaten to trigger a global climate catastrophe, has wreaked havoc on energy and economic development in the United States, Europe, and Africa while giving so-called “emerging” nations like China and India a virtual free pass.

Europeans and Americans are just beginning to awaken from the deep slumber that was about to result in a Chinese takeover of global automobile sales, thanks to their lower priced (subsidized) electric vehicles that are powered by Chinese-made batteries using Chinese-processed lithium and other critical minerals that they had stockpiled for decades while the West slept.

By contrast, the decision by Western powers to deem China and India as “developing nations” exempt from early restrictions on emissions has had dangerous geopolitical repercussions – and even allowed Russia to further disrupt Western economies.

As of July 2025, China has 1,195 coal-fired power plants, while India has 290 – far more than the United States or any other nation – and most of these have been built in the 21st Century, whereas nearly every coal-fired power plant in the U.S. and Europe is much older.

Chinese coal production and consumption in 2024 were about 4.78 billion metric tons, over half the world’s total, with India (at 1.09 billion tonnes) and Indonesia (at 836 million tonnes) in second and third place. Australia and the U.S. each totaled about 464 million tonnes, with Russia not far behind (at 427 million tonnes).

The absurdity of favoring China – a nation with a huge military that uses its freely given natural resource and renewable energy products advantages to increase its global sway – over the poverty-ridden nations of Africa is not just cruel and unusual. It is suicidal for Africa and extremely costly for the U.S., which is at the forefront of warding off Chinese expansion.

The concept of criteria pollutants was incorporated into the 1990 Amendments to the 1970 Clean Air Act. Those pollutants were particulate matter, ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and lead. Carbon dioxide – the so-called pollutant added by the Supreme Court in 2009 – is not referenced in the statute.

By 2009, the Clean Air Act had been quite successful in reducing emissions of criteria pollutants from coal-fired power plants – at considerable expense to operators. Power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide fell from 16 million tons per year to just 6 million tpy between 1990 and 2009 and to about 1 million tpy by 2019.

These reductions required electric utilities to switch to lower sulfur coal, add scrubbers to remove sulfur dioxide emissions, and find other ways to achieve compliance (including shutting down less profitable units) – or just switch to another fuel source.

Similarly, smog-inducing nitrogen oxides emissions from coal-fired power plants during “ozone season” fell from 2.75 million tons in 1990 to 800,000 tpy in 2009 to under 200,000 tpy in 2019. Overall nitrogen dioxide emissions fell from 6.5 million tpy in 1990 to 2 million tpy in 2009 and to just 400,000 tpy by 2019. In short, the nation was well on its way to winning the battle to control criteria pollutants by 2009 – and those victories today are nearly total.

Total emissions of the six criteria pollutants decreased by 42 percent between 1990 and 2005 and continued to decline even with increasingly stringent standards. But by then, the EPA had “discovered” that carbon dioxide regulation could give its bureaucrats new life – and a new mission to keep its bureaucrats employed.

The arm-twisting bullying of entire nations – let alone industrial giants and middle-class households – was based on the shaky, ever-changing “science” of “climate change” and augmented in importance by manipulation of computer-generated “scary scenarios.”

But in 2015, Christiana Figueres, as executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention of Climate Change, let the cat out of the bag. At a Brussels news conference, Figueres said, “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally – within a defined period of time – to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

In short, the goal of Figueres and entire cadres of environmental activists at the highest level was not to save the world from ecological calamity. It was to destroy the capitalist system that had built a modern society that lifted billions out of drudgery and poverty and even today gives hope even to the world’s poor.

Naturally, those declaring the “war on climate change” (like Al Gore and John Kerry in the United States) found ways to line their own pockets and reputations in the process.

These paeans of propriety, viscounts of virtue signaling, ignored the stark reality that their myopic approach to “saving the planet” enabled China to lead the world with carbon dioxide “emissions” totaling 13.26 billion metric tons, or 34 percent of the global total.

By contrast, Africa, with 17 percent of global population, in 2021 was responsible for only 4 percent of the global total. That share could not grow largely because Africans were systematically denied funding for fossil fuel power plants in a continent with at least 600 million with no access to electricity.

These numbers alone confirm that the goal of the UN and other “climate hawks” was never reducing global carbon dioxide emissions but rather crippling Western industry. The massive efforts to stifle African energy development (or force African nations to develop in ways that benefited European industries through the purchase of “carbon credits”) was at best a temporary sop to distract those industries from the longer-term goal – of global governance.

Oddly enough, the same entities that once supported the “clean energy” campaigns in the name of saving the planet, today are desperate for new sources of reliable, affordable energy. Data centers, blockchains, and other high-end electricity users are hoping that a nuclear energy resurgence, coupled with onsite power plants, will keep their machines running even as the competition for cooling water clashes with the thirstiness of growing urban populations.

A recent report from the Energy Information Administration says that U.S. electricity consumption is once again on the rise, following more than a decade of stagnation. As expected, the rise is attributed largely to data centers and manufacturing establishments. This growth in demand has spurred expansion in generating capacity and electricity storage (at best an emerging technology that has a long way to go).

Worldwide demand is up dramatically, even as many nations still struggle with UN-imposed restraints on their ability to meet that demand. The Biden-era push to make everything in the U.S. run on solar, wind, and geothermal generated electricity has added even more to power generation shortfalls – and increasing costs for electricity, especially in states that kowtowed to the “climate catastrophe” hysteria.

As African nations shake off the neocolonialist strictures and use their own funds to build out their electric grids, and as the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, many European nations return to energy sanity (and as more companies switch production away from China), the global imbalances may begin to diminish – but much damage has been done and a level playing field is a long way out.

*****

This article was published by CFACT, The Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and is reproduced with permission.

Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy”: America Is Fast Returning as an Energy Superpower thumbnail

Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy”: America Is Fast Returning as an Energy Superpower

By The Geller Report

He saved this country.

Trump vows US ban on wind and solar projects as energy bills soar: ‘Days of stupidity are over’

In 2022, The American Energy Alliance began keeping a tally of all the actions Biden and the Democrats had taken to make it harder to produce oil and gas. Only two years into Biden’s term, the AEA had 125 items on its list. By the time Biden left office, the list had doubled in size. …

A recent analysis by the Energy Policy Research Foundation found that the first Trump administration averaged 1244 onshore oil and gas leases per year in the lower 48 states, but the Biden administration issued only 219 on average per year.

On his first day back at the White House, Trump signed dozens of executive orders, including his order “Unleashing American Energy.” The AEA started a new list that tallied up the actions that Trump and Congressional Republicans were taking to unleash America’s energy potential. The first edition, released in March, contained 50 actions. Last week, they updated the list for Trump’s first 200 days in action, and the newest list contains 200 items. …

Trump vows US ban on wind and solar projects as energy bills soar: ‘Days of stupidity are over’

In 2022, The American Energy Alliance began keeping a tally of all the actions Biden and the Democrats had taken to make it harder to produce oil and gas. Only two years into Biden’s term, the AEA had 125 items on its list. By the time Biden left office, the list had doubled in size. …

A recent analysis by the Energy Policy Research Foundation found that the first Trump administration averaged 1244 onshore oil and gas leases per year in the lower 48 states, but the Biden administration issued only 219 on average per year.

On his first day back at the White House, Trump signed dozens of executive orders, including his order “Unleashing American Energy.” The AEA started a new list that tallied up the actions that Trump and Congressional Republicans were taking to unleash America’s energy potential. The first edition, released in March, contained 50 actions. Last week, they updated the list for Trump’s first 200 days in action, and the newest list contains 200 items. …

Read: The-Economic-Benefits-of-Unleashing-American-Energy

Climate Depot: The American Energy Alliance has been tracking the actions that roll back Biden-era restriction and positive moves that serve for the renewal of energy exploration and development: On his first day back at the White House, Trump signed dozens of executive orders, including his order “Unleashing American Energy.” The AEA started a new list that tallied up the actions that Trump and Congressional Republicans were taking to unleash America’s energy potential. The first edition, released in March, contained 50 actions. Last week, they updated the list for Trump’s first 200 days in action, and the newest list contains 200 items…. A recent analysis by the Energy Policy Research Foundation found that the first Trump administration averaged 1244 onshore oil and gas leases per year in the lower 48 states, but the Biden administration issued only 219 on average per year. Under the second Trump administration, the Bureau of Land Management began issuing leases on public lands by Jan. 31.

New York Sun: Stephen Moore: The rapid revival of America as an energy superpower under Mr. Trump should come as no surprise. This is continuation of a 15-year trend thanks to the fracking and horizontal drilling revolution that has nearly tripled America’s annual production…. What’s impressive about the Trump oil production spike is that it’s happened even as the global spot price of oil has fallen. In other words, we’re getting the best of both worlds: made-in-America energy AND low prices at the pump. The Energy Information Administration reports forecasts that gas prices will keep falling to less than $3 a gallon by next year. That is, unless you live in California, where gas still costs more than $5 a gallon.… One of Mr. Biden’s first executive orders was to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline to slow oil and gas delivery across the country. Mr. Trump rescinded the order on the first day of his second term, making oil and gas production a national security and economic priority. As a result, we are looking at a future with America dominating global energy markets, and prices here at home continuing to fall.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Record Electricity Demand Signals the Need for New Reliable Power thumbnail

Record Electricity Demand Signals the Need for New Reliable Power

By Paige Lambermont

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

In July, two separate records for hourly power demand were set for the Lower-48 states. Amid summer heat on July 28th, demand hit 758,000 megawatts (MW) for the hour between 6 PM and 7 PM. The next day, demand climbed even higher, breaking the record at 759,180 MW. The previous record of 745,020 MW was set in July of 2024.

This record-breaking power demand shows that the projections for increased power demand are real and beginning to materialize. As new data centers are built for artificial intelligence and other applications, and more appliances and vehicles are electrified, demand for electricity will continue to climb. 

Rising power demand will require more reliable power plants to meet that need. In recent years, subsidies for wind and solar through the Investment Tax Credit, Production Tax Credit, and other sources have contributed to more of these facilities being built. These credits have also allowed wind and solar to undercut the prices of more reliable power sources in market auctions, making the reliable facilities less economically solvent. The reconciliation bill passed in July will phase out these credits for facilities starting after December 31st, 2027. This phase-out is a great step, but plenty of market distortion has already occurred.

New intermittent power has been built while reliable power—such as nuclear, natural gas, and coal plants—has been retired. As this pattern continues, the intermittency of these sources, combined with the closure of reliable units, becomes more of a problem for the reliability of the power grid. 104 gigawatts (GW) of reliable capacity is projected to retire by 2030, which will further exacerbate this problem. As power demand continues to rise, the need for reliable capacity will only become more apparent.

Meeting this rising demand will require keeping existing reliable power plants online and easing the regulatory burdens to build new reliable capacity. Broad-based, technology-neutral permitting reform is essential to allow sufficient new capacity to be built quickly enough.

This permitting reform should amend the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and other environmental laws because they all impose significant permitting obstacles. These obstacles form a web of costly and time-consuming hurdles for those looking to build new energy infrastructure. Reforming these laws in a way that removes redundancy would go a long way towards meeting impending demand growth.

Overall, new reliable power is needed, or reliability will suffer. Making it easier to build that power in the near-term is essential.

*****

This article was published by The Independent Women’s Forum and is reproduced with permission.

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Scientists Lying About Science II thumbnail

Scientists Lying About Science II

By John Droz, Jr.

This is a follow-up to Part 1 of this important discussion.

The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) was originally set up by Abraham Lincoln in 1863! The initial intentions were excellent: to provide objective, Science-based assistance to Americans. This came about as all indications were that increasingly technical matters were beyond the understanding of most citizens, so independent, competent counsel was needed to assure the success of the American Experiment.

That message is still being conveyed on the NAS website today:

“The National Academies provide independent, trustworthy advice and facilitate solutions to complex challenges by mobilizing expertise, practice, and knowledge in science, engineering, and medicine.”

But is what they are saying true, or is this just window dressing to hide the reality that NAS has been co-opted by parties who are not independent, who are not trustworthy, and who are not supportive of the American Experiment?

This is a long and painful matter that could easily be a book. For this commentary, I will cite just two (2) representative examples providing proof that, regretfully, NAS is no longer the independent, objective, Science-based authority that Lincoln originally had in mind…

It’s well established that if the objective is to bring America down, a guaranteed way of doing that is to corrupt her children. A bonus of this is that it will take 20+ years to bring about, so almost no parent or citizen will be paying full attention to evolutionary changes on that scale. It’s the classic case of turning up the temperature of a lobster in a pot a degree at a time.

The Left knows that the most powerful K-12 subject for them to influence children is Science. (Again, almost zero parents are paying attention to this.)

Starting back in 2010±, the people in NAS hatched a plan to take over the K-12 Science standards of all 50 States. To make that happen, they created and published two main documents: 1) A Framework for K–12 Science Education, plus 2) The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

The NGSS is the actual standards, i.e., exactly what Science topics would be covered in each grade, etc. The Framework is a 400± page polemic purportedly explaining why the NGSS standards are what they are.

This sounds harmless enough (which is what any scammer wants to convey). The NAS was the primary author (see here), but for optics and political reasons, they enlisted: a) a teacher’s union organization (NSTA), b) a Bill Gates-created business organization (Achieve), plus c) some cooperative States.

Again, this all (intentionally) sounds legit, but the real (only) question is: what is the quality of their end product: the K-12 Science Standards?

To me, it is astounding that no US major education-oriented Conservative organization (e.g., Heritage, AEI, etc.) has formally addressed this profoundly important question. In fact, they do almost nothing about the many K-12 curricula issues — an astounding and inexplicable oversight.

Fortunately, we do have at least three (3) independent assessments of the NGSS/Framework package. First is from the independent, well-known, well-regarded Fordham Institute. They produced an amazing report some twelve years ago, where they rated the quality of every State’s Science Standards.

As part of that comprehensive assessment, they also rated the NGSS. Since the NGSS is being marketed as the “NEXT GENERATION” of Science standards, plus it is produced by the National Science Academies — one would expect that it would have a superior rating to any State K-12 standards. Right?

But no. The Fordham Institute gave the NGSS a “C”. (Worse, IMO, the Fordham rating is very generous, and when all factors are considered, the NGSS should get an “F”.) Why would ANY state adopt a “C” rated set of Science standards?

The incomprehensible reality is that FORTY-NINE States formally adopted all or most of the inferior NGSS — fully aware that it had been only given a “C” rating!!!

This includes thirteen (13) States that had Science Standards rated “A” or “B”! In other words, all these States knowingly downgraded their K-12 Science Standards! When I say that States are responsible for at least 95% of the K-12 problems (not DOEd), this is some of the irrefutable evidence.

But there’s more. A Second independent assessment of the NGSS was done by the National Association of Scholars, a very reputable conservative organization. Their in-depth report is Climbing Down: How the NGSS diminishes Scientific Literacy. Their no-holds-barred condemnation of the NGSS includes wisdom like this (P 21):

Despite their impressive title, the NGSS are nothing more than a set of mediocre Science standards that have not been vetted, were never piloted or otherwise tested, and reveal an overt political agenda embedded in K-12 science education that parents, educators, and the public should find troubling.

And there’s more. As a professional scientist, I am very interested in the K-12 curricula issue — esp the Science curriculum. As such, I investigated the NGSS/Framework package. Before I was even aware of the above two superior reports, I found ten (10) very problematic aspects of the NGSS/Framework, so I wrote a 50± page Report criticizing them.

IMO the three worst failings of this package are: a) they trash the 4000± year old traditional Scientific Method, b) they purposefully are trying to teach our children NOT to be Critical Thinkers, but to be conformist Lemmings, plus c) this “Science” material is seeped in Woke ideology.

Regarding Woke: a full 20-page Chapter (#11) in the Framework document is on Equity. (Remember that this was written in 2011±, and Equity had yet to become a popular cause.) Further, by comparison, in this 400± page “Science” document, there is only one (1) sentence that mentions Critical Thinking in passing. 20 pages on Equity vs 1 sentence on Thinking…

[Note that none of these liabilities are identified in the Fordham report, which is why I say that their “C” grade should be lower.]

Again, that 49 States robotically dumped their own Science Standards and took on the second-rate NGSS/Framework package is irrefutable proof of how poorly States are handling their K-12 education responsibilities. These decisions were ENTIRELY made by States and had nothing to do with DOEd!

But what about the gatekeepers, education experts, scientists, and us?

  1. How have 49 State Departments of Education allowed this to happen?
  2. How have 49 State Boards of Education approved this incompetence?
  3. How have 49 State Legislatures — responsible for oversight of their State’s K-12 education program — not stepped in here?
  4. Why are 13,000+ Local School Boards complicit with this indoctrination?
  5. How many of the 1.2± Million US Science teachers have gone on record objecting to this unscientific curriculum?
  6. How many of the 100+ Million US parents have publicly objected to their child being purposefully brainwashed by this NAS material?
  7. How many of the 2± Million US scientists have defended their field (and country) from this assault?
  8. How many Conservative organizations (Heritage, AEI, etc.) have publicized the extensive rot that is infecting our K-12 Science curriculum?

Cumulatively, we have allowed NAS to corrupt the minds of 80+ Million American children (counting those still in the K-12 system [public and private] plus those who have graduated in the last 10+ years).

NAS has seen that these innocent victims have been given a distorted view of Science and are being programmed to not be Critical Thinkers.

The profound significance of our children being extensively indoctrinated in Left ideologies, plus being trained to be sheeple, can’t be overstated.

Every year, there are 4± million graduates from US high schools. Most of these people end up becoming voters…

Do the math to see how exceptionally impactful adding 3± MILLION Left-leaning, non-thinking voters to the rolls every year will be on the American Experiment. Once that sinks in, you might agree with me that this is the most important societal problem we have.

Here is the best and most practical solution, by far.

This is just one of many major problems that are traceable directly back to the National Academies of Sciences. Due to the length here, I’ll provide the promised second major example of their malfeasance in the next commentary.

©2025 All rights reserved.

Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from climate to COVID, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2025 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

Center for Security Policy Commends Senator Rick Scott for “PROTECT the Grid” Act thumbnail

Center for Security Policy Commends Senator Rick Scott for “PROTECT the Grid” Act

By Center For Security Policy

Center for Security Policy President & CEO, Lt. Col. Tommy Waller (USMC Ret.) joined four-time Emmy Award winning investigator Grant Stinchfield to commend Florida Senator Rick Scott’s recent filing of the “PROTECT the Grid” Act. The interview begins at 16:39.

As Waller explains, the Preventing Remote Operations by Threatening Entities on Critical Technology for the Grid (PROTECT the Grid) Act, seeks to address an emerging and growing threat vector that can be utilized by our adversaries, notably China, to disrupt the operations of the electric grid, causing blackouts across the nation.

AUTHOR

Tommy Waller

President & CEO

©2025 . All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICE: National Conference of State Legislators Urges Grid Protection from Solar Weather & EMPs

The post Center for Security Policy Commends Senator Rick Scott for “PROTECT the Grid” Act appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

“Climate Science is Baaaack!” thumbnail

“Climate Science is Baaaack!”

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

by Judith Curry

Climate science is baaaack

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has commissioned a new climate assessment report:

A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate 

From the Secretary’s Foreword:

What I’ve found is that media coverage often distorts the science. Many people—even well-meaning ones—walk away with a view of climate change that is exaggerated or incomplete. To provide clarity, I asked a diverse team of independent experts to summarize the current state of climate science, with a focus on how it relates to the United States.

To correct course, we need open, respectful, and informed debate. That’s why I’m inviting public comment on this report. Honest scrutiny and scientific transparency should be at the heart of our policymaking.

Climate Working Group (CWG)

These reports were authored by the DOE Climate Working Group (CWG).  Members of the Climate Working Group are: [link to biosketches ]

  • John Christy
  • Judith Curry
  • Steve Koonin
  • Ross McKitrick
  • Roy Spencer

The origins of the Group and rationale for selecting us are described in Secretary Wright’s Foreword:

To provide clarity, I asked a diverse team of independent experts to summarize the current state of climate science, with a focus on how it relates to the United States. I didn’t select these authors because we always agree—far from it. In fact, they may not always agree with each other. But I chose them for their rigor, honesty, and willingness to elevate the debate. I exerted no control over their conclusions. What you’ll read are their words, drawn from the best available data and scientific assessments.

—— Disclaimer:  the remainder of the text in this blog post reflects JC’s personal impressions/analysis and not that of the CWG.

This Group was assembled in April.  I decided to accept Secretary Wright’s invitation for the following reasons:

  • I was impressed by what Secy Wright wanted to accomplish
  • I was familiar with the other group members and figured I could work with them
  • Most importantly, I saw an opportunity to set the record straight regarding what we know and what we don’t know about climate science, that would reach an important audience

I was happy to help with this but in the beginning, I confess that I was not at all sure that I would put my name on any report that came out of this.  I tend to fly solo, and had not contributed to any multiple authored assessment report in several decades, for a number of reasons.  While I had previously met each of my coauthors several times and was familiar with their work, I was not at all sure how this would go.  Further, I was concerned about the short deadline for completing the report.

Short summary:  all exceeded any hopes and expectations that I had.

Climate assessment report

The Report is a remarkable document, particularly since this was written so quickly and by a small team.  I encourage you read the whole thing, it is relatively concise by the standards of climate assessment reports (closest in spirit and length to the IPCC First Assessment Report).

Given the time constraints, we had to be selective about which topics to cover.  We selected topics that we judged to be of particular importance and relevance in the context of US climate and energy policy deliberations. The areas of expertise of the CWG members were also a factor in selection of topics.

While each CWG author has approved this document on a line-by-line basis, this is not a “consensus seeking” document.  Uncertainties and areas of disagreement are clearly described.

The CWG framed the overall climate change issue somewhat differently from the IPCC and the US National Climate Assessments (NCA).  Our assessment is very much data driven and considers natural climate variability as well as human causes.  We consider a number of issues that we regard to be important, but have received short shrift (or were completely ignored) in the IPCC and NCA reports.  Some examples:

  • Chapter 1 discusses the scientific rationale for considering CO2 as a pollutant (or not)
  • Section 2.1 examines “global greening” including the benefits to agriculture
  • Section 2.2 provides a concise assessment of ocean alkalinity and the so-called ocean acidification problem, including the recent rebound of coral reefs
  • Section 3.2 provides clear justification against using extreme emissions scenarios in policy-relevant analyses
  • Section 3.3 provides a comprehensive assessment of the urban heat island effect
  • Chapter 4 assesses the uncertainties associated with climate sensitivity, with prominent discussion of Nic Lewis’ most recent work.
  • Chapter 5 challenges climate models with observations; it is difficult to argue that global climate models are fit for any policy-relevant purpose
  • Chapter 6 provides a comprehensive analysis of extreme weather in U.S., using the entire available data record back to 1900 (earlier where possible), with a context of natural climate variability
  • Chapter 7 challenges the extreme projections of sea level rise, and emphasizes the importance of vertical land motion in local sea level changes
  • Section 8.2 challenges conventional notions of attribution of global warming in terms of problems with the statistical analysis methods and inadequate assessment of natural climate variability
  • Section 8.4 highlights the declining planetary albedo and cloud cover since 2015, including analysis of contributions from natural variability
  • Section 8.6 assesses challenges and problems with attribution analyses of individual extreme events
  • Chapter 9 on agriculture shows that increasing CO2 and warming is expected to be a net benefit to US agriculture
  • Section 10.3 addresses mortality from temperature extremes (both heat and cold), including a section on mortality risks and energy costs
  • Section 11.1 clarifies the unimportance of global warming in economic growth
  • Section 11.2 assesses the deep uncertainties associated with estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon
  • Chapter 12 concludes that U.S. policy actions are expected to have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate and any effects will emerge only with long delays.

If you only have time to read a few chapters, my favorites are Chapters 6, 8 and 11.  But each chapter is pretty interesting – you will be surprised at what you learn from reading this! While a single individual took the lead on each chapter, every chapter had at least 2-3 team members providing substantial input.  I regard this effort as being a case where the whole is substantially greater than the sum of the parts.

Information quality and peer review

This report has been evaluated under DOE guidelines to meet Federal standards. This includes an internal review from eight scientists/administrators employed by the DOE.  The reviews were quite interesting and varied, and several were very useful.  The CWG made a number of fairly minor changes to the Report in response to the reviews, and added a number of references, and we are responding in detail to their comments.  As I understand it, the DOE will arrange for a more formal external peer review.

DOE welcomes public comments on this report and is setting up a website for comments. The CWG expects to expend considerable time responding to the comments. We’ve already seen a pretty broad range of comments from the DOE scientists; it will be interesting to see what the what the public comments look like

Speaking from the perspective of individuals who have commented on the IPCC and NCA reports only to see our comments ignored, we plan to take a different approach.  Rather than primarily seeking to defend our Report, we regard the open comments as an opportunity for dialogue, learning, and clarification of areas of disagreement. We expect to spend considerable time and effort in responding to the comments.

At some point, I assume that the CWG will be charged with writing a revised, more comprehensive report that responds to the external comments (we shall see).

JC reflections

The full significance of the DOE CWG Report remains to be seen.  Here is what I’m hoping for:

  • Redirection of climate science (at least in the U.S.) away from alarmism and advocacy and towards better understanding of the fundamentals of climate dynamics.
  • Motivation of future climate assessment reports to address important issues raised by the CWG (that the IPCC and NCA have previously ignored or inadequately assessed)
  • A comprehensive approach to assessing US risk from extreme weather and climate events (along the lines described in my book Climate Uncertainty and Risk)
  • Breaking the link between energy policy and human-caused climate change, whereby anthropogenic climate change currently “mandates” emissions targets, preferred energy production methods, etc.

Hopefully the CWG Report will kick start some of this.

The looming US policy issue is the EPA Endangerment Finding (2009).  Based on my meager understanding, this is more of a legal issue than a scientific one (JC note to journalists: I have no comment on the endangerment finding).  But the bigger issue is this.  In the U.S., one major political party (~half the population) think that fossil-fueled climate change is an existential threat, while the other major political party (the other ~half of the population) wants to ignore this issue and focus on energy abundance.  The net result of this dichotomy is a political/policy windshield wiper effect, where we’ve seen: in the Paris Agreement (Obama), withdraw from the Paris Agreement (Trump I), back in the Paris Agreement (Biden), withdraw from the Paris Agreement (Trump II).  This is not good for energy policy, climate policy, or climate science.

What is needed is some sane middle ground that realistically assesses climate risk.  An honest assessment of climate change science is a starting point (the CWG Assessment Report), which acknowledges uncertainties and areas of disagreement.  It seems like Secy Wright has the right approach to energy policy (from his Foreword):

Climate change is real, and it deserves attention. But it is not the greatest threat facing humanity. That distinction belongs to global energy poverty. As someone who values data, I know that improving the human condition depends on expanding access to reliable, affordable energy. Climate change is a challenge—not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being.

We stand at the threshold of a new era of energy leadership. If we empower innovation rather than restrain it, America can lead the world in providing cleaner, more abundant energy—lifting billions out of poverty, strengthening our economy, and improving our environment along the way

A hugely important issue falls between the cracks of energy and climate policy, and that relates to extreme weather and climate events.  Attributing extreme weather events to fossil-fueled warming has been a key propaganda tool to spur “Climate Action,” with the inference that bad weather would go away if we stop burning fossil fuels.  This kind of thinking has led us to ignore the real sources of our vulnerabilities to extreme weather, allowing us to throw up our hands and do nothing because “climate change.”  Although there is little to no link between extreme weather events and fossil-fueled warming (see the CWG Report), the U.S. currently has substantial vulnerabilities (and electric utility systems are hugely vulnerable to extreme weather events).  Assessing and managing such risks requires good weather and climate data, improved weather and seasonal climate forecasts, and better warning systems – much care is needed to avoid gutting critical information and services in the current budget cutting zeal.

And finally, I can make one prediction with confidence.  The Michael Mann wing of the climate debate will hate this Report because: the CWG authors are reputable scientists outside of their “tribe,” the Report demonstrates that Mann et al. are losing control of the climate narrative in the U.S., and because Trump Derangement Syndrome.  There is a preview from a July 8 NYT article that caught a hint of the DOE activity

Their usual strategy of ad hominem attacks won’t be effective against the CWG Report, which is evidence based, thoroughly documented, and logically argued.

JC recommendations for climate science/scientists:  Embrace the complexity of climate science and acknowledge uncertainty and disagreement. Stop with the faux “consensus” enforcement and stop playing power politics with climate science.  Constructively participate in the dialogue that DOE and the CWG Report are attempting to foster, in the interests of returning objective physical science to the climate issue.  US federal funding for climate research is being decimated by the Trump administration – good riddance to much of this, but if we are to salvage this field of scientific research, then different foci and types of behavior are needed.

Media:  Andrea Woods in DOE’s Office of Public Affairs is handling things, please contact her if you have any questions. andrea.woods@hq.doe.gov.  The ringer on my phone is turned off.  And a reminder: I have no comment on the endangerment finding.

For my assessment/analysis of related topics, see my book Climate Uncertainty and Risk:

  • Chapter 4  Mixing Science and Politics
  • Chapter 10  Climate Risk and its Assessment
  • Chapter 14 Mititgation and the Energy Transition
  • Chapter 15 Climate Risk and the Policy Discourse

©2025 . All rights reserved.

Democrat accusses Trump of doing ‘Exactly what Stalin did’ by dismantling climate agenda! thumbnail

Democrat accusses Trump of doing ‘Exactly what Stalin did’ by dismantling climate agenda!

By Marc Morano from Climate Depot

Morano on Fox: EPA Chief: ‘Lee Zeldin is the most consequential EPA Chief in the history of the agency’ – ‘He is dismantling the climate agenda.”

MUST Watch: British TV show’s dead-on take on ‘climate change’ – The most accurate & funny way of explaining why politicians get involved in trying to ‘solve’ global warming

Watch: Morano on Fox on Ingraham Angle on how China’s has monopolized rare Earths production & processing – The Ingraham Angle – Fox News Channel

UK Guardian: U Penn Prof. Michael Mann declares the Trump admin challenging climate ‘consensus’ & ‘updating’ of climate reports is ‘Exactly what Stalin did’

Asked about Wright’s comments on the national climate assessment reports, respected climate scientist Michael Mann said in an emailed comment to the Guardian: “This is exactly what Joseph Stalin did.”

Reality Check to UK Guardian and climate activists, scientists like Michael Mann, comparing consensus-busting reports to Stalin: 

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano:

“The old federal National Climate Assessments were pure political garbage reports masquerading as ‘science.’ Challenging the climate ‘consensus’ and updating federal climate reports is not a Joe Stalin move. Instead, what the Trump administration has accomplished in just eight short months, dismantling the climate cult —  is a marvel to behold. Authentic dissenting scientific voices are now the voice of accurate federal climate science reports.

Scientists around the world should welcome the fact that the Trump administration is creating a scientific re-examination of ‘global warming’ and fostering a healthy climate debate. No longer do the American people have to have their tax dollars pay for predetermined climate fear propaganda manufactured by the likes of Michael and the United Nations.”

Most Hilarious Reaction to Trump Admin’s EPA’s repealing the CO2 Endangerment Finding:
Dem Congressman Sean Casten: ‘Trump will have been responsible for more deaths than Stalin, Mao & Hitler combined’

HEARTLESS: New Study examines the ‘carbon emission analysis of aortic valve replacement’ –
‘Post-operative intensive care…accounted for largest portion of carbon footprint’ –
‘Findings should potentially be considered when making population-level decisions & guidelines’ – Published in European Heart Journal

U.S. Dept of Energy publishes new climate assessment report breaking the alleged ‘consensus’ –
First official U.S. Govt report to push back on UN climate reports

POLITICO calls it! ‘Trump’s latest climate rollback makes it all but official’ – ‘We’ve lost the culture war on climate’ – Obama advisor: ‘The left strategy on climate needs to be rethought’

Climate Depot’s  Marc Morano statement: 

“Politico is finally calling it! The era of climate bullcrap is entering the dustbin of history. Our long national nightmare has ended.

No longer do U.S. citizens have to listen to politicians drone on about banning cars, meat restrictions, bans on home appliances, ‘carbon passports’ for travel, energy restrictions, clothing made from human hair, eating bugs, lab-grown meat, UN climate pacts, Green New Deals — all to allegedly alter the Earth’s temperature 50 or 100 years from now and save us from an unspecified ‘apocolypse.’

In addition to ‘Trump’s rule-slicing buzzsaw’, the most significant achievement of the Trump administration is how both the President and EPA chief Zeldin have reframed the entire man-made climate narrative and correctly labeled it what it is: A ‘scam’, a cult’, a ‘religion’, and a fraud. Trump was the first GOP presidential nominee since Ronald Reagan to understand how narrative control leads to policy change.

Bravo!”

Bloomberg News: ‘EPA Unveils Plan…to severely weaken Washington’s ability to fight climate change’ – Morano: Trump admin ‘removes the basis for all the climate nonsense that we’ve had to endure’Bloomberg News features Climate Depot: “It removes the basis for all the climate nonsense that we’ve had to endure for the last several decades,” said Marc Morano, who runs the climate-skeptic website ClimateDepot.com. “The Trump administration’s goal is to ensure that future presidential administrations can’t quickly reverse climate and energy policies without having to undergo major bureaucratic hurdles.”

Watch: Morano debates with warmist over Trump’s rejection of ‘climate action’ & repealing the Endangerment Finding

Bill Nye on how to fix ‘very hot weather’: ‘Everybody pay attention & vote’ –‘Just don’t vote for them (GOP) anymore…let’s get them out office’

Los Angeles Times: ‘Rising heat is causing students to underperform across the globe’ –
‘As climate change drives temperatures higher’ the ‘heat significantly impairs students’ cognitive abilities,affecting their academic performance’

Cheers! EPA Set to Unravel US Authority to Regulate Greenhouse Gases – ‘Strikes a deep blow at Washington’s ability to fight climate change’ – Morano responds – July 29, 2025Climate Depot’s Marc Morano comments on Trump EPA & Endangerment Finding: 

“Trump 2.0 is moving decisively to remedy what Trump 1.0 fell short on — PERMANENCE. The 2nd term Trump administration, led by EPA’s Lee Zeldin (the most consequential EPA chief in the agency’s history!), realizes this time around that issuing executive orders and changing the regulatory rules of the EPA are not enough. Instead, Trump’s second term is focusing on implementing permanence in climate and energy policy.

By removing the CO2 Endangerment Finding (regulating CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act) from our lives, it removes the basis for all of the climate nonsense that we’ve had to endure for the last several decades. Everything from gas-powered appliance bans, gas-powered car bans, to restrictions on agricultural, meat, power plants, travel, ceiling fans, pizza ovens, energy mandates, subsidies, and thermostat controls.

Chucking the EPA’s Endangerment Finding and withdrawing the U.S. from the UN climate treaty process are two ways to deliver this permanence. The Trump administration’s goal is to ensure that future presidential administrations can’t quickly reverse climate and energy policies without having to undergo major bureaucratic hurdles.  The Trump administration and EPA chief Lee Zeldin are making America safer from the future wreckage of potential presidents like Gavin Newsom or AOC.”

Greenwire Analysis: ‘Trump 2.0 went where Trump 1.0 wouldn’t on climate’:‘Longtime haters of government climate rules are celebrating’

NOT PARODY: ‘Beneficial Bloodsucking’: Bioethicists Want Ticks to Infect People to Stop Them from Eating Meat – ‘We argue that if eating meat is morally impermissible, then efforts to prevent the spread of tickborne [allergy] are also morally impermissible’ – Published in the Journal Bioethics

CLIMATE SHOCK: ‘It is likely that the first half of 2025 has seen the FEWEST deaths related to extreme weather of any half year in recorded human history’

Worried about current sea level rise?! New Study Reveals 540 Million Years of Sea Level Change in Unprecedented Detail

Must see: Global surface temperatures since 1880 — presented without the statistical hype

Netherlands rations electricity to ease power grid stresses as it shifts to ‘greener economy’ –‘Early indicator of what other European countries are likely to suffer’ trying ‘to meet the bloc’s ambitious decarbonisation targets’

Reality Check on ‘Net Zero’ progress: ‘In 2000, 76.8% of global energy came from fossil fuels. By 2023, that number decreased to 76.5%’

‘Green’ energy pundits mislead the public by using proportions. Solar & wind are not replacing fossil fuels on the grid’ – ‘Renewables mostly add to energy consumption. They don’t offset the use of fossil fuels’The Fossil Fuel Subsidies Lie: Claim that fossil fuels receive a staggering $7 trillion per year in global subsidies’ is ‘effective’ & ‘DISHONEST’ – Solar received 205 times more subsidies – Fossil fuels ‘receive less per unit of energy delivered than any other sector’

Watch: Morano on TV talking Trump & AI: ‘I don’t like the idea of taxpayer money going to these Big Tech companies that will somehow use AI against us’

Watch: Morano on Fox praising the end of gas car bans: ‘Trump & EPA’s Lee Zeldin should be winning every award possible. Zeldin is the most effective EPA administrator in its history’

Watch: Morano on Fox on some Republicans caving to climate agenda: ‘Every other GOP presidential nominee going back to George H.W. Bush, has pushed the climate narrative. From G. W. Bush to Mitt Romney, to McCain’ – Plus: China has been ‘faking green’

Watch: Morano on Varney on Fox on Trump quitting ‘the world’s oldest climate treaty’ – ‘Our long national nightmare will have ended’



Watch: Morano on Fox talking ‘polluting EVs’ – ‘There is nothing about them that screams ‘Earth-friendly’

Watch: Morano on Jesse Watters Primetime on Fox News on blocking the sun w/ geoengineering:‘We spent decades cleaning up our atmosphere, & now they want to inject pollution back into it?! Listen: Morano on The Joe Piscopo Show talks wind turbines crashing on the highway & how EVs love China

Watch: Morano on RAV TV: Career bureaucrat EPA staff are opposing Lee Zeldin because he is ‘the most consequential EPA chief in the history of the agency’

CLIMATE SHOCK: ‘It is likely that the first half of 2025 has seen the FEWEST deaths related to extreme weather of any half year in recorded human history’

‘A weird lack of Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclones so far in 2025 It’s been one of the least active years on record for tropical cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere’

In Canada, ‘saving’ land means that land once available to the citizens of the country, is transferred to the banks & funds of the elites’

AI killed the climate change agenda: ‘Wind, solar & battery technologies…are not available at the scale or reliability needed to fuel expected AI data center demand’

Climate writer reveals: ‘Why I No Longer Support Electric Cars-And Why You May Feel the Same Soon’ – ‘Total EV emissions can rival or even surpass those of traditional cars’ – Battery ‘mining process intensifies air & water pollution, with slurry ponds & toxic runoff’UK Telegraph: China’s air pollution clean-up ‘sped up global warming’ – With ‘more sunlight is now reaching Earth’

Bill McKibben ruminates in the age of Trump: ‘I’m a climate activist. I’m not giving up just yet’ –‘People who care about climate change need to rouse themselves from understandable despair & make a new stand’ –Solution?! A ‘nationwide event’ with ‘electric-vehicle parades & solar-powered concerts’

Netherlands rations electricity to ease power grid stresses as it shifts to ‘greener economy’ –
‘Early indicator of what other European countries are likely to suffer’ trying ‘to meet the bloc’s ambitious decarbonisation targets’

Pope Leo XIV prays for the ‘conversion’ of climate-change skeptics?!

‘Celebrates newly released Mass for the Care of Creation & urged prayers ‘for the conversion of many people…who still do not recognize the urgency of caring for our common home’

America Leads the World in Reducing CO2 Emissions – Dropped nearly 20% in past decade – ‘Has nothing to do with windmills or solar panels’ – ‘Cheap natural gas from fracking’ credited

Must see: Global surface temperatures since 1880 — presented without the statistical hype

©2025 . All rights reserved.

The post Democrat accusses Trump of doing ‘Exactly what Stalin did’ by dismantling climate agenda! appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

The Future Of Nuclear Might Be Small

By Duggan Flanikin

Written by Duggan Flanikin

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

As the news gets around that two Chinese companies have developed commercially viable miniature nuclear-powered batteries with potential to operate for up to a century to power everything from pacemakers to remote sensors to multiple uses in outer space, other companies from China to the U.S. to Vietnam are taking a long look at small modular reactors and even microreactors – all of which can be mass produced to dramatically cut costs.

The BV100, developed by Betavolt, is powered by a Nickel-63 isotope and can presumably be operated for up to 50 years without maintenance, while Northwest Normal University’s Carbon-14 powered nuclear batter[y] has a potential lifespan of 100 years. These batteries generate electricity through the natural decay of radioactive isotopes.

The Chinese are not alone in the nuclear battery field, as U.S.-based City Labs has created tritium-powered batteries that last 20 years and the UK’s Arkenlight is developing batteries from radioactive waste. Two other U.S.-based companies – Kronos Advanced Technologies and Yasheng Group – have formed a partnership targeting nuclear battery research as part of the U.S. effort to prevent China from achieving technological dominance.

Ironically, the world’s first nuclear batteries were developed in the United States during the 1950s – but the irrational anti-nuclear movement that raised havoc about radiation safety and presumed limited practical applications shut down promising research for sixty years.

That same fear – and the resulting labyrinth of regulations created by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – had stymied nearly all of President Eisenhower’s desired “peaceful uses” of atomic energy until the arrival of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, data centers, and other high users of electricity made it obvious that nuclear was the “cleanest” energy capable of satisfying the hunger of these emerging industries.

Taxpayer.net complains that the nuclear energy industry has received significant subsidies from federal taxpayers that amounted to a massive waste of money – and in a sense they are right. They point to the fact that, from 1948 to 2020, $117 billion (in 2020 dollars) was allocated for developing nuclear energy – though most of that was prior to the Three Mile Island incident that did not cost a single human life or a single injury.

They also bemoan the fact that Washington does not get royalties from uranium mining on federal lands – which they deem as a subsidy – and the fact that monies placed into the Nuclear Decommissioning Reserve by nuclear plant operators are not taxed. The 1957 Price-Anderson Act still limits the nuclear energy industry’s liability in the event of a nuclear accident – which to date has been rare as hen’s teeth.

The reality, however, is that regulation alone has been sufficient to thwart U.S. nuclear energy development until very recently. Even New York Governor Kathy Hochul agrees that “the barriers are in Washington. The length of time –10 years, a decade – of regulatory bureaucracy and red tape that must be gotten through is a reason why it fails and people don’t even try.”

Not surprisingly, though, Politico blamed the industry, claiming that incentives and permitting reforms (that are cutting that 10-year time frame down to 18 months or even less) do not change the basic economics. While the three new nuclear plants built in the 21st century have all had massive cost overruns, none benefited from permitting reforms or new incentives. Indeed, naysayers like Stanford’s Mark Jacobson still believe that “new nuclear . . . is a nonstarter.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright says that large nuclear plants are more expensive largely because they must be built on-site, whereas small modular reactors (SMRs) can be mass produced in a factory; smaller microreactors are even more mobile and can be deployed in emergencies or at remote sites with moderate power needs. These smaller reactors are perfect for data centers, military bases, and other facilities needing uninterrupted power.

Despite the simplified regulatory regime (which may soon see even more radical changes), Wright says “this slow-moving, bureaucratic central government” is still a bottleneck. By contrast, Gov. Mike Dunleavy touts Alaska’s 2022 legislation to foster “micronuclear technology [which] has a potential role to play in providing low-cost, reliable power for communities, remote villages, and resource development projects” in a state where delivering cheap energy is always a challenge.

While several companies, and even the Tennessee Vallery Authority, have entered the SMR field in recent years, until this year, the only nations – Russia and China – that had built SMRs have centralized governments to help projects secure financing and decide which SMR fuel types and coolants to use. SMR- and microreactor-specific regulations have yet to be finalized in the U.S. But the times, they are a’changing.

For example, Radiant Industries, Inc., has raised $225 million in preparation for testing its 1.2-MW Kaleidos microreactor in 2026. This portable reactor uses helium gas rather than water as a coolant, simplifying its logistics and making it easier to generate power in remote areas. Not only can Kaleidos be transported by air, land, or sea, its passive safety architecture enables it to continue to operate safely even if some systems fail.

Radiant and Westinghouse (for its 5-MW eVinci microreactor) both reached conditional agreements with the Department of Energy to conduct initial reactor tests at the DOME facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The DOME testing, says the DOE, will assist in meeting “the nation’s demand for more abundant, affordable, and reliable power.”

Berkeley-based startup Deep Fission has partnered with Australia’s Endeavour Energy to bury mass-produced SMRs underground to power data centers more efficiently. The partners plan to generate 2 GW of subterranean nuclear power for the tech industry, one of several that is driving up electricity demand in the U.S. and worldwide. Their biggest hurdle to date is the lack of a regulatory framework specific to SMRs – but the new 18-month timeframe for the NRC to approve or reject SMRs will hopefully expedite their march toward their projected deployment date in 2029.

The race is also on for introducing nuclear energy to Southeast Asia, led by the Philippines and Indonesia. Meanwhile, Vietnam, which was planning to build a traditional nuclear power plant by 2030, has been advised by its policy advisor Thuy Le to focus instead on SMRs – or even microreactors – to safely and realistically integrate nuclear energy into their power grid. These much smaller units can be used in coastal, densely populated areas and are far simpler and cheaper to build and maintain – and they minimize risk.

Most of all, the success of SMRs and microreactors – and even nuclear batteries – might convince even the timidest among us that nuclear energy is truly a gift to humanity.

*****

This article was published by CFACT, The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. 

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On The Markets: How To Play The Revival In Nuclear Power thumbnail

On The Markets: How To Play The Revival In Nuclear Power

By Neland Nobel

Written by Neland Nobel

After the events of Three Mile Island and the subsequent misleading movie The China Syndrome, nuclear power was all but dead by 1980. While nuclear power was moribund in the private sector, that was not true, ironically, for the public sector. The biggest users of small nuclear reactors have been the US Navy. The recrudescence of nuclear power in the United States has been significantly influenced by the political rise of Donald Trump, particularly in his second term beginning in 2025. The President has focused on policy initiatives, executive orders, and their impact on the nuclear energy sector, with emphasis on small modular reactors (SMRs), mothballed plant restarts, and support for AI-driven energy demands.

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EPA Releases Proposal to Rescind Obama-Era Endangerment Finding, Regulations that Paved the Way for Electric Vehicle Mandates thumbnail

EPA Releases Proposal to Rescind Obama-Era Endangerment Finding, Regulations that Paved the Way for Electric Vehicle Mandates

By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

INDIANAPOLIS — At an auto dealership in Indiana, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin released the agency’s proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which has been used to justify over $1 trillion in regulations, including the Biden-Harris Administration’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate. If finalized, the proposal would repeal all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, thereby reinstating consumer choice and giving Americans the ability to purchase a safe and affordable car for their family while decreasing the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver. Administrator Zeldin was joined by U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Indiana Governor Mike Braun, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, U.S. Representative Jim Baird (R-IN-04), Indiana Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski, and the Indiana Motor Truck Association.

Since the 2009 Endangerment Finding was issued, many have stated that the American people and auto manufacturing have suffered from significant uncertainties and massive costs related to general regulations of greenhouse gases from vehicles and trucks. Finally, EPA is proposing to provide much needed certainty and regulatory relief, so companies can plan appropriately, and the American people can have affordable choices when deciding to buy a car.

“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year. We heard loud and clear the concern that EPA’s GHG emissions standards themselves, not carbon dioxide which the Finding never assessed independently, was the real threat to Americans’ livelihoods. If finalized, rescinding the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families.”

“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, America is returning to free and open dialogue around climate and energy policy – driving the focus back to following the data,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “Today’s announcement is a monumental step toward returning to commonsense policies that expand access to affordable, reliable, secure energy and improve quality of life for all Americans.”

“The Obama-Biden EPA used regulations as a political tool and hurt American competitiveness without results to show for it. Today’s announcement is a win for consumer choice, common sense, and American energy independence. President Trump, Secretary Wright, and Administrator Zeldin are returning the EPA to its proper role, and I’m proud they chose Indiana as the place to make this announcement because our state is proof we can protect our environment and support American jobs,” said Governor Mike Braun. 

“Thanks to the outstanding work of President Trump, Administrator Zeldin, and Secretary Wright, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy are ending costly, sweeping vehicle emissions standards and ending the authoritarian EV mandates. Once again, this administration is standing up for common sense and our great American automakers and consumers. I thank Administrator Zeldin and Secretary Wright for their historic action to unleash American innovation, implement sound energy policies, and lower costs for American families,” said Congressman Jim Baird (IN-04). 

“The Endangerment Finding has long been a Democrat tool to issue burdensome regulations that ignore commonsense science in pursuit of radical Green New Deal aligned agendas. I applaud Secretary Wright, Director Zeldin and the entire Trump Administration for making sure we cut the red tape that is unnecessarily impeding American business, while also preserving our nation’s precious natural resources,” said Congressman Mark Messmer (IN-08).

“Over the last four years, conservative state attorneys general were the last line of defense in fighting back against the Biden administration’s federal overreach and green new scam agenda,” said Attorney General Todd Rokita. “However, thanks to President Trump and patriots like Administrator Zeldin and Secretary Wright, we are now on the front lines helping to unleash American energy.”

“We commend President Trump and EPA Administrator Zeldin for taking decisive action to rescind the disastrous GHG Phase 3 rule. This electric-truck mandate put the trucking industry on a path to economic ruin and would have crippled our supply chain, disrupted deliveries, and raised prices for American families and businesses. Moreover, it kicked innovation to the curb by discarding available technologies that can further drive down emissions at a fraction of the cost. For four decades, our industry has proven that we are committed to reducing emissions. The trucking industry supports cleaner, more efficient technologies, but we need policies rooted in real-world conditions. We thank the Trump Administration for returning us to a path of common sense, so that we can keep delivering for the American people as we continue to reduce our environmental impact,” said American Trucking Association President and CEO Chris Spear. 

The Endangerment Finding is the legal prerequisite used by the Obama and Biden Administrations to regulate emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. Absent this finding, EPA would lack statutory authority under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to prescribe standards for greenhouse gas emissions. This proposal, if finalized, is expected to save Americans $54 billion in costs annually through the repeal of all greenhouse gas standards, including the Biden EPA’s electric vehicle mandate, under conservative economic forecasts.

If finalized, this proposal would remove all greenhouse gas standards for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and heavy-duty engines, starting with EPA’s first greenhouse gas set in 2010 for light-duty vehicles and those set in 2011 for medium-duty vehicles and heavy-duty vehicles and engines—which includes off-cycle credits like the much hated start-stop feature on most new cars.

EPA’s proposal also cites updated scientific data that challenge the assumptions behind the 2009 Endangerment Finding. Cited data includes the updated studies and information in the Department of Energy’s 2025 Climate Work Group study that is concurrently being released for public comment.

EPA will initiate a public comment period to solicit input. Further information on the public comment process and instructions for participation will be published in the Federal Register and on the EPA website.

How We Got Here

Congress tasked EPA under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act with prescribing emission standards for new motor vehicles and engines when the Administrator determines that emissions of an air pollutant from any class of vehicles causes or contributes to air pollution that endangers public health or welfare. But the Obama Administration ignored Congress’ clear intent, slicing and dicing the language of the statute to make an “endangerment finding” totally separate from any actual rule setting standards for emissions from cars.

In an unprecedented move, the Obama EPA found that carbon dioxide emissions emitted from automobiles – in combination with five other gases, some of which vehicles don’t even emit – contributes some unspecified amount to climate change, which in turn creates some unspecified amount of endangerment to human health and welfare. These mental leaps were admittedly novel, but they were the only way the Obama-Biden Administration could access EPA’s authority to regulate under Section 202(a).

Likewise, the Obama EPA did not consider any aspect of the regulations that would flow from the Endangerment Finding. EPA subsequently relied on the Endangerment Finding to underpin seven vehicle regulations with an aggregate cost of more than $1 trillion. The Endangerment Finding has also played a significant role in EPA’s justification of regulations of other sources beyond cars and trucks, resulting in additional costly burdens on American families and businesses.

Much has changed since the 2009 Endangerment Finding was issued, including new scientific and technological developments that warrant review. Additionally, major Supreme Court decisions in the intervening years, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, West Virginia v. EPA, Michigan v. EPA, and Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, have significantly clarified the scope of EPA’s authority under the CAA. The decisions emphasized that major policy determinations must be made by Congress, not by administrative agencies.

Background

On the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in the history of the United States in March 2025, Administrator Zeldin announced that the agency was kicking off a formal reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget and other relevant agencies in addition to reconsidering all of its prior regulations and actions that rely on the Endangerment Finding. Please visit the Endangerment Finding Reconsideration website to learn more.

Administrator Zeldin also announced the agency would reconsider the Model Year 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles regulation and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles. Please visit the Termination of the EV Mandate website to learn more.

These were announced in conjunction with a number of historic actions to advance President Trump’s Day One executive orders and Power the Great American Comeback. While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting the environment, the agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.

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EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The post EPA Releases Proposal to Rescind Obama-Era Endangerment Finding, Regulations that Paved the Way for Electric Vehicle Mandates appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Proposed Rule: Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards

By Editors of CFACT

Written by Editors of CFACT

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Editors’ Note: While tariffs have gotten most of the headlines, the Trump Administration’s effort to deregulate the US economy has continued apace. This latest modification in EPA rules regarding so-called “greenhouse gases” could be among the most essential reforms ever enacted. Back in 2009, under the Obama Administration, the EPA was given vast powers because of the supposed connection between CO2 levels and so-called Global Warming.

Official draft EPA rule

Rule Summary

On July 29, 2025, EPA proposed to rescind the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding. The Endangerment Finding is a prerequisite for regulating emissions from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. Absent this finding, EPA lacks statutory authority under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act to prescribe standards for GHG emissions. Therefore, EPA also proposed to remove GHG regulations for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles.

As a result of these proposed changes, engine and vehicle manufacturers would no longer have any future obligations for the measurement, control, and reporting of GHG emissions for any highway engine and vehicle, including model years manufactured prior to this proposal. However, EPA intends to retain, without modification, regulations necessary for criteria pollutant and air toxic measurement and standards, Corporate Average Fuel Economy testing, and associated fuel economy labeling requirements.

Documents Related to this Proposal

Comment and Public Hearing Information

To view documents supporting this proposed rulemaking, as well as comments submitted, please visit regulations.gov and access the rule under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194.

Written comments on the proposal may be submitted to the docket for this rule through September 21, 2025. There are several ways to provide written comments on the proposal, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194:

  • Federal eRulemaking Portal for this proposal: click on the “Comment” box under the proposed rule document, which is the first document listed under the “browse comments” tab.
  • Email: a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov. Include Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194 in the subject line of the message.
  • Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, OAR, Docket EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460.
  • Hand Delivery or Courier (by scheduled appointment only): EPA Docket Center, WJC West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. The Docket Center’s hours of operations are 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Monday–Friday (except federal holidays).

In written comments submitted to the docket, do not include any information you consider to be sensitive information, including, but not limited to, Confidential Business Information/Proprietary Business Information, medical information about someone other than yourself, or any information whose disclosure is restricted by an applicable authority. Please visit Commenting on EPA Dockets for more information on submitting comments, including information about how to submit sensitive information such as CBI/PBI or multimedia submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments.

EPA plans to hold a virtual public hearing for this proposed rule, Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Standards. The hearing is scheduled to occur on August 19 and August 20, 2025. An additional session may be held on August 21, 2025, if necessary, to accommodate the number of testifiers that sign up to testify. Please check this page for updates about the dates and times of the hearings.

*****

This article was produced by CFACT, The Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow and is reproduced with permission.

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The New Industrial Policy of AI and Data Centers

By Craig J. Cantoni

Written by Craig J. Cantoni

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

 The week of July 20 was quite a week for Tucson and the nation. Central planners, mercantilists, and crony capitalists were as excited about building data centers needed to power artificial intelligence as termites were about building wood-frame houses in Tucson.

Here in this parched desert metropolis of nearly 1.1 million people and zillions of termites, new data centers are being contemplated that will consume huge amounts of water and electricity.

A Democrat political monopoly has controlled the city of Tucson and the surrounding Pima County for decades. The leaders of the monopoly have suddenly abandoned their doctrinaire belief in global warming and green energy in order to embrace very un-green data centers.  

In negotiating with the developers of the data centers, county officials had signed a non-disclosure agreement, pledging not to reveal the name of the company on whose behalf the developers were working. It was later revealed by accident that the company is Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

Citizens don’t like their government to engage in secret deals, especially when there is a high likelihood that the result will be skyrocketing costs for water and electricity. That’s doubly so in a left-leaning city that isn’t keen on capitalism to begin with, and where the mayor has pledged to plant tens of thousands of trees to combat global warming. 

The data center deal is so suspect that even free-market libertarians like myself can join hands with leftists and greens in questioning it. To that point, many people on the right were no doubt among the 800 residents of metro Tucson who jammed a public meeting on July 23rd to voice their concerns about the deal and its implications for the city.

Coincidentally, the next day, President Trump announced his industrial policy for AI and data centers. He had taken a break from micromanaging other aspects of the economy, such as appeasing the domestic sugar cartel by pressuring the Coca-Cola company to introduce a version of Coke made with cane sugar. 

Trump’s AI policy is based on a mostly correct diagnosis but a questionable remedy. The diagnosis is that AI is a critical technology, that the US is in competition with China on the rollout of AI, that the US doesn’t have enough electricity generation and distribution capacity to meet the power needs of data centers, that generation and distribution have been handicapped by the push for renewable energy, and that the electricity market is suboptimal and in need of a major reform.

He didn’t say anything about data centers needing tremendous amounts of water for cooling or about ancient aquifers already being pumped dry in much of the Southwest and Plains states.

Power companies agree that power generation and distribution are inadequate to meet the energy demands of data centers. Take America’s largest power grid, PJM Interconnect, which serves 65 million people across 13 states and Washington, DC, including Loudoun County, Virginia, which is known as Data Center Alley, because it is home to the nation’s largest hubs for data centers.

PJM Interconnect has issued multiple alerts this summer about reaching maximum generation and loads. The root problem was identified by Joe Bowring, the president of Monitoring Analytics, which is the independent watchdog over PJM Interconnect. Browning told Bloomberg News that there is simply no new capacity to meet the burgeoning loads from data centers. “The solution is to make sure that people who want to build data centers are serious enough about it to bring their own generation,” he said.

But that’s not what they’re doing. Instead, they are raising electricity rates for everyone else, including residential users of electricity.  

Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler succinctly summarized the profit calculus in a recent column: Wealth is being transferred from residential and commercial users of electricity to the likes of META and AWS for the operation of their data centers so they can reap big profits from AI. This is from a guy who is a big cheerleader for capitalism and technology.

Trump’s plan is to remove regulatory barriers to the building of new power plants, electricity grids, and data centers; to allow data centers to be built on federal land in order to get around state and local resistance to them; and, in a continuation of his existing policy, to reduce subsidies for renewable energy and electric vehicles while increasing the production of fossil fuels.

There are widely different opinions among Americans on the seriousness of global warming and what can and should be done about it. It serves no purpose to rehash the debate here, other than to say that if global warming is indeed a serious problem, then Trump’s policy will make it worse.

Also, if an overriding goal is to win the AI competition against China, then it is important to recognize that the communists are making advancements in this key technology while also becoming a leader in the production and adoption of EVs, in battery technology, in the availability of charging stations for EVs, in solar panel production and technology, and in the rare earth minerals needed for these industries. At the same time, it is expanding and hardening its electrical grid.

In other words, China isn’t pursuing an either/or strategy of renewable energy or AI. It is pursuing both. And it is doing so for the strategic reason of reducing its dependence on oil, the supply of which can be easily disrupted in a war with the US.

That’s not a Pollyannish view of China.  The country has serious problems stemming from the intrinsic shortcomings of an authoritarian state. But what saves it—at least for now—is its ancient culture, its Confucian worldview and long-term perspective, and its large population of citizens who have a high tolerance for suffering and surveillance, a preference for saving over consumption, and a unified front in spite of the nation’s ethnic diversity.

Finally, with respect to data centers, the Chinese government can dictate where they are built. It’s a model of governance that the city of Tucson and Pima County like to emulate.

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The Prescott Plaza Downtown Hotel Controversy Looms Large

By David (Cowboy Dave) Segall

Written by David (Cowboy Dave) Segall

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Many concerns still plague the proposed Prescott Plaza Hotel, currently under consideration for construction in downtown Prescott, in the heart of Whiskey Row. On Tuesday, July 22, 2025, the Historic Preservation Committee once again voted to recommend to the Prescott City Council that the hotel be denied as submitted, as it had done in 2023.

There are still many issues and concerns, not just from the preservation committee, but also from residents. Some of these concerns are the design shape and size of hotel awnings, the design shape and size of room balconies and doors, as well as some of the fit and finish materials to be used, in addition to the concerns for front entry doors and window setbacks as expressed by the preservation committee and residents. 

However, the biggest issue and concern is found in the Historical Preservation Guidelines, which indicate a 1, 2, or 3-story building and a height not to exceed 48 ft. The current design is for a four, (4) story building. The sheer number of stories for this hotel makes this project incompatible with the downtown historic district and certainly out of place for our landmark Whiskey Row. After nearly four years of numerous requests for compliance from the preservation committee and the city council, the builder/owner still refuses to comply. Instead, he has decided to lawyer up.  

Other than the builder’s lack of compliance with the Historic Preservation Guidelines, there are numerous different issues that need to be addressed by the City of Prescott. 

It’s not just about the proposed hotel!  

This project affects not just Prescott residents; it also impacts everyone who lives, works, or visits Prescott and our Tri-City area. Here is a list of concerns, to the best of my knowledge, which remain unknown or unresolved. 

Parking for the hotel staff, guests, and those visiting the hotel, not to mention those coming to Prescott to shop, dine, and visit our downtown Courthouse Plaza. Prescott already has a significant lack of parking.

Traffic congestion during demolition and construction.  

Construction time frame: Potentially years. Just the Interior remodel for the Az National Bank took well over a year and there were NO structural changes.  

Site Demolition and debris removal time frame: 

Mitigation and protection regarding structural integrity to adjacent and nearby structures during demolition and construction: 

Economic impact due to loss of foot traffic for retail stores, bars, and restaurants: 

Economic impact, revenue Loss/Gain to all other existing Prescott City hotels (12 existing hotels, 10 of which are brand-name hotels, within the Prescott City limits).  

Economic impact of the potential loss of tourism because of all the above.                                                      

On August 5, 2025, the Prescott City Council will meet again to review the recent recommendation from the Historic Preservation Committee to deny this project. This is similar to the city council’s decision on March 26, 2024, when it agreed with the Preservation Committee and voted to deny the project. 

The real question is: How will city council members vote this time? 

Let’s take a trip down memory lane.  

In June of 2023, all candidates running for Prescott City Council and the Mayor position were sent the exact same survey and asked to respond. Read what they said below in response to the survey. Then listen to what they say now. Hotel portion starts at 1:39:00

Question # 1 of that survey was: 

  1. Do you agree or disagree that one of the many responsibilities of the City Council is protecting the Heritage, and the general feel of that which has made the City of Prescott, referred to as “Everyone’s Hometown? How will you work to continue to protect and ensure future development and growth does not detract from our historical and cultural appeal?

       Response from Connie Cantelme:

  • “I have spoken for years on the value of our historic downtown area and wondered why it had been allowed to deteriorate. The reason I became involved with the city and the boards and committees was to influence and educate people as to the value we have surrounding our history. Tourists come here to see our history, we must protect it.”

Perhaps Ms. Cantelme is no longer willing to fight to Protect Prescott and may simply be willing to give in to an attorney’s threat. I wonder where our nation would be if those brave and strong men and women who valiantly fought for our country’s independence, had given in to King George.  

         Response from Ted Gambogi: 

  • “Heritage. Agree. The phrase “Everybody’s Hometown” suggests we are neighborly and friendly, but we’re not living up to our own mission. When it comes to issues you ask about throughout this survey we act like the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s driving a stake in the ground before we understand all the facts. My campaign theme is “Come Together Prescott,” which means let’s find where we can agree and see if our areas of disagreement can be overcome for the greater good of Prescott.”

More recently Mr. Gambogi says he doesn’t know what it means to “Keep Prescott, PRESCOTT”: how sad! Apparently, Mr. Gambogi no longer wants all the facts, nor does he seem interested in the greater good of Prescott. Perhaps Council member Gambogi is better suited for Phoenix. 

              Response from Lois Fruhwirth:

  • “I fully agree. Our history, values, cultural appeal and quality of life attracted many of us to now call Prescott home. Protecting property owners’ development rights while shaping prudent future development code and water policies is a key responsibility of the council to ensure a vibrant future. The renewal of our city’s Historic Preservation Masterplan over the next 2 years by council will be central to preserving our “Hometown” look & feel.”

No, I do not agree with Ms. Fruhwirth, on the July 8th 2025 meeting when she said more information is required.  Why is she so willing to continue this matter? It was denied back on 3/26/2024 with a unanimous vote 7-0 by the City Council and was deemed final by SEC.9.18/ Appeal of Council or Board of Adjustment Decision. There appears to be no record of the applicant having filed an Appeal to the city council (regarding their decision on 3/26/2024) with a court of competent jurisdiction.   (Hotel meeting portion starts at 2:05:20).

             Response from Mayor Phil Goode: 

  • “I agree. My website philgoode4mayor.com shows my detailed plans for managing growth within Prescott, to retain our historical and cultural appeal.” 

It appears that Mayor Goode is the only one to remain consistent and strong on preserving our historic Prescott. Thank you, Mayor Goode.

Please listen to the many public remarks from the community at large who overwhelmingly do not want this project on Whiskey Row. Many important issues were raised. 

Whether you are in favor of change or not: Change without a clear and concise vision and consideration of all contingencies usually is a recipe for disaster. 

If you have concerns regarding this hotel project, please sign this on-line petition. 

https://form.jotform.com/251947473906165 .

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Prescott’s Development Dilemma

By Suzanne Cook Catlin

Written by Suzanne Cook Catlin

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Ronald Reagan once commented on how the values of the Democratic Party had shifted when he said, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” Prescott, Arizona, conservatives could easily apply that to Prescott. “I didn’t leave Prescott’s conservative, small-town values; Prescott’s values left me.”   

New Groups Claim to Fight for Prescott’s Conservative Values

You might have been led to believe that several new “groups” are fighting for conservative values, but you’d be wrong. Overdevelopment at the expense of residents isn’t a conservative value.  

These groups are primarily backed by recent California newcomer Chad DeVries, also known as Chad Wade and Wade Chad, who earns his living as a real estate investor and developer. Perhaps that’s why he wrote an opposition argument against the protection of Prescott City’s open spaces in perpetuity.  

Who else opposes protecting our open spaces?  Chad’s allies and others who support poorly managed growth are Tony Hamer and Linda Nichols. Others include Linda Grey, Sherri Hanna, and Michelle Hamer, who are waging a campaign against targeted city officials.

What was the “sin” of these officials to provoke their wrath? Two of them chose not to vote for Sherri Hanna to fill a vacant city council seat. Hanna, a former government postal worker, ran for county supervisor a few years ago and was resoundingly rejected by the voters. Her husband had been a Prescott City Councilman before his tragic death from downwinders. Sherri’s volunteer work is notable, but that doesn’t mean she’s necessarily the right person for the city council.  

Unfortunately, Sherri and her friends have employed tactics that have worked in their favor many times in the past, attempting to destroy anyone they perceive as getting in their way. She’s ambitious. Unfortunately, we have too many candidates and elected officials like that now. It’s time for government to be run more like a business, not a good old boys club for the Prescott elites. 

How “Water Rights” Became “Water Privileges”

Growth is inevitable, but out-of-control growth like Orange County, CA., and other California counties isn’t.  It’s happening in Arizona, specifically in Prescott. Unfortunately, the recent session of the legislature passed a bill signed by the Governor that allows farmers to sell their water rights. The people most likely to buy them are developers. In addition to the influx of people fleeing California for the political safe haven of Arizona, you can now add the housing needed to support 10 new plants being built here.  

Four of the plants are artificial intelligence chip factories that use tremendous amounts of water in the cooling process.  When asked the question ‘where’s all the water coming from to support these plants’ the only answer given was by one person. They’ll recapture the used water and recycle it. No mention of evaporation. The first plant is currently being built near Lake Pleasant, off Interstate 17. It’s projected that roughly 2,000 housing units are being built to support the workforce of just that one plant. Many Taiwanese nationals are relocating here to support the plant.  

Softbank has committed to Trump a $1 trillion investment in a robot factory that will be located in Arizona. The plans for this plant aren’t yet available, but it will undoubtedly require a large workforce and housing to support it.

Intelligent Growth or Haphazard Development?

Growth is inevitable.  Arizona is at a crossroads, where our growth going forward can be planned with ample open spaces and services near homes, which will mitigate the impact of city sprawl and its effect on people’s psyche.

There are huge problems that need to be solved, hopefully before development loses its collective mind.  

These are the same people who freaked at the idea of more bike paths and other good ideas in the General Plan. A closer review of the provisions was a good idea. It’s essentially a boilerplate template using leftist language, but what separates the plan from mere ideas is the absence of mandates, regulations, fines, and force. Not all ideas in the plan are bad ones.  Prescott’s status as a top-tier mountain biking community, combined with the growing popularity of electric bikes, supports the development of better bike lanes. As for the more odious ones, many are a result of mandates issued in the past by federal agencies. These will likely change as the Trump administration seeks to reduce and minimize government overreach, and those sections of the plan will likely be revised or voided.

 Prioritizing Problem-Solving and Smart Planning

At the top of the list of problems to be solved are stretched healthcare resources, infrastructure such as roads and highways, basic services (including emergency, educational, and shopping areas), water scarcity and groundwater depletion, construction labor shortages, habitat loss, altered drainage patterns, and regulatory chaos and legal challenges. These problems pose the challenge of creating a delicate balance between the need for innovative development and adequate planning, without the exploding taxes that will be needed to pay for much of it by our cities, counties, and the State.

What does this have to do with Prescott? Its growth has been accelerating in the last several years, and developers, current residents, “old time” residents, and newcomers are clashing. The city council, in its foresight, planned and began buying parcels of pristine land to set aside for future generations.  

Open Spaces v Parks

The developers and their friends want open space to be used for parks and other things. It makes sense because they don’t want to be required to provide those essentials in the tracts of endless houses that all look alike.  Highway 69 through Dewey is a residents’ nightmare with small houses packed together next to the highway.

Another serious problem is the very real risk of fire. As Prescott packs in more people, evacuation becomes questionable. A California-like Pacific Palisades fire opens the question of how Prescott would evacuate a significant portion of its population. A quick analysis of local roads struggling to keep up with growth shows that it would be nearly impossible.

One cost-effective and straightforward solution to fire prevention is to clear open space land through grazing.  Grazing keeps combustible fuel (primarily grass and weeds) from getting out of control. Chilton v. the Center for Biological Diversity is a compelling story of how leftist agencies and NGO’s have attempted to destroy cattle ranching.  It explains in detail how ranchers often know the environment better than most environmentalists, and grazing can reduce fires.

However, too many developers aren’t interested in solutions.

Once a workable plan with cost-effective solutions is in place that the people of Prescott can adopt, it’ll be time to consider changes to the Charter Amendment. To do otherwise puts the horse before the cart. In the meantime, be leery of people who make unsubstantiated claims, hide their identities under fake organizations whose intent is to feed you one-sided information, make promises they don’t keep (like releasing documents), and who have a vested interest in the outcome.

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

The End Of The Green Panic thumbnail

The End Of The Green Panic

By Jeff Reynolds

Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

It’s implausible, impractical, and the opposite of urgent. The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) has proven to hold little importance for the citizens of the world, and now that Donald Trump has reascended to the White House and targeted green energy boondoggles for elimination, the world has started to take his lead. Perhaps the UN hasn’t noticed, but the Trump effect is real and has given cover for leaders across the globe to quietly back away from the insane spending required to make green energy remotely comparable to conventional combustion-based energy production.

This process has also revealed a truth as the tide goes back out: Nobody believes the fundamental premise of global warming anyway, despite the decades of panic fomented by globalists, totalitarians, and grifters hoping to cash in.

We may very well be witnessing the death of the green panic as a meaningful societal and political movement.

The People Never Bought the Theory

In The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway described the process of going bankrupt: Gradually, and then suddenly. The same description holds for the death of the climate narratives. Ever since then-Sen. Al Gore (D-TN) brought up the concept of global warming at the U.S. Senate hearing in 1988, it has been marked by myth-making more than science. To commemorate this “birthday”—the hearing was held on July 23, 1988—the CO2 Coalition recounted the story of how it came to be:

This first hearing was convened by former Senator Timothy E. Wirth, along with a young Senator from Tennessee named Al Gore. It was no coincidence that the hearing was held on this date.

“We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer,” explained Senator Wirth. “So, we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it. What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room.”

That hearing began a nearly 40-year run of unimpeded misinformation linking carbon dioxide to unusual and unprecedented warming.

  • Consensus science replaced the scientific method.
  • Censorship of contrary evidence was nearly complete.
  • No debate was allowed because the science was settled.

Born of a PR stunt and backing by a few fringe scientists, the theory then morphed into a driving principle of the professional Left. Massive pseudoscience campaigns emerged to support the spurious claims of impending planetary doom in the media, which has incentivized politicians to adopt punitive and confiscatory public policies. The voters routinely ranked climate change near the bottom of their priorities in public opinion surveys, but that didn’t matter to the power- and money-hungry politicians and bureaucrats.

The history of public climate policy from that point on has involved ever increasing spending by federal and state governments, ever tighter industrial regulations, and “investments” in financially foolhardy projects—remember Obama’s failure with Solyndra?

Fast forward to 2019, a banner year for climate hysteria. In February, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Green New Deal, a deliberate throwback to another massive federal spending boondoggle. And then in September, the teenage Swedish activist Greta Thunberg addressed the UN Climate Action Summit, accusing world leaders of stealing her future and saying we could only ever add 420 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere before we start seeing “chain reactions beyond human control.” She gave us 8 ½ years from that point.

The murals of St. Greta started popping up in blue cities almost immediately, representing the high-water mark for the movement.

Media outlets, corporate boardrooms, and Big Philanthropy ramped up their all-out campaigns. ZeroHedge reported that media stories about climate change skyrocketed in 2019 and beyond.

Green Energy and Climate Lawsuits Expand the Grift

The politicians have used the pseudoscience and “malinformation” campaigns to sell their “green energy” schemes on the promises of affordability and job creation. When carbon-based energy like gasoline or natural gas outcompete wind or solar in the marketplace, they fall back on the old excuse that Big Oil gets too many government subsidies for “green energy” to compete. Meanwhile, activist legal groups use the court system to punitively pursue Big Oil and electricity producers for all sorts of novel legal theories of liability, reflected in the #ExxonKnew social media campaign and other activist strategies to hold large corporations accountable for the climate.

None of these baseline assumptions hold water. But they do share a common feature: Extensive funding via leftist dark money. From the foundations funding the pseudoscience and media campaigns, to the leftist legal megafirms filing nuisance lawsuits, the resources thrown at this know no limit. Billionaire Tom Steyer went so far as to buy his way into the Democratic National Committee and use his position to add the climate change plank to the party platform in 2016.

These campaigns use their expansive resources to impede progress in every aspect of the energy sector. From protests to shut down pipelines, to lawsuits against fracking, to overregulating the expansion of America’s electrical grid, vast wealth has been expended on loud but unpopular campaigns to hinder our energy sector, vital for a life in modern America that even most environmentalists don’t want to give up. After all, how could they foment all those protests without the rare earth elements that run their social media accounts on their cell phones?

Americans have gotten increasingly sick of all of it.

Panic Only Works for So Long

No matter how much money the professional Left spends to buy access to media, corporate policies, and party platforms, they have failed to move the needle among a sufficient segment of the voting populace. The more they’ve failed, the more outlandish their claims of doom. UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres expressed this frustration when he declared in a 2023 speech that the world had surpassed global warming and had officially (from his telling) entered the era of “global boiling.”

The needle stubbornly continued to fail to move.

That needle probably noticed all the failing narratives around global warming when it decided to stay stuck in neutral. I’ve documented the collapsing narratives surrounding bee populations that have failed to decline, polar ice caps that stubbornly refuse to shrink, the idea that natural sources don’t affect atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the myth of increasing numbers of more intense weather events, and many more.

As the narratives collapse, the public panic continues to refuse to take hold. Meanwhile, the demand for more and more electricity continues to grow across residential and commercial sectors. Especially considering the rapid growth and development of the artificial intelligence sector, power demands have ramped up significantly as we begin the second quarter of the 21st century.

And as that demand grows, it becomes more obvious by the day: Green energy cannot sustain the current demand, never mind a near-term future of massive server farms, a renewed focus on domestic manufacturing, and growing residential populations.

The Iberian Nightmare—the nationwide blackout in both Spain and Portugal—proved this on April 28. Less than two weeks after boasting that they had reached 100% renewable energy on their electrical grid, Spain experienced a 100% blackout, which caused a cascading effect in Portugal as well. The rest of Europe was spared from a similar fate only by automated systems kicking in to protect France from the power surge.

“Renewable” energy fails because it cannot provide the baseline power load required by residential and industrial uses. Depending on wind and solar can never provide consistent, steady production on a stable frequency. Battery storage comes with a host of problems that don’t appear to have solutions. And since dams are out of favor with fish biologists, we can’t include hydroelectric in our suite of renewable options. (Apparently ornithologists and marine biologists are cool with wind, though.) Anyway, voters see through the cognitive dissonance and contradictory messages by conservationists about the supposedly environmentally friendly sources of electricity and have largely rejected the nonsensical premise.

One industry report suggests over half of North America faces the risk of blackouts in the next decade due to skyrocketing demand and the retirement of gas and coal power plants. So, independent of the funding issues with the new administration, state power regulators have retreated from their zeal to achieve net-zero goals (net-zero carbon emissions) in favor of reliable power supply.

This, along with a host of other failures in green energy and predictions of doom that have never come true, have forced even some Democrats to start backing away from their net-zero plans. Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently took note of this, and gave the reason:

Cost and reliability is what voters really care about when it comes to energy. Given four choices of their energy policy priorities in a 2024 YouGov climate issues survey, 37% of voters said the cost of the energy they use was most important to them. Another 36% said the availability of power when they need it was most important. Meanwhile, just 19% thought that the effect of their energy consumption on the climate was most important.

They also see through the promises that wind and solar are free, or at least cheap. The land footprint of wind and solar farms is far larger than that of a nuclear or coal plant; the materials used in turbines, blades, and panels often cannot be recycled or safely disposed of; and the infrastructure—especially the amount of reinforced concrete in wind turbine bases—can create a so-called carbon footprint larger than that of conventional power plants.

For many reasons, the Trump administration has pulled back on the government’s commitments to the green movement. In place of massive subsidies for failing green energy projects, Trump and his team have refocused the federal government on reliability and energy independence. These issues resonate with voters in the 21st century who see the AI revolution currently underway and who realize that America’s aging energy grid needs massive upgrades—upgrades that have been held back for decades by overregulation by bureaucrats.

As this new focus on energy independence progresses, government grants have dried up, causing green stocks to tank. The rest of corporate America has quickly followed suit. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that annual shareholder reports have gone silent on climate issues:

American Airlines highlighted its focus on “ambitious climate goals” in a report last year.

In a similar filing a few weeks ago, that phrase was gone.

The airline is among a wave of companies across industries tweaking—sometimes overhauling—what they say about their sustainability and climate efforts in proxy statements, an investor filing released every year ahead of a business’s annual shareholder meeting.

The writing is on the wall. State governments, corporations, and stock markets are all following the lead of the Trump administration’s more rational, America First approach to energy. The purveyors of climate panic haven’t realized it yet, but the billions poured into this movement by Big Philanthropy haven’t made a dent in public opinion. Public policy is poised to make an about face, cheered on by a majority of voters. People just don’t buy the faulty premises of the supposed problem, or the purported solutions to it.

In short, we are witnessing the end of the green panic and the dawn of a new age of energy and environmental rationalism.

*****

The article was published by CFACT, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, and is reproduced with permission.

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This Land Is Your Land thumbnail

This Land Is Your Land

By Tony Francois

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Senator Lee should introduce the New Frontier Homestead Act of 2026

Should the federal government auction less than one percent of non-conservation status public lands to alleviate housing shortages and reduce the federal debt? This is how Utah Senator Mike Lee tried to frame the question when he included a provision to this effect in the Senate version of the Big Beautiful Bill. Alas for Senator Lee, the New Right’s resounding answer has been hell no, and he has beaten a hasty retreat. Perhaps to his relief, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled the public land sale provision ineligible for the reconciliation procedure under which the BBB was being handled. Mr. Lee lives to fight another day, but can the New Right be warmed up to his proposal?

For many years, Western Republicans have chafed at the federal government’s poor management of public lands, which make up most of the acreage of several states. California is almost half public land, while Nevada is more than 80%. Western states average about 50% public lands.

These lands were open to homesteading until 50 years ago, just as was the vast American valley of the Mississippi. But where the Great Plains were rapidly settled with farms and towns, the arid Mountain West saw far less settlement. Late 19th-century technology was inadequate to access the water resources necessary to farm most of the high desert, so homesteaders stuck to the very few fertile stream valleys. The rest of the land remained free for mining and cattle grazing.

Some of it was eventually settled in the first half of the 20th century thanks to large irrigation projects, and vast areas were classified as national forests, preserving them for timber production. Dozens of national parks were added to the mix at the dawn of the environmental movement in the 1960s, and federal legislation ended homesteading in 1976. The frontier, long practically closed by technological and cultural limits, was now formally and legally closed as well.

The conservation and recreation values of these millions of acres of public land are high, and for many millions of Americans (and a notably strong cohort in the New Right) the opportunity to hike, backpack, camp, fish, hunt, and just be more human is an essential element of our American heritage.

Much public land is in various types of “conservation status”: wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and the like. But many millions of acres are “generic” and managed (or mismanaged) by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service for mining, grazing, and timber production. It is a mistake to think of every acre of public land as pristine wilderness fit only for permanent preservation and enjoyment in its natural state. But it is also a profound error to think of public lands with spreadsheet-brain proneness to maximize measurable financial value.

These are the teeth of the trap into which Senator Lee stepped.

Reopening the Frontier

What policy problem was Lee’s bill meant to solve? Not fire danger, not reduction in productive resource development, not revitalization of struggling rural towns—all of which haunt the West after decades of federal ineptitude. No, it was introduced to help pay down the national debt and solve the conundrum of housing affordability, which congressional allies then restated as affordable housing, which most people know is not even the same thing.

Lee wanted to sell areas of public land suitable for housing development near cities, with priority given to isolated tracts with existing infrastructure services, and excluding pretty much everything in conservation status. Many New Right critics argued that nothing in the bill prevented the sale of non-conservation lands that nonetheless have high recreational value and use. But I don’t think that was the biggest problem with the bill.

In my view, it was that the legislation would not help solve the problem Lee wanted to address. Outrageous housing costs are caused by local land use practices, not federal land ownership near cities. If Senator Lee’s bill was passed and signed by President Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum could designate a perfect area of land in Solano County, California (let’s stipulate that nobody would object to this specific sale), and sell it to Silicon Valley billionaires trying to show the world they can build a new city in California. The tech bro town fathers would still be completely helpless when they apply to the Solano County Planning Commission for permits to build California Forever. Some new housing, maybe someday—but not so affordable.

Any undeveloped land the federal government transfers into private hands would then be fully regulated by state and local governments, under whatever rules those zoning overlords impose. And the only players likely to prosper in such environments are large-scale developers with substantial capital who currently operate those systems effectively.

There is another feasibility problem with Lee’s bill. Who would anyone trust within the federal land bureaucracy to carry out such a program effectively, and would other federal laws allow it to move forward? Lee’s bill had no exemptions from federal environmental review or the Endangered Species Act. The discretionary selection of lands to be sold under his bill would languish through years of planning, interagency consultation, and environmental review, followed by more years of litigation extending so far into the future that we would be dealing with Elon Musk’s breakaway Republic of Mars long before anyone sells your favorite MAGA influencer’s favorite hiking trail to BlackRock.

So should Senator Lee avoid introducing another public lands bill in the future? No.

Many critics of Lee’s bill conceded that some disposal of public lands could be in the public interest. The real questions are: Which ones, what for, and how to ensure that the purpose is achieved?

The state of water technology closed the frontier to new settlement decades before Congress repealed the Homestead Act in 1976. But the technological frontier has remained open, and lack of water is not the same barrier it was a century ago for at least some settlement of the arid West. Conservation, building, well technology, and the increased feasibility of non-agricultural settlement make it possible to found new communities in areas that once lacked adequate water resources.

What was impossible in 1925 is possible today: the reopening of the Western frontier to new settlement.

A generation of Americans yearning to build something good in their own country should be allowed the opportunity to try what their grandparents succeeded wildly at. The Western half of the United States should be open to technologically feasible settlement in the same way the Eastern half was. New towns that could grow into new cities would foster the Golden Age that everyone is tweeting about—which need to be built in real time. Just doing things is better than endless planning, consulting, assessing, and other forms of bureaucratic morass that engulf everything it touches.

Just Doing Things

Senator Lee should introduce a different bill: the New Frontier Homestead Act of 2026.

The first task is defenestrating state and local land use veto holders from the conversation. If reopening the frontier to technologically feasible settlement on public lands is a congressional objective, then the county planning commission is just going to have to pound sand. The tech bros aren’t going to build California City if the Solano County planning Karens have anything to say about it. The New Frontier will have to be opened under federal protection.

The second task is like the first: preventing federal laws and bureaucracy from killing it. To be exempt from state law, the land will have to remain in federal ownership or control while development occurs. But for any desirable development to occur under federal protection, several elements of federal law will have to be explicitly waived as well. This list of federal anti-development statutes can be copied and pasted from the congressional authorization to build the border wall. Presto—no environmental review, no decades-long interagency consultation over habitat for gnatcatchers. Instead, this is about “just doing things.”

With those obstacles surmounted, how would the Act work?

The current Interior Department and Forest Service (perhaps a DOGE-type team within each) should propose a list of non-conservation lands to be opened (the percentage of non-conservation public land in the original Lee bill, which was between .5 and .75%, is probably about right). Congress could then put that list in legislation. Or it could distill the list into a clear set of criteria for parcels. Proposing a list before the legislation is enacted would demonstrate the competence of the GOP and the Trump Administration, and help build the cultural and policy case for the New Frontier Homestead Act.

If the NFHA is wildly successful, more might be done in a future round. If it flops, relatively little harm will have been done. In any event, the conservation ethic will remain strong and serve as a natural check on the disposal of large amounts of public land, as will the usefulness of much of it, particularly for mining strategic metals and rare earths. Once the lands are determined, they should be catalogued into 40-acre parcels for disposal, just as with the original Homestead Act.

Only adult, natural-born citizens would be eligible for a New Frontier homestead. No shell companies, no layers of corporate bureaucracy concealing pension funds, insurance companies, multinationals, or sovereign wealth funds. These would be the only qualifications for eligibility.

Requiring individuals to take responsibility at the front end helps vet applicants and limits them to only one entry. The Lee bill allowed any type of entity to win two parcels per auction cycle. But the Tocquevillian spirit of the original Homestead Act, focused on small holdings and personal development, is needed to open the New Frontier.

The original Homestead Act allowed anyone to stake a claim and then build a home and farm the claimed land over five years. If a threshold percentage of the homestead was farmed over those five years, the Land Office transferred ownership to the homesteader. Farming was the necessary foundation for a new community in the 19th century.

This is clearly not true today, with new technology and new economics. One should still be allowed to establish title through farming part or all of the land. But other ways of improving land should be counted, including starting businesses that employ a given number of people who live on the 40 acres, building homes with related amenities (like a church, school, clinic, or community store) and similar measures of development.

For simplicity and to minimize the amount of judgment and discretion exercised by federal bureaucrats charged with approving the final patents, the qualification for obtaining the land grant should be very clear and enforceable. This will lead to some oversimplification and perhaps gaming the requirements, but the alternative is endless fights over whether a homesteader has done enough to earn the patent. We want this to succeed wildly, not be a federal program to install rural broadband.

If the homesteader doesn’t develop the homestead adequately, he loses his investment, and it goes back to the pool for reallocation. Great rewards require great risks and are not for the faint of heart. Tolerating risk of loss is a necessary filter for the pioneers we want on the New Frontier.

The Lee bill awarded parcels to winners at auction. The biggest war chest would win twice in every auction cycle. Instead, the way to choose the pioneers without advantaging the oligarchs is by lottery. Anyone with a dream can get land, not just the wealthiest auction bidders, and if anyone can win, more people with good ideas or energy will try it.

Various lottery methods can be used. Entrants could be aggregated nationwide, with the entire pool chosen from for each parcel. Or entrants could designate one or a small number of parcels to be considered, and then the lottery for each parcel could be among those most interested in it. Though once your number is pulled, you are then ineligible for another parcel in the lottery.

What will the winning pioneers pay? Processing costs. If we want the New Frontier settled by young builders with vision, energy, and optimism, we can’t give them the student loan treatment. Yes, they will get an enormous benefit for very little land cost if they succeed, and no, this won’t help pay off the $37 trillion national debt. But today nearly everyone in the Western portion of the Mississippi Valley lives on land that was once given by the federal government to a homesteader. We all idolize the pioneer spirit of those homesteaders, our great-grandparents who made something out of nothing and built a nation. We don’t resent the fact they were given 40 acres of Mississippi Valley farmland for $10 as part of a strategic policy to settle a nation.

So there we are: the New Frontier Homestead Act. Natural-born citizens are eligible to enter a lottery to be awarded 40 acres of public land. If they develop to specific benchmarks within five years, free of both state and federal regulation, the federal government grants them title upon payment of processing costs.

Do you want to renew America? This is a pretty good start.

*****

This article was published by The American Mind and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Oklahoma land rush Wikimedia Commons

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Trump’s EPA chief clears the air on chemtrails and geoengineering, in the interest of ‘total transparency’ thumbnail

Trump’s EPA chief clears the air on chemtrails and geoengineering, in the interest of ‘total transparency’

By Leo Hohmann

After an exhaustive investigation published on EPA websites, Director Lee Zeldin says Americans now know everything he knows about those mysterious ‘streaks in the sky’, which apparently isn’t much! 

There have long been claims about the exhaust trails from commercial and military jets traveling over the United States.

You’ve all seen them. The cris-crossing across the sky of large plumes of exhaust that gradually spread out. Some days they don’t appear at all. Other days, under the same weather conditions, they are extremely heavy and mesmerizing.

Take a look at the picture below, which I shot on April 24, 2024, of the sky above my house in Georgia. I call it the Zebra Sky.

Some have suggested that these jets may be spraying a chemical cocktail included in the jet fuel of certain flights and not included in others. That might explain why the white emissions are present on some days, while on other days the sky appears pure blue even though there are just as many jets passing over our property, which is very close to the world’s busiest commercial airport, Atlanta Hartsfield International.

Now Lee Zeldin, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President Donald Trump, has announced he has the answers. He says he’s investigated the claims and can clear everything up for us.

His conclusion? He’s debunking the idea that there’s anything abnormal about these “contrails.” There is absolutely no connection to geoengineering, the Trump EPA has assured us. Nor anything else sinister.

As for that other word. Um, Chemtrails? What chemtrails. The word is never even uttered by Zeldin, and the mainstream media is having a ball with this story as they’re now able to cite the Trump administration to debunk what they’ve always called conspiracy theories.

As Salon reports, “In the wake of deadly flooding in Texas, the Environmental Protection Agency has created two websites to combat conspiracy theories around weather manipulation.”

Here’s Zeldin patting himself on the back for doing such a great job of exposing truth for an administration that’s into “total transparency.”



Total transparency? I guess it’s the same kind of transparency that led to Attorney General Pam Bondi refusing to turn over the Epstein client list. After previously admitting they were on her desk, she now says they don’t exist. The government has lost whatever small amount of credibility it had when it said Epstein had no secret client list and never blackmailed anybody.

Sorry, Mr. Zeldin, but our trust in this administration’s word has been seriously breached.

First it released JFK assassination files that we were told were going to blow our minds, only to find out that there was nothing shocking or even mildly different in what was released from the same old same old.

Then came the Epstein debacle with Pam Bondi trying to redefine what she meant when she said the client list was on her desk waiting to be reviewed. It wasn’t really a client list, she now says, she was just referring to the files in general. Oh, he was a nasty pervert, a pedophile, Bondi said of Epstein, but he had no involvement in setting up politicians or other important people and making sure they were compromised. That was something we all imagined. Another conspiracy theory.

Now we’re told the chemtrails are no different. It’s all a figment of our wild imaginations to notice that they’re there on some days and absent on others. If it was just normal condensation, wouldn’t they be visible every single day that there’s a clear sky and normal air traffic? Apparently not.

So there’s nothing to see here. Move along. Just like there was nothing odd about the official JFK assassination story we received from the Warren Commission so many years ago. It was a single crazed gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, shooting from a window in the Dallas book depository, who killed President Kennedy. End of story.

Nor was there anything out of the ordinary about Epstein. He was just a common pedophile, with no sinister attachments to the CIA, FBI, Mossad or any other agency of any government…wink, wink.

This is why no one trusts the government. It doesn’t matter who gets elected, the same old lies continue to be told, and the same old secrets continue to be covered up.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

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The post Trump’s EPA chief clears the air on chemtrails and geoengineering, in the interest of ‘total transparency’ appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Gas Crisis Looms Over California As Dems Continue To Impose Crippling Regs

By Audrey Streb

Written by Audrey Streb

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Editors’ Note: You may think the craziness in California is only a cultural phenomenon. Gruesome Newsom is looking for you. It could potentially hit your pocketbook soon unless something is done quickly to free us from the policies of Commiefornia. Arizona, particularly the Phoenix area, relies heavily on a special blend of gasoline—Cleaner Burning Gasoline (CBG) or Arizona Reformulated Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending (AZRBOB)—designed to reduce emissions under the Clean Air Act. California refineries primarily supply this fuel due to their proximity and ability to produce this unique formulation. However, recent closures of California refineries, such as the Phillips 66 Los Angeles refinery (set to close in October 2025) and the Valero Benicia refinery (set to close in April 2026), will reduce California’s refining capacity by approximately 17.4% to 18%, creating significant challenges for Arizona’s fuel supply. Arizona needs to be free from dependence on California, or there needs to be a modification of the EPA rules, or both. Arizona lacks in-state refineries and relies on California for approximately 33% of its gasoline demand, with pipelines from Southern California delivering most of the fuel to Phoenix. The closure of these refineries will reduce the availability of the special blend, potentially leading to supply shortages. Where is effective action from our veto Queen Katie Hobbs?

Democrat policies and new regulations hiked California’s gas prices on Tuesday, and a slew of green energy initiatives has led to refinery closures and lofty gas prices in the Golden State that may soon spiral into a full-blown crisis.

California is teetering on the brink of a gas crisis due primarily to Democrats’ green energy policies, as multiple major refineries prepare to shutter in the coming years and more stringent regulations on the oil and gas industries take effect. Democratic leadership and regulators enacted adjustments to California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program on Tuesday, resulting in a gas price increase that may be the beginning of further pain at the pump for the state’s consumers.

“Not every Californian is a millionaire like our governor is . . . and these regulations are bearing down on the average Californian and making California unaffordable,” Republican California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I’m addressing the cost of gasoline in California and trying to do everything I can to repeal the regulations that are causing it to go up, while at the same time alerting Californians of the impending cost of gasoline.”

 

California has the highest tax on gasoline in the nation, and its cap-and-trade program for emissions has also been connected to high energy prices in the state. The combination of these stringent regulations and the forthcoming closures of the Phillips 66 and Valero refineries in the state could result in gas shooting up to $8 per gallon as soon as 2026, according to one study from the University of Southern California.

Moreover, state regulators have suggested increasing state involvement in refinery management, including the possibility of what critics have derided as state-owned refineries to address the possible surge in gas prices.

Though gas prices have been hitting a four-year low across the U.S. ahead of Independence Day, Californians paid an average of about $4.57 per gallon as of Thursday, about $1.40 more than the national average, according to AAA gas price data. Prices increased in California by a few cents on Tuesday as adjustments to the state’s LCFS came into effect.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom set a goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2045, and he has fought to enact numerous green energy initiatives in his state, including an aggressive electric vehicle (EV) agenda.

California regulators planned to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles in the state and numerous others by 2035 before President Donald Trump signed Congressional resolutions to block the de facto EV mandate. California and ten other Democrat-led states immediately sued the Trump administration after the president terminated the Golden State’s de facto national EV mandate.

“The founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they ever thought the government would be in the business of dictating the type of transportation that Americans can choose,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) told the DCNF previously about California’s EV mandate. “The public is behind President Trump and the effort to preserve our ability to choose the types of cars that best suit our needs as consumers.”

Jones suspects the possible gas crisis is part of a broader effort by some Democrats to steer consumers to ditch conventional cars, noting that his office filled out a records request for emails between Newsom’s administration and the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

“The goal here is to show by their communications that they are purposefully trying to drive up the price of gasoline so that people are forced into EVs, public transportation or bicycles,” Jones told the DCNF.

The records request Jones filed has gone unanswered, the lawmaker told the DCNF, who noted that he has demanded an audit on the LCFS to find out if CARB comprehensively estimated the policy’s economic impacts or “concealed or downplayed costs.” CARB and Newsom’s office did not confirm to the DCNF whether or not they responded to the records request, though Newsom’s office referred the DCNF to several press releases that address some of Jones’ claims and noted that gas prices in the state are at a three-year low for July.

CARB initially cited estimates that the amendments to the LCFS could spike gas prices by 47 cents per gallon in 2024, according to multiple reports. The agency later walked back that projection in June, citing estimations that prices may only experience a per gallon hike of only five or six cents.

Newsom’s office also recently released a statement referencing a gasoline cost increase projection of eight cents per gallon. Jones described this shift in estimates as a “defensive scramble,” and cited a different estimate forecasting that the regulation shift could spike gasoline prices by as much as 65 cents per gallon in the near term.

“I’m focused on raising awareness and holding Governor Newsom, legislative Democrats, and unelected bureaucrats accountable for these costly and ineffective policies,” Jones said, railing against “unelected” regulators that have implemented strict energy policies that may necessitate a net-zero transition. “They’re out of control.”

Notably, California imports mass amounts of oil despite being “a very oil rich state,” Jones said. “We have plenty of oil in the ground, we just need to extract it,” he continued.

Citing the over 40,000 signatures on his petition to repeal the recent regulation change, Jones argued that he is witnessing an ideological shift in California.

“After Republicans and the media exposed the truth, Californians were outraged . . . [and they] are waking up. They’re starting to see that the reason for sky-high gas prices is irresponsible policies pushed by the majority party,” Jones said, referencing Newsom’s policies that seem to be driving up gas prices for the sake of “arbitrary climate targets.”

CARB did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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This article was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation and is reproduced with permission.

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