On an ordinary day, the world’s dirtiest air is over places like Delhi or Dhaka, not Detroit and DC. This past weekend, however, smoke had drifted down from the 900-some Canadian wildfires, which are currently burning out of control across the country.

For me, it was strange to see a familiar old haze creep into America’s capital city. I’ve only ever experienced something similar in the camps I used to spend my summers in, working as a firefighter across northern Canada to pay my way through university. Back then, it didn’t seem like our work would be upstream of international politics and very real personal health concerns; it was just a fun way to sidestep student debt.

But in the years since, wildfires across North America have become an ever-greater hazard, one that is currently affecting over 100 million people from the Great Lakes to the East Coast and will require commensurate political will and funding to address. Even the President agrees, in his way: as the smoke settled over Washington, Trump took to Truth Social to accuse Canada of “Willful Negligence,” blaming its refusal “to engage in basic Forest Management” for the filthy air and threatening to add the cost to Canada’s tariffs. The President is right that under-investment in forest management produces exactly this, which makes it strange that his administration is cutting support for the people who do that work, right when we need them most.

In back-to-back budget requests, the administration has proposed zeroing out the Forest Service’s entire research program, its restoration grants, and the State, Private, and Tribal Forestry account, which helps fund essential state and volunteer fire departments, while shifting firefighting itself to a new agency at Interior. Congress rejected these cuts last year; the White House simply asked for them again this year. And despite the passing of the much-needed firefighter pay fix in 2025, over 25% of Forest Service firefighting positions remained vacant as of last summer. Nearly 6,000 employees, or 16% of the total workforce, left the Forest Service last year due to layoffs, deferred resignations, and early retirement offers. Around 700 of those cut were wildfire support staff, some of whom work in “militia” type roles, jumping out of the office and onto the front lines when needed. Even those who never hit the line still help take care of America’s parks and wildlands — and in their absence, firefighters are now cleaning campsites and building trails instead of clearing decades worth of built-up fuel and cutting firebreaks. While administration officials claim that firefighters were not directly targeted and that recruitment is on par with stated goals, former Forest Service chiefs have called the layoffs “incompetence at best and mean-spirited at worst.” Reporting has shown that the recruitment goals are set well below the numbers needed to operate effectively.

There’s not just a recruitment crisis but an escalating retention issue. In my experience, the hardest thing about firefighting is not the long hours in the heat doing hard labor, but the unpredictability. At least in Canada, most firefighters work seasonally, starting around May and leaving by mid-September. During this time, they pray for fire, because all the money is in the overtime hours they work while on deployment, money they typically need to help support them until the next season. It’s hard on the body, and on relationships as well; your partner might be punted out to some remote forest for weeks on end, working in dangerous conditions with very few (if any) opportunities to call. Add to this the knowledge that the smoke and strain are all having real long-term effects on your physical and mental health, and it’s no wonder why so many churn out of firefighting after a few years, just like I did. It’s not that hard to find more stable, year-round jobs that don’t involve sucking in smoke.

The reason people stay in firefighting is that it is incredibly fun and meaningful work. There aren’t many other opportunities that can have you jumping in and out of helicopters as you fly through remote mountain ranges, digging trenches, felling trees, calling in (water) bombing runs, and building out campsites with your buddies all over the course of a couple of hours. There are millions of unemployed or underemployed young people across the US and Canada; you’d think selling them on some relatively well-paid adventure wouldn’t be too hard. In fact, much of the infrastructure built by young men during the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a program FDR created as part of his New Deal to address mass youth unemployment, is still in use. The parks, camps, trails, fire roads, and watchtowers they built could probably all use some rehabilitation. A new 21st-century CCC, driven by an ambitious administration that has already shown immense interest in revitalizing public monuments and restoring civic order, could be of great service here. Given that North America seems on course for some smoky summers for the foreseeable future, it might not be a bad idea to equip our younger generations with a prevention-and-suppression skill set.

Given that air pollution seems somewhat indifferent towards political borders, it might be in both countries’ best interests to work together on this one. While Washington and Ottawa renewed a long-standing wildfire cooperation agreement in 2023, and continue to work together in forecasting, monitoring, and mutual aid, the political posturing on both sides seems to be getting stranger. For years, American lawmakers have pressured Canadian politicians to do more when faced with the threat of out-of-control fires, and for years the Canadian government has responded that it is doing all it can. While this is not entirely true — there’s a lot more the Canadian government could do to drive up recruitment, training, and retention (personally, I think paying firefighters in a timely way would go far) — the reality is that the Canadian wilds are too vast to properly control, and once fires up there get big enough, it’s common to simply wait them out. I was once posted to a fire in the Yukon that was nearly as big as Nantucket… by myself. All I could do was block traffic on the one road it was burning over and tell annoyed travelers that yes, it would actually be very dangerous to drive through a firestorm.

But this doesn’t mean that America and Canada can’t work together on what can be controlled, and that’s quite a lot. The two countries will need to sort something out, as costs and casualties continue to rise. Nature has published a study estimating that the 2023 Canadian fires contributed to over 80,000 premature deaths worldwide, including some 33,000 in the US alone. Another study projects that annual smoke-related deaths across the US could rise by more than 70% by 2050. And this is just the smoke; fires are now frequently destroying huge swaths of towns and cities from Los Angeles to Lytton, British Columbia. These catastrophes cost lives, displace entire communities, and destroy capital investment. And yet, while we’ll never be able to completely stop them, we could be doing a lot more to prevent them. There is overwhelming evidence that fuel thinning plus prescribed burning can help reduce fire severity by over 60%. Not only that, but a Stanford analysis has found that prescribed fire appears to reduce overall net smoke emissions by 14%. Fire prevention is also much cheaper than direct suppression, with some estimates indicating that every dollar spent on preventing fires saves $3.75 down the line. When there are lives on the line, it’s not the time to be pointing fingers.

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In 2023, the US sent around 2,800 firefighters to help Canada suppress its out-of-control wildfires. But this was only possible because America was having a below-normal fire season of its own; had it been otherwise, there would have been no spare bodies to ship north. Given that raging wildfires and impenetrable smoke now seem to be an annual affair, it’s a little frightening to think that the margins on deployable first responders can be measured by a couple thousand. Both countries need to come together to combat this problem by drafting new, collaborative policies on increasing prevention, recruitment, retention, and joint rapid response. Every year we wait brings more smoke — a lingering reminder that there is a very human cost to treating fire as someone else’s problem.

Evan Riggs is the Director of Operations at the Bull Moose Project. Before entering politics, he was a wildland firefighter in northern Canada. He writes at The Burn.

It was 5:30 a.m. in rural Southwest Utah when I first saw what enhanced geothermal energy was really about.

I had just started my job at Fervo Energy in September 2025 and visited Cape Station, the company’s flagship project near Milford, Utah, about 200 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. I woke up early to catch the drilling crew’s shift change and meet some of the men and women bringing a new industry to life. Standing there in the unexpectedly cold, predawn quiet, watching workers rotate out under floodlights and listening to a morning safety briefing, I was captivated by the scene: hard hats, the rumble of heavy equipment, and the organized buzz of a well-run industrial site in the high desert.

It looked like an oil and gas operation, because in many ways, it is. But what I was witnessing was something new. Fervo is building America’s next great energy industry, and it’s doing it the American way: with proven technology, a homegrown workforce, and a domestic resource that can deliver for every American, no matter what your energy priorities may be.

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Innovation Built on American Expertise

Cape Station is Fervo Energy’s first commercial-scale Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) project. EGS has the potential to elevate geothermal from a niche regional resource into a backbone of reliable electricity generation across the United States, by engineering the subsurface to harvest heat from the earth and convert it into clean, reliable, affordable, and abundant power.

This is possible because EGS is built on innovations from the U.S. oil and gas sector. Fervo uses the same horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies that powered the shale revolution to unlock heat stored miles beneath the Earth’s surface, bringing the same workforce and supply chain with it. More than 90 percent of on-site labor hours at Cape Station have come from oil and gas workers, and more than 60 percent of Fervo’s employees are former oil and gas professionals. The project is supplied by companies like Baker Hughes, Vallourec, and Halliburton (among others), giving Fervo confidence that equipment and resources will arrive on time via a proven domestic industrial base.

Just like with natural gas, progress is accelerating rapidly. Since 2022, Fervo has cut drilling time by approximately 75 percent and per-foot drilling costs by approximately 70 percent, mirroring the early shale revolution’s learning curve almost exactly. Cape Station is contracted to deliver first power to the grid later this year, reaching approximately 100 megawatts of operating capacity by early 2027, with permits in place to expand to 2 gigawatts. The geothermal resource beneath that single project alone exceeds 4 gigawatts, roughly equivalent to the entire traditional geothermal industry in the United States today. And Fervo’s existing lease holdings across the American West represent the potential to unlock 40 gigawatts, enough to power more than 30 million American homes.

The same domestic assets — the innovation, the workforce, the supply chain — that once unlocked an era of energy abundance through shale are now launching the next great American energy industry in geothermal.

Checking Every Box

What makes geothermal so compelling is that it checks every box, no matter what you care about most.

If you care about affordability: Americans want electricity that is both reliable and affordable. Geothermal delivers both. Cape Station’s power is already cost-competitive with other clean baseload sources, and costs are continuing to fall, driven by the same learning curve that made shale gas affordable. The market has noticed: traditional utilities and hyperscalers have signed long-term contracts to purchase geothermal power. When buyers of that caliber commit to long-term deals, it’s a signal that the economics are real and improving.

If you care about conservation and environmental impact: Geothermal produces electricity without combustion, with no fuel burned and no emissions at the source. And because the infrastructure primarily lives underground, the surface is minimally impacted. That means geothermal can deliver large-scale clean baseload power while leaving the landscape, along with the habitat, open space, and natural character that come with it, nearly untouched. Fervo’s projects run on a closed-loop water system using non-potable water sources that dramatically reduce consumption compared to conventional power plants. The projects are clean across every metric: emissions, land use, and water.

If you care about reliability: The United States faces an energy reliability crisis. Aging baseload plants are retiring faster than replacement capacity is being built, creating a potential 98-gigawatt shortfall by 2035, precisely as AI data centers, advanced manufacturing, and broad electrification are pushing demand to new heights. Geothermal produces power continuously, regardless of weather, filling the baseload gap where it’s needed most. Speed is another advantage. Fervo’s Cape Station is delivering first power in approximately three years from groundbreaking, and a modular, standardized approach is designed to shorten that timeline with every successive project.

If you care about national energy security: The heat beneath our feet cannot be embargoed, disrupted by a foreign adversary, or delayed by a pipeline failure. With EGS technology, this resource is no longer confined to Nevada and California. The Department of Energy projects geothermal opportunities in at least 18 states by 2050. True energy independence looks like an energy source secured under American land, built by American workers, and deployed with American technological expertise.

The Scale of the Opportunity

This is not a niche story. Across multiple reports and Presidential administrations, the DOE projects that the United States could deploy 90 to 300 gigawatts of geothermal power by 2050, a twentyfold increase from today. Three hundred gigawatts would make geothermal a cornerstone of American energy, representing roughly a quarter of the entire U.S. electric grid.

The Big Thing Standing in the Way

While the technology, workforce, capital, and supply chain are in a good place to scale geothermal, the single biggest bottleneck is our outdated system for permitting energy projects and building electric transmission infrastructure.

Geothermal projects on federal public lands currently face overlapping environmental reviews that the oil and gas industry is not subject to in the same way. And even after a project is permitted and built, transmission and interconnection backlogs can delay grid connection by several more years.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have taken meaningful steps through executive action, and bipartisan legislative momentum is building. The Geothermal Energy Advancement Act and the CLEAN Act, which recently passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, would modernize leasing timelines, consolidate redundant reviews, and ensure agencies can keep pace with a growing industry. This is about modernizing, not eliminating, environmental review to ensure a clean, reliable, American-made energy technology isn’t unnecessarily delayed for years.

The Next Chapter

Standing at Cape Station that September morning, it’s clear I wasn’t witnessing a science experiment. I witnessed an industry being born, built by the same American workforce that built the last one, running on a resource that has been waiting underground since long before any of us were here.

The geothermal revolution can do what the shale revolution did: transform America’s energy position and provide a long-term solution to the nation’s energy affordability challenge. And it can do it while delivering for every constituency. Lower prices for ratepayers, pristine landscapes for conservationists, reliable power for grid operators, new opportunities for workers, and true energy independence for our national security. It checks every box.

What happens next depends on how many Americans are willing to put their skills, voices, and passion to work to accelerate the nation’s next great energy industry. Come join us.

Tom Erb leads Federal Affairs at Fervo Energy, a leading next-generation geothermal energy company.

There exists today a pervasive myth that environmentalism is a priority of the left and that conservatives are the antagonist to all things good and just in the environmental world. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and it’s time to end this trope once and for all.

Many attribute the true beginning of the American public land system to Teddy Roosevelt and his creation of the National Park system and Forest Service. Roosevelt, as the thinking goes, was a progressive in his time, and so the creation of public lands is a progressive milestone. The reason people view him as a progressive is quite an interesting example in cherry-picking; It is true that he had significant impacts in breaking up corporate monopolies, advocated for minimum wages, and employed aggressive use of bureaucratic red tape in reining in railroads and food safety standards. However, his Progressive Party, created to run against President Taft, was progressive in the same way that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is truly Democratic. Roosevelt was a fierce champion of military intervention all across the globe and was a big fan of hunting rare species, including killing nine white rhinos, which are now extinct. He was also the architect of a federal land system that was intended to be used for sustained yields of timber and other resources. It seems odd that progressives don’t claim this portion of Roosevelt’s legacy.

It is this world–the practical, real world–in which modern progressives are entirely alienated. The Forest Service today was created by Roosevelt, but largely designed in form and function by Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt’s first forester. Pinchot was a true conservationist in that he believed in maintaining lands for the continual use of the American people. Therefore, the intent of the Forest Service was to maintain a consistent yield of timber for generations in perpetuity. In other words, the sole reason for its creation was sustained logging–not camping, not hiking, and not scenic views or biodiversity. It is timber sales that initially drove the funding of the Forest Service today–not progressive activism. When the Forest Service began collecting more revenue than expected in its first couple of years, Congress grew uncomfortable with an executive bureau having its own independent “blank check.” Congress quickly passed legislation requiring all timber and grazing revenues to be deposited into the U.S. Treasury, forcing the Forest Service to rely on annual congressional appropriations for its budget.

The Bureau of Land Management dwarfs both the National Park Service and Forest Service in acreage and designated usage. Originally created as the General Land Office, the intent of this office was to get rid of land by selling it to homesteaders. Yes, the original intent of the BLM was to dispose of land. It was combined with the U.S. Grazing Service in 1934 and maintained a broad scope of functions, including livestock grazing, mineral extraction, railroad construction, and permanent housing settlement. Any other use, like hiking, camping, hunting, or general biodiversity, was secondary. It wasn’t until 1976 that the BLM gained its multiple-use designation which put other uses on par with–not above–the originally established goals.

Environmental activists have gone to extreme measures to prevent Roosevelt-style conservation from taking place. In the 80’s and 90’s, radical environmentalists engaged in what is called monkeywrenching to prevent the logging of old-growth forests. This involved sabotaging logging equipment, tree spiking (which is incredibly dangerous), and living within tree canopies for months. While perhaps a noble goal, any claim that the creation of public lands was a progressive policy platform by modern-day standards is nonsensical. Today’s progressives vehemently despise any form of public use or benefit on public lands that were designed for that very thing. Just look at President Biden’s attempt to implement the Landscape and Conservation Health rule which would have allowed conservation leases on BLM land, far outside what BLM is currently allowed to be used for. While we at ACC think that rule was actually onto something good, it just goes to show that progressivism has nothing in common with Roosevelt’s ideal of land management.

Let us pause for a moment to make it clear where ACC stands on these lands. Our nation has come far from Roosevelt and we have learned much about biodiversity and have come to appreciate the natural wonders of our public lands. I personally have hunted BLM land, hiked Forest Service land, and have camped and fished all of them and more. We support the multiple uses offered to us on all of these lands.

Tragic examples of misaligned environmental priorities abound today. A poignant example is the Ballona Wetlands Restoration project. This was a state-led plan to restore over 400 acres of the heavily degraded Ballona Wetlands near Los Angeles. The goal was to remove millions of cubic yards of dirt which had been dumped there during the construction of Marina del Rey, thereby returning the area to a tidal wetland, and reestablishing the endangered species that call tidal wetlands home. Unfortunately, a coalition of right-wing interest groups funded by millions in dark, foreign donations blocked the project.

Just kidding! That was actually the Sierra Club, champions of the environment, through a subsidiary they created called Ballona Wetlands Restoration Committee, and they blocked the project in tandem with other “environmental” groups like Animal Protection and Rescue League and Grassroots Coalition. They claimed that, by using a bulldozer to restore the wetlands, it would cause more harm than it would solve. You cannot make this up. In reality, today’s leftists align much more closely with John Muir, whose descendants at the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, and Environmental Defense fund continue to make a mess of public lands and environmentalism as a whole. Perhaps my favorite example of this behavior is the prevention of removing dead trees. Following catastrophic wildfires in states like Montana, Oregon, and California, the U.S. Forest Service frequently introduces “post-fire restoration” projects. These involve logging dead trees, replanting native trees, and thinning dense forests to prevent future fires. Groups like Center for Biological Diversity routinely sue these projects to block them, claiming that “thinning” is just a euphemism for commercial logging on public lands. Perhaps my favorite quote from CBD in the above link is: “We’ve known for a long time that burned forests are great at storing carbon, but not when they’re logged.”

Yes, these progressive groups claim that lumber mills are actually interested in logging dead, burnt-out husks of trees, and that burnt-out husks of trees are better at storing carbon than…alive trees. Nevermind the fact that wildfires release 5 to 8 billion tons of carbon every year. The scar on the landscape from the 1996 Buffalo Creek fire in Colorado has still not recovered. There is no new growth, and the dead trees were not removed. It’s been thirty years, but we can thank the environmentalists for preserving its “natural state.”

Environmental groups are also to thank for suing clean energy projects like the Biden Administration’s Western Solar Plan, SunZia’s “Green Energy Super Highway” transmission line, and shutting down the nuclear plant in New York. When it was closed, they claimed that its energy would easily be replaced with renewables. Instead, every watt that the nuclear plant produced was replaced with natural gas and New York’s emissions rose by 29%.

Funding

Conservatives are almost entirely to thank for the funding and maintenance of public lands as well. Virtually every single state Department of Natural Resource budget is funded primarily, if not entirely, by hunters and anglers, of which almost all are conservative. Idaho receives 57% of its total department budget from a combination of resident and nonresident tag and license sales alongside taxes on sporting goods. This includes federal funding from Pittman-Robertson (PR) and Dingell-Johnson (DJ) taxes. PR taxes are levied on shooting supplies like guns and ammunition, and DJ taxes are levied on fishing tackle, both almost exclusively paid for by conservatives. Tennessee’s state DNR budget, managed by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, operates on a similar model. Tennessee receives 81% percent of its wildlife agency’s operating budget directly from hunting and fishing license fees and federal allotments from PR and DJ excise taxes. Every single wildlife management area, all of which have proved to be the single most effective tool in amazing restoration success stories like the white tail deer and turkey, are funded by hunters. Activists will often protest and block hunter’s access to public lands to the point of being arrested, despite hunters providing 70% or more of state DNR budgets.

These are just examples, but the formula stays true for every single state in the union. Colorado, Mississippi, Virginia, Montana, Wisconsin, Utah, and everywhere in between are entirely funded by state models that are overwhelmingly comprised of hunting and fishing conservatives.

At the federal level, conservatives are again to be thanked. The Land and Water Conservation fund was permanently and mandatorily funded by Republicans at $900 million per year. The Legacy Restoration fund was also created by Republicans. The Good Neighbor Authority, largely hailed as one of the country’s best stewardship programs, was created by Republicans. The Good Samaritan Act, a genius way to incentivize abandoned mine cleanup, was a Republican bill. Both the BLM and Forest Service create billions for the federal treasury via extractive resources which progressives seek to block, but conservatives actively encourage and promote.

This matters because oil and gas revenues pay for the $900 million in mandatory spending (that Republicans mandated) every year that goes directly to the Land and Water Conservation fund, used to buy more public land. When liberals block oil and gas projects, they are blocking the largest source of public land funding that exists which is, once again, overwhelmingly operated by conservatives. At least 50%, some figures put it higher, of deep blue New Mexico’s state budget is funded exclusively through oil and gas.

Without conservative initiatives, we would have no public lands at the state or federal level.

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Land Sales

A persistent critique of Republicans is that we want to sell off our public lands. Simple logic would dictate that this would make no sense since conservatives are the primary beneficiaries of public lands, but we don’t do common sense these days. The reality is that a significant amount of BLM land in the west only exists because no homesteaders wanted it and it was never claimed. It’s very poor quality land and offers few, if any, recreational or commercial value. Today, we pay BLM staff to monitor martian, barren land. This isn’t true of all BLM holdings; I have hunted gorgeous and stunning properties in Northern Colorado. However, saying that Republicans want to sell off these gorgeous and productive lands is completely false.

Likewise, Democrats love selling land. President Biden’s Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, put up tens of thousands of acres for disposal through the Resource Management Plan (RMP) process and nobody batted an eye. The Bears Ears National Monument RMP would have transferred 1.3 million federal acres to tribal authority for management. The aforementioned Western Solar Plan would have allowed 31 million acres to be developed for solar panels. The Royal Gorge/Lakeview RMP would have sold 19,000 federal acres outright. The Colorado River Valley / Grand Junction would have disposed of 10,000-15,000 acres. The Lakewood Field Office RMP would have sold 7,500 acres. The Rock Springs RMP would have sold ~2,500 acres. The Royal Gorge RMP would have sold 12,000 acres. Comically, the Biden admin opened 27 million acres of pristine Alaska wilderness so that tribal Vietnam veterans could each have 160 acre plots of housing. The absurdity is beyond belief. Land sales are bad when Republicans do it, but it’s okay as long as it’s millions of acres in Alaska for urban sprawl.

Closing Thoughts

Conservatives have always–from the very start–been true conservationists and have contributed significantly to the health of our lands. Conservatives also know how to engage with the land directly rather than from behind a computer screen. It is hunters who know how to track a deer; anglers who can find a trout in a hole; ranchers that can read their horse, and grizzled backpackers who know never to sleep under a widowmaker.

Taylor Tougaw is the Director of Government Affairs at the American Conservation Coalition Action (ACC Action). He previously worked in the House of Representatives for six years working on conservation and energy issues.

The electric utility industry is undergoing a generational change, and it’s happening faster than many expected. With the help of important government partnerships, American Electric Power (AEP) is leading the way through this transformation by finding creative ways to strengthen our infrastructure while saving customers money.

For most of the 2000s and well into the last decade, electricity demand in the United States was largely flat. While the economy grew and the population expanded, that was largely offset by efficiency gains and structural shifts from manufacturing to a more service-based economy. Utilities planned, invested, and operated around that reality.

That era has ended.

U.S. electricity demand is expected to grow by about 25 percent by 2030 and nearly 80 percent by 2050 compared with 2023 levels. While growth was anticipated, the speed was not. Rapid expansion of data centers to support artificial intelligence, combined with reshoring and energy security priorities, has pushed us into a new era. To give a better idea of the size and pace of this growth, AEP’s current peak demand is 37 gigawatts, and we have signed agreements to add approximately 63 gigawatts of load to our system by 2030.

This surge creates major opportunities for the country and the communities we serve. It also creates a challenge for the energy industry as we work to build the infrastructure needed to power this incredible growth.

The U.S. electric grid has been called one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century. I agree, the grid supports nearly every part of modern life. Yet many core components were built to support the energy needs of the past and are beyond their intended lifespan. While utilities have made targeted upgrades over time, the core backbone of the grid must evolve to meet the heightened demand for energy and technological advances.

Meeting this moment requires significant investment. Ensuring there’s enough energy available for the United States means building, rebuilding, and modernizing the infrastructure that delivers power. Smart government partnerships can help reduce costs and pass savings on to customers.

As part of our $78 billion capital investment plan through 2030, AEP plans to invest $33 billion to strengthen and expand our transmission system, which is the high-voltage infrastructure that transports large amounts of energy over long distances. We also plan to invest billions in our distribution infrastructure and generation resources to ensure we can deliver the energy our customers need.

Affordability guides every decision we make for our customers – families, farmers, small businesses, and manufacturers – that depend on us for reliable, affordable service. That’s where financing tools like the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) can make a difference. The program offers long-term loans priced at Treasury rates plus 0.375 percent, with terms of up to 30 years. This dramatically reduces financing costs compared to private markets, and those savings matter to our customers.

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On July 8, AEP closed on its second EDF loan, a $3.26 billion portfolio supporting projects at our AEP Texas subsidiary. Over the life of the loan, this will save customers approximately $685 million. These funds support critical reliability projects that are needed to keep pace with the economic growth in one of the fastest-growing regions of the country.

This most recent win for our customers builds on a $1.6 billion EDF loan that AEP closed in October 2025. That financing will save customers an estimated $275 million while supporting transmission projects across four states. AEP was the first company to close a new loan under this program during President Trump’s Administration.

Government partnerships, like EDF and federal grants, play a vital role in supporting economic growth from data centers and advanced manufacturing and enabling technologies that will define our energy future.

Robust utility infrastructure is the foundation that supports demand growth. A resilient, reliable transmission network allows energy producers to connect new generation, enables manufacturers to operate with confidence, and ensures technology companies can scale. Just as importantly, modern infrastructure future-proofs the grid - making it more resilient, adaptable, and capable of meeting evolving demands for generations to come.

Reliable transmission is the foundation of a strong energy system, and EDF financing will help put these projects in motion, while also mitigating the cost to customers. The grid keeps businesses running, communities growing, and families powered. In a fast-changing economy, a reliable, affordable energy system is the cornerstone of our nation’s stability, security, and quality of life.

Scott Osterholt is the Vice President of Grants and Loans at American Electric Power.

American energy development is at a historic crossroads, and the Crossroads of America is uniquely prepared to meet the challenge.

By combining an innovative growth mindset with common-sense solutions, Governor Mike Braun is transforming Indiana’s once-in-a-generation energy demand into a long-term win for Hoosiers.

And, by dramatically improving grid utilization, we can actively lower utility rates for Hoosier ratepayers.

Historically, Indiana’s massive industrial and manufacturing base has made us a big electricity load state. That manufacturing core is the foundation of Indiana’s economy, and promises to be an even bigger part of our value proposition as more and more companies return to manufacturing in America. As digital technology infrastructure becomes a necessity to power the modern economy, additional energy will be crucial. States like Indiana have an opportunity to lead the nation in energy generation.

Indiana’s “all-of-the-above” energy strategy serves as the foundation for protecting ratepayers. We believe in a diverse, resilient energy portfolio that produces lower, more stable costs and a more reliable grid. This balanced focus continues to expand our economic base while minimizing the use of public tax dollars, translating into practical, localized victories across all 92 Hoosier counties.

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Indiana has taken a nation-leading approach to meeting the demands of new large load customers in a way that protects local ratepayers and ensures the grid can fully support the incoming demand.

Under our framework, large technology customers are required to follow strict, common-sense guardrails:

• Funding the Grid: The developer/end user covers all new generation and transmission. Also, there are no anticipated adverse effects for residential ratepayers.

• Local Support: Being a good neighbor. Companies must be great corporate partners and secure all necessary local approvals before a project can move forward.

• Commitment to hire Hoosiers: Developers or end users must make a good-faith effort to hire Indiana residents seeking construction or operation roles.

We are seeing successes in practice across the state:

• The Amazon (AWS) Partnership: In Northern Indiana, Amazon’s $15 billion investment includes an agreement to generate more energy than its campus consumes. Over time, NIPSCO estimates this single large-load customer will deliver $1 billion in fixed system cost savings back to Hoosier ratepayers.

• Also, the City of Hobart’s Amazon data center project is funded through a $47 million up-front “community enhancement payment” directly from Amazon to the city, plus an additional $55 million tied to building permits. This structure keeps municipal funds free from new tax hikes while completely funding local services and infrastructure.

• Indiana Michigan Power (I&M): Leveraging massive load growth and increased revenue from these large technology customers, I&M announced intentions to file for a base rate deduction to lower monthly household utility costs for ratepayers.

By closely analyzing the grid challenges faced by other states, Indiana has avoided their mistakes. We are charting a thoughtful, pro-growth, pro-consumer path that serves all Hoosiers.

Governor Braun’s priority is affordability, and we recognize that our work is far from finished. We are continuing to work alongside business leaders, industry experts, the legislature, local stakeholders, and Hoosiers to make life more affordable wherever possible.

Governor Braun and I firmly believe that now is the time to modernize rate-setting practices, demand utility accountability, and safely expand energy generation.

Suzanne Jaworowski is the Secretary of the Indiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources under Governor Braun.

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For more information on data centers, read ACC’s recent report entitled “Addressing the Environmental & Community Concerns around Data Centers: Separating Fact from Fiction.”

As our nation reindustrializes and emerging technologies like AI take shape, energy demand has become one of the defining issues of this decade. As the world’s energy capital, Texas is at the center of these conversations. In reaction to this transformational change, lawmakers and industry are making decisions that will have lasting impacts on our state, and understandably, younger Texans want to be part of that decision-making process.

With a median age of just 36, Texas is one of the youngest states in our union. Our people want to make sure these decisions are properly forward-looking.

Here’s what’s striking about how young Texans actually talk about energy: they’re not interested in false choices. In our conversations held across college campuses, industry tours, and conferences, they’re not asking whether Texas should prioritize jobs, the environment, reliability, or innovation. They’re asking how Texas stays on top, with all the tools we have at our disposal.

For that reason, we get asked a lot about carbon capture and storage, or CCS, because it is one of the most promising tools available for clean, firm energy production.

CCS is having its moment because it harnesses Texas’s existing strengths, including an established industrial infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and geology uniquely suited for storing carbon permanently underground. For industries like power generation, steel, and cement, CCS offers a path to modernize operations and compete in markets where customers, investors, and younger workers are paying close attention to affordability, reliability, and cleanliness.

For students and young workers, that matters. For this generation of Americans, careers that offer playing a vital role in our economy as well as the future are especially attractive. If Texas gets the policy framework right, CCS can help keep existing industries competitive while creating new pathways for innovation, investment, and good-paying jobs across the state.

The value of CCS isn’t just limited to future jobs for younger Americans because the technology involved isn’t brand new. Carbon capture has been used and studied for decades, including right here in Texas. The skills needed in the field transfer from existing ones in the energy sector. What’s different now is the potential for scale on Texas terms.

We are already seeing that potential take shape, particularly in Southeast Texas and the Permian Basin, providing an early look at what this industry could mean for the entire state. Texas’s growth will require more power generation and an industrial base that can keep producing the fuels, materials, infrastructure, and jobs that a larger, thriving economy depends on. CCS can ensure those sectors can expand and modernize. The projects moving forward today are part of how Texas can prepare for growth without losing the strengths that made it an energy leader.

Texas recently gained primary authority over Class VI carbon storage permitting, putting the state more directly in the driver’s seat. That’s an opportunity to set clear rules that give companies the regulatory certainty to invest, move projects forward efficiently, and ensure Texas leads the buildout of this industry.

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But for CCS to become part of Texas’s energy future, the state will need more than strong geology and industry interest; it will need public trust. Encouragingly, a more deliberate conversation around community engagement is already taking shape in Texas, and young people should see that as an opportunity to help shape the process.

As lawmakers look ahead to the legislative session next year, the choices they make could help shape not only individual projects but the broader ecosystem of CCS development across the state. Lawmakers should work with constituents of all ages to build a commonsense framework that gives responsible projects room to grow while ensuring communities have confidence in how this emerging industry develops.

Carbon capture and storage has been around for more than 50 years. What feels different now is the possibility of scale and the chance for Texas to build a thriving industry responsibly. If Texas approaches CCS with the same openness to innovation that has defined its energy leadership, it can help build an energy future that is more competitive, durable, and forward-looking. Young people across our state are ready to be part of shaping that future.

Zack Abnet is the Texas State Director at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC). He’s based in Austin.

Across the American West, worsening drought, growing cities, and emerging environmental pressures have prompted a recurring question: In a region where water is inherently scarce, why is so much of it used for agriculture?

It’s a fair question. Across the West, vast amounts of water are used for agricultural purposes—whether to grow alfalfa in Utah, almonds and rice in California, or lettuce and other produce in Arizona. At a time when cities are growing, drought is worsening, and ecosystems like the Great Salt Lake are under stress, it can sometimes seem like water in the West is badly misallocated.

But the usual story about “wasted” agricultural water is incomplete, and often counterproductive. As the West gets drier and new demands emerge, it is true that water will sometimes need to move to new and different uses—including, in some cases, out of agriculture. The path forward, however, isn’t to villainize farmers or take away their water rights. It’s to make it easier and more rewarding for farmers to conserve water and lease or transfer it to other uses, whether for cities, industry, or even environmental purposes like restoring the Great Salt Lake.

Efforts underway across the West—and particularly Utah’s work to restore the Great Salt Lake—show how this can be done.

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Agriculture plays a central—and often misunderstood—role in western water conservation. Farmers have longstanding legal rights to much of the West’s water, rooted in the history of western settlement. For generations, they have built entire rural economies around those rights, supporting food production, livelihoods, and the open spaces that define much of the West.

Understanding why farmers hold so much water in the West—and why moving it to other uses can be so difficult—requires understanding several basic features of western water law. The first is that, in the American West, a water right is the legal right to use a certain amount of water, in a particular way, at a particular time and place, for a recognized “beneficial use.” Changes to water rights generally must be reviewed to ensure that they do not impair a downstream user’s water rights. This requirement also means that if a user stops putting that water to any beneficial use, their water right could eventually be considered forfeited or abandoned.

The second is that Western water rights are governed by seniority. Under the prior-appropriation doctrine, rights are prioritized according to when water was first put to beneficial use. During times of drought, water rights are “curtailed,” or cut, according to seniority. The more senior a water right is, the less likely it is to be curtailed in dry years.

Together, these principles help explain why so many Western water rights are agricultural water rights. Agricultural rights are among the most senior because farming and ranching were the first major water uses in many western valleys. Under western water law, then, the most secure and dependable water rights often belong to farmers. This same set of laws gives not just the incentive, but the legal requirement to either use this water for agriculture, change its beneficial use, or risk losing the water right altogether.

For most farmers, the choice is often clear: use the water to grow the highest-value crops available. While changing the beneficial use is possible, it is generally a slow and expensive process. In many places, these barriers make it simply too difficult to lease or transfer water to other uses. In others, the physical infrastructure does not exist to move conserved water where it is needed. The result is that water often remains in agriculture because it is too costly, risky, or complicated for farmers to transfer it elsewhere, or it is moved permanently away from agriculture and toward the development of homes or industry.

Selling valuable land and water might sound enticing, but for farming families, it is a daunting choice. Both land and water in the West are often passed down from early pioneering settlers. These farming families know that once they sell that land and water, there is usually no getting it back.

Farmers hold much of the water but often have limited ability to benefit from conserving it or transferring it to other uses. Even when a temporary exchange could benefit farmers and other users alike, the transaction may be too costly, risky, or complicated to complete.

Utah’s efforts to restore the Great Salt Lake illustrate what a different approach can look like. The lake’s decline poses serious risks to the region’s ecosystem and economy. But the effort to restore it has also become one of the West’s leading examples of practical, large-scale, market-oriented conservation—built on working with farmers, not against them.

Over the past several years, Utah has overhauled its water laws and institutions. The state now recognizes supplying water to the Great Salt Lake as a beneficial use, allowing water to be conserved, leased, or dedicated to the lake without being treated as unused. Utah has also invested heavily in agricultural water leasing—essentially paying farmers to dedicate water to the lake on a temporary basis. The state has also authorized more flexible arrangements, including split-season leases that allow farmers to irrigate during part of the growing season while leasing a portion of their water to the lake. And this year, Utah lawmakers streamlined the approval process for these types of water leases.

These reforms effectively give farmers alternatives to the traditional all-or-nothing choice between continuing to irrigate and permanently selling their water. Leasing allows them to make water available for other uses while retaining their underlying rights and keeping their farms in production.

There is still much more work to do. Some farmers are understandably hesitant to lease their water, even temporarily, out of concern that their water rights could be jeopardized in the future. But by working closely with farmers, building trust, and developing flexible leasing arrangements, Utah is making encouraging progress. The state has already dedicated over 476,000 acre-feet of water to the Great Salt Lake, and that total is expected to grow.

The broader lesson is that water should not remain locked into one use simply because conserving it is too risky or transferring it is prohibitively difficult. To bring western water to new uses, farmers must be allowed to send water to new uses in a way that benefits them, without giving up the agricultural way of life that has made the West great.

Agriculture will always play a critical role in Western water conservation. Farmers hold rights to much of the region’s water, but they also sustain rural communities, open space, wildlife habitat, and hydrological systems that benefit users far beyond the farm. The goal should be to give farmers more ways to conserve, lease, and exchange water without putting their rights or livelihoods at risk.

But the principle applies across the West. Meeting the region’s growing water challenges will depend on making water more flexible and easier to move while respecting the people who hold the rights to it. That means working with farmers, not against them.

Shawn Regan is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a senior advisor to the American Conservation Coalition.

Three years ago this month, the Supreme Court returned the question of abortion to the American people in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It was a momentous legal victory, the culmination of decades of prayer, sacrifice, and perseverance by the pro-life movement.

And yet abortions are rising.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, there has been a year-over-year increase in abortions since the Dobbs decision, with an estimated 1,126,000 abortions in 2025.

Why? The law changed, but the culture did not. Americans finally have the power to restrict abortion, but we don’t because we have a culture that treats all life, and creation in general, as disposable.

The late Pope Francis described this as “throwaway culture,” a mode of existence that treats everything from human beings to the natural world as commodities, welcomed when useful and discarded when burdensome. In our age, almost nothing has value in and of itself. Instead, everything is raw material: worthwhile only insofar as it can be consumed to “add value” to my life, trashed when it is used up.

We see this everywhere. Generations before us made furniture that would last a lifetime. Today, we trade out our couches and dining sets as often as we move apartments. Clothes change with trends, cars change with income, and even friends change with interests. Much of this is driven by consumer demand, a quiet but relentless pressure to treat everything as temporary.

The result? At least in the natural world, it’s degradation. Americans generate nearly five pounds of trash per person per day, more than almost any nation on earth. China fills our oceans with plastic, Brazil levels the Amazon for cheap lumber, and everywhere you look, city centers are decaying at the same time we pave over farmland to create distant, hastily built subdivisions that will be obsolete (and in disrepair) in a generation. We have commoditized nature itself, treating mountains, forests, rivers, and soil not as gifts to be stewarded but as inputs to be processed.

Of course, it is good to cultivate the land and to build value out of raw materials. Stewardship does not mean stasis, and the great wonder of humanity is that we are capable of creativity. The problem isn’t using creation, but treating creation as something worthwhile only insofar as it can be used.

Infused with this utilitarian mentality, it’s no surprise that we have commoditized people too. If the natural world is mere raw material, why should a child be any different? Children interrupt careers, strain budgets, demand sacrifice. If they are evaluated within a cost-benefit calculation, for many, abortion becomes a logical conclusion.

Yet children are more than dependents. They are the future stewards of everything we claim to value. The forests we conserve, the rivers we restore, the farms we cultivate, these are not ends in themselves. They are an inheritance. A society unwilling to welcome future generations will eventually lose interest in preserving a future for anyone.

When we learn to see a forest as more than timber, a river as more than a resource, and a child as more than a lifestyle calculation, we begin to recover something modernity has lost: gratitude. Stewardship begins with recognizing that what we have received is not ours to consume, but ours to cultivate and pass on.

Every conservation effort is, in some sense, an act of faith in future generations. We preserve wilderness because we hope our children and grandchildren will one day walk beneath those trees. We protect farmland because we want future families to be nourished by its harvest. We restore rivers because we believe those who come after us deserve clean water and places of beauty that have not been diminished by our neglect. Conservation is not merely environmentalism. It is a form of love for people we have not yet met.

The two commitments rise and fall together. A culture that learns to welcome a child, with all the inconvenience and upheaval that entails, is practicing the same fundamental act as the farmer who plants trees whose shade he will never sit under, or the conservationist who restores a river she will never fish. Both are refusing the throwaway logic that would reduce the world to what it can do for me, right now.

To protect a forest is to believe in the child who will one day walk through it. To welcome a child is to believe the forest is worth protecting. Neither act makes sense in a throwaway culture. Both become natural in a culture of gratitude.

That is the culture we must build, not through legislation alone, but through the slow, patient work of learning to receive life, in all its forms, as a gift worth keeping.

Clare Ath is the Co-Founder and President of Vita et Terra, a conservative Catholic environmental nonprofit that champions care for creation

In the summer of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt camped with naturalist John Muir in Yosemite Valley. He later called the trip one of the most formative experiences of his life. That encounter helped give rise to the modern conservation movement—not as a preserve for wealthy elites, but as a living inheritance for everyday Americans. Roosevelt did not merely preserve wilderness. He sought its wise use, so that future generations could hunt, fish, farm, explore, and draw strength from the land. “There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country,” he declared in 1912. Just as we must conserve our people, he argued, we must conserve the resources upon which they depend.

For much of the past half-century, environmental policy has been shaped by a different vision—one that drifted from stewardship toward abstraction. A vast regulatory system emerged, achieving in places real gains in cleaner air and water and the protection of critical habitats. Yet over time, the focus shifted toward global temperature targets, technocratic mandates, and sweeping economic change. For many Americans, this approach feels detached from daily life—less about the environment around them than about models and metrics set by urban elites. The United Nations’ recent decision to retire its most extreme and implausible climate scenarios—long used to justify sweeping mandates—validates longstanding concerns and creates a clear opening for conservatives to advance a practical, stewardship-based alternative rooted in local knowledge, innovation, and tangible results rather than abstract global targets. What Americans continue to desire is simpler and more enduring: clean water, healthy forests, abundant wildlife, and the freedom to enjoy them.

This divergence presents not only a political opportunity, but a philosophical one. Conservatives do not need to invent a conservation ethic; we inherit one. Theodore Roosevelt showed what it means to treat the natural world not as an obstacle to prosperity, but as one of its foundations. In his time, a limited federal government confronted an immense public domain, and national action was the natural expression of a young republic securing its birthright. Ours is a different moment. The federal government has grown so vast and remote, while stewardship now rests most immediately with states, communities, and private citizens—those closest to the land and most invested in its future.

The task before us is not to replicate Roosevelt’s model, but to recast his vision. He conserved a young nation’s frontier; we must conserve a mature nation’s home. That requires a shift from centralized control to a more grounded approach rooted in local knowledge, private stewardship, and civic responsibility. Conservation remains what it has always been: the wise use of what we have been given. It favors incentives over mandates, responsibility over abstraction, and participation over exclusion.

But conservation is not merely a matter of policy. It is a matter of civic virtue. The natural world is not simply a resource to be managed; it is a source of physical strength, mental clarity, and spiritual renewal. John Muir called it a “temple,” and the biblical call in Genesis to “work it and keep it” reminds us that stewardship is both a privilege and a duty. A people cut off from the land becomes restless and unmoored. A people rooted in it becomes resilient, self-reliant, and patriotic.

What would a modern conservative conservation agenda look like?

First, balance economic growth with environmental stewardship. Across the country, abandoned industrial sites stand as scars of a previous era. These brownfields should be seen not as liabilities, but as opportunities. By expanding support for cleanup and repurposing while empowering states to streamline permitting and offer targeted tax incentives, we can transform neglected and often polluted land into new businesses, parks, trails, and productive community spaces. In doing so, we create jobs, strengthen local tax bases, and relieve pressure to develop untouched landscapes. A nation rebuilding its industrial strength must also restore the land on which that industry once stood.

Second, mobilize voluntary stewardship of our land and waters. The success of the “Adopt-a-Highway” program shows the power of civic participation. That model can extend to rivers, parks, forests, and neighborhoods. By offering modest incentives to civic groups, churches, veterans, and sportsmen, we can foster shared responsibility for the places we inhabit. Expanding master naturalist programs and citizen-led efforts will equip Americans to restore habitats, monitor wildlife, and care for local lands. Community cleanup and beautification should become a common civic practice. Conservation, in this sense, is not just policy—it is habit, pride, and a renewal of citizenship.

Third, align incentives to conserve working lands and natural assets. Private landowners are among the nation’s most important conservationists, and public policy should support that role. Enhanced incentives for conservation easements, zoning reforms that reward preservation of mature trees and natural buffers, and responsible forest management practices can protect habitats while sustaining rural economies. The goal is not to freeze the landscape, but to ensure it remains healthy, productive, and enduring.

Fourth, expand access to the outdoors and renew a culture of engagement. Too often, public lands are protected but difficult to access. By investing in trails, access points, and recreational infrastructure – and reducing unnecessary barriers – we can reconnect Americans with the natural world. Programs that empower states, support wildlife conservation, and encourage citizen involvement should be strengthened. We should also reinvigorate institutions like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, which have long introduced young Americans to outdoor life and stewardship. A renewed national effort to get families outdoors would not only improve public health, but cultivate habits of responsibility and care no regulation can impose.

This approach succeeds not only because it is effective, but because it reflects the American character. It respects property, rewards responsibility, and places trust in citizens rather than distant authorities. More than that, it understands conservation as a form of civic virtue. When a family walks a restored trail, when a landowner preserves a stand of old trees, when a young person helps restore a stream, they are not merely improving the landscape—they are strengthening their connection to the country itself.

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Theodore Roosevelt understood this deeply. “The nation behaves well,” he said, “if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.” That principle remains as urgent today as it was a century ago. We are not the owners of this inheritance, but its stewards.

A conservative conservation agenda, rooted in that understanding, can deliver healthier lands, stronger communities, and a renewed sense of national pride. It can restore not only our lands, but our sense of obligation to our nation and to those who will follow us. That is not merely good policy. It is a duty—to hand down a country not diminished, but renewed.

Nate Uldricks is a master naturalist and Cub Scout leader, and previously served in senior roles at the White House and Pentagon. He is an also ACC member.

1. Plant Vogtle is now the largest generator of clean energy in the U.S. What does that tell us about the role of nuclear in America’s energy future?

Plant Vogtle becoming the largest clean energy generator in the country tells us something important: nuclear energy isn’t just part of America’s energy future, it’s foundational to it.

As we see electricity demands grow and expectations for reliability increase, you need sources that can operate around the clock and at scale. Nuclear delivers that. It provides long-term power – these are 80-year assets – with proven performance and supports energy security in a way no other clean resource can on its own.

Vogtle also demonstrates what’s possible when you invest for the long term: Assets like these not only support communities, but they strengthen the grid and deliver clean energy Americans can count on every day.

Finally, Vogtle reinforces that nuclear can be deployed at meaningful scale in the U.S. when projects are approached with discipline and a long‑term view.

2. How important is nuclear energy’s reliability as electricity demand grows in Georgia? In the United States?

Reliability is essential to why nuclear energy matters, especially as electricity demand continues to grow in Georgia and across the country. When people think about electricity supply, they are really focused on two things: first, does the light come on when they flip the switch, and second, how much does it cost? Nuclear helps answer both questions because our units run around the clock and provide a stable source of power when customers need it most.

Just as important, nuclear also brings a long-term cost advantage because its fuel costs are relatively low and predictable compared with many other sources of generation. That means nuclear supports affordability not just by producing large amounts of electricity reliably, but by helping shield customers from fuel price volatility over time.

We’re seeing transformational growth in Georgia, necessitating 10 GW of company-owned new resources under construction and in service by the end of this decade, driven by economic development, data centers, and electrification. Meeting that demand requires energy sources that are available around the clock, in all conditions. Nuclear provides that reliability every day.

At the national level, the same principle applies. As we modernize the grid and add more variable resources, nuclear’s ability to operate continuously at scale becomes even more important. It provides a stable foundation for reliability, energy security, and long-term affordability.

3. On the local level, how have residents embraced having nuclear in their own backyard? Is nuclear energy a good neighbor?

What we consistently see in our footprint, is that when communities actually live next to nuclear plants, they tend to be some of nuclear energy’s strongest supporters. At Georgia Power, we have this saying that “we’re a citizen wherever we serve”, and we see that in our communities.

That starts with trust. We recognize that our communities have entrusted us with the responsibility of safe and reliable operation, and we take that responsibility seriously and with great pride. These plants aren’t abstract infrastructure, they’re operated by people who live nearby, send their kids to local schools and participate in the community every day. Over time, residents see firsthand what nuclear looks like in practice: safe operations, a long-term commitment to excellence and a strong sense of responsibility to the community.

Nuclear plants also tend to be very good neighbors in tangible ways. They provide stable, high-quality jobs; they contribute significantly to local tax bases; and employees oftentimes are very involved in their community in many ways. That kind of long-term and active presence creates relationships that matter.

Just as important, people value reliability. When storms hit or demand peaks, nuclear plants continue operating, providing steady electricity people can count on. That reliability earns confidence, especially in regions that understand how essential dependable power is to everyday life.

4. Vogtle Units 3 and 4 were the first new nuclear builds in the U.S. in over 30 years. What does it say about America’s ability (or inability) to build energy infrastructure today?

Vogtle sends a clear message: the United States can still build large, complex energy infrastructure, but success depends on the right policy in place to allow companies to build and those companies need discipline, execution, and a willingness to apply lessons learned.

After more than 30 years without new nuclear construction, the country had lost much of the workforce, supply chain and institutional muscle required for projects of this scale. Vogtle wasn’t just about building two reactors; it was about rebuilding an entire ecosystem — restoring engineering capability, qualifying suppliers, and training a new generation of nuclear workers who now know how to build plants, from craft labor to engineers and technicians. It also helped rebuild the regulatory experience that is necessary for projects like this. Our regulator had not overseen new nuclear construction in a long time, so all of those capabilities had to come together at once.

What’s encouraging is that once you rebuild those capabilities, they’re reusable. Unit 4 was built 20% cheaper and commissioned in half the time than Unit 3 because we applied lessons learned. We now understand the value of mature designs, disciplined project management, and early alignment across engineering, construction, operations, and regulatory processes. Those lessons significantly reduce risk going forward and reinforce a very important point: these projects get better with repetition and standardization.

At Southern Nuclear, we see it as our responsibility to share those lessons broadly, because the success of the next projects matters not just to individual companies, but to the future of nuclear energy in this country.

So I’d say Vogtle reflects both a challenge and an opportunity. It highlights the consequences of long periods of underinvestment in infrastructure, but it also demonstrates that with consistency, repetition and the right policy environment, the United States can deliver large-scale, reliable energy projects again.

The key now is not to treat Vogtle as a one-off. If we continue to build using proven designs and applying what we’ve learned, we strengthen our ability to deliver the infrastructure required to meet growing demand, maintain reliability and support long-term energy security.

5. If the U.S. wants more projects like Vogtle, what needs to change to make large-scale energy builds faster and more cost-effective?

If the U.S. wants more projects like Vogtle, the most important shift is toward durable policy that supports repetition.

Vogtle showed us that America can still build large-scale energy infrastructure, but it also showed us the cost of doing it after a long pause. When you go decades without building, you experience those first-of-a-kind project challenges and lose skilled workforces, domestic supply chains and construction experience. Rebuilding all of that at once is inherently harder and more expensive and we don’t want to go rebuild that again in 10 or 20 years.

The biggest lesson is that these projects get faster and more affordable when they stop being one-offs. Complete and mature designs matter. Standardization matters. A ‘design once, build many’ approach allows learning to compound over time, which directly reduces cost and schedule risk. Vogtle Unit 4 benefited from the lessons of Unit 3, and that improvement was the result of repetition and discipline, not chance.

There’s also a need for durable policy, regulation and financing. Not less rigor, but predictable expectations and risk-sharing structures that recognize first-of-a-kind realities while protecting customers. The takeaway from Vogtle isn’t that building large infrastructure is too hard; it’s that doing it sporadically is costly. Doing it consistently is how you build capability, affordability and long-term success. We’ve seen this in other countries that have adopted standardized nuclear development programs: they design once, build many, work through the first-of-a-kind challenges, and then repeatedly deploy reactors on schedule and on budget.

6. Vogtle went through a complex federal and state approval process. How did permitting timelines affect the project, and what reforms could help accelerate future clean energy projects?

Yes, Vogtle went through a long, complex, and very rigorous federal and state approval process and that rigor matters.

For nuclear energy, strong, independent oversight is essential. The depth of review builds public trust, reinforces a strong safety culture, and ensures plants like Vogtle can operate safely for generations to come. That scrutiny ultimately strengthens projects, and it helped establish a licensing framework that future builds can rely on with more confidence.

At the same time, the length and sequencing of the process had real consequences. When I look back at the federal licensing timeline for Vogtle between the applications for the early site permit, the limited work authorization and ultimately our combined construction operating license, we were in licensing for roughly five years. Reviews often occurred one after another instead of in parallel. Requirements evolved. Agencies worked on different timelines. That uncertainty makes large projects harder to plan and more expensive to deliver.

Policies in the ADVANCE Act and the executive orders from the administration aimed at modernizing permitting are an encouraging step in the right direction. Those are really starting to shorten timelines, and we believe that there’s a real opportunity to get plants licensed quicker with the same amount of rigor, especially if you use a standard design like an AP1000.

Westinghouse has submitted Revision 20 of the AP1000 design certification, which takes the design we used at Vogtle and updates it with what we learned during construction and early operations. In effect, Vogtle Unit 4 is now the standard AP1000 for future deployment anywhere in the world.

That matters because a proven, standardized design can significantly shorten the licensing timeline and help future projects move faster. Just as important, none of that reduces rigor. Strong NRC oversight remains essential to safety, public trust, and long-term performance.

The real opportunity now is to build on what we’ve already done. We know how this plant works, and we know how to build it. If we pair that experience with a more predictable regulatory pathway, we can move the next generation of nuclear projects forward much more efficiently.

7. There’s a growing national conversation about permitting reform: how critical is it to ensuring the U.S. can actually deploy clean energy at the scale we want to see?

Permitting reform is absolutely critical if the U.S. is serious about deploying clean energy at the scale we’re talking about.

Across all major energy infrastructure like nuclear, natural gas, transmission, renewables, etc., long and uncertain permitting timelines introduce risk that can delay projects or prevent them from moving forward at all.

For capital-intensive projects like nuclear, predictability matters even more. These projects require large upfront investments and long planning horizons, and developers and investors need confidence in both the scope and timing of regulatory reviews.

The goal of permitting reform shouldn’t be to weaken environmental or safety standards – those are foundational. The real opportunity is to improve coordination, transparency and schedule certainty across agencies, so projects can move forward with confidence once requirements are defined.

If we want to achieve total energy dominance at meaningful scale in this country, permitting systems have to be tough, independent and credible while also being predictable enough to support efficient execution.

8. As a whole, Vogtle can power roughly a million home and businesses. How important are projects like this for energy security and economic growth in the Southeast?

Large projects like this are critically important because they provide the scale and reliability that both energy security and economic growth depend on.

From an energy-security standpoint, having substantial, domestic generation that runs around the clock strengthens the resilience of the grid. These facilities aren’t dependent on weather conditions or real-time fuel delivery, and their fuel can be secured years in advance. Roughly eight trucks provide 18 months of fuel for each Vogtle unit. That kind of predictability matters as electricity demand grows.

Economically, dependable electricity is a prerequisite for growth. Communities and businesses invest when they know power will be reliable and affordable over the long term. We saw this firsthand with Vogtle, as several businesses moved to Georgia and invested in Georgia because they saw the state investing in large energy projects like Vogtle 3 & 4.

So, you see that large, long-lived energy projects create sustained value beyond electricity itself. These projects support skilled jobs, stable tax bases, and regional supply chains for decades. In that sense, projects like this serve as economic anchors that help regions grow with confidence.

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9. From a national perspective, how does investing in large, clean energy sources like nuclear strengthen American energy dominance on a global scale?

From a national perspective, investing in large, clean energy sources like nuclear strengthens American energy dominance in several fundamental ways.

First, it reinforces energy security. Large-scale nuclear generation provides reliable, domestic power that operates around the clock, independent of weather or real-time fuel delivery. Fuel can be secured years in advance, which adds resilience to the system at a time when electricity demand is growing and energy reliability increasingly intersects with national security.

Second, it supports long-term economic strength. Reliable power is the foundation for manufacturing, advanced technology, data centers and other energy-intensive industries that drive innovation and growth. Nuclear units are designed to operate between 60-80 years. When the U.S. invests in large-scale infrastructure designed to operate for decades, it signals stability and confidence both to domestic businesses and to global markets.

And finally, it’s about competitiveness. Countries that can build and operate reliable energy at scale aren’t just meeting their own needs, they’re shaping global standards, strengthening supply chains, and maintaining leadership in technology and industry. Investing in large-scale nuclear helps ensure the United States stays competitive in a world where energy reliability and economic strength are increasingly inseparable.

By late May, the children have returned to the good, wild green places in earnest. The long confinement of winter has fallen away from them piece by piece until suddenly they are no longer lingering near the window or asking permission to wander but instead disappearing outright into the field and the forest with a slam of the screen door and baskets in hand. They return scratched by brambles, freckled with sunburn across their noses and shoulders, dotted red with bug bites around their ankles and eyes. Their hands smell of crushed ferns and wet loam and brook water. A mother may wince a little at the scratches while rubbing salve on sun-warmed shoulders before bed, but deep down we recognize these small discomforts for what they really are: signs of a childhood properly underway.

The fiddleheads have risen thick along the brooks now beneath the frothing canopy, and the ramps have spread their broad green leaves through the damp places where the snow lingered longest. The morels whisper where water flowed a month ago. Families step carefully through the woods with children hurrying ahead along the path, baskets swinging at their sides while they search the forest floor with the seriousness children reserve for treasure hunts, and salamanders, and bird nests. We kneel in the dirt beside them and teach them how to harvest lightly, how to leave enough behind for next spring and all the springs to follow, how to recognize the places where the fiddleheads grow strongest and where the ramps should simply be left alone.

It begins when a child learns that the woods are not merely scenery, not merely a setting for their stories, but a living place that feeds us, shelters us, scratches us, stains our fingers green, and silently requests care in return.

The season itself seems determined to push children outward with no regard for consequence. They run barefoot through the dandelions with abandon, heedless of the bees foraging lazily among them. They ride bicycles down dusty roads until twilight and return smelling of sweat and warm earth. June bugs throw themselves against the screen doors at night while peepers sing out from the low wet places, and the children beg to stay outside just a little longer in that dusky lavender fade-light. These are all but mere heralds, however, to the crescendo of May; Memorial Day approaches and with it comes the unofficial beginning of everything good and green and vital in American life: fishing poles leaning against garages, grills dragged out into backyards, canoes untied from rafters, gardens planted in hopeful rows. The red, white, and blue bunting flaps amid a backdrop of green while the whole country seems to exhale and step outdoors again, ever led by the wise children who knew it was time before the calendar granted us adults the permission we too often seek. We now endure the thorns and bug bites and sunburns gladly because they arrive alongside all the freedoms winter withheld from us.

Modern life increasingly encourages the opposite sort of childhood than this green feast accompanying the brambles, the burns, and the bites. A sterile childhood. An indoor childhood. A childhood scrubbed clean of dirt and weather and risk and wandering. We are told to keep the children comfortable, shaded, entertained, supervised, sanitized. Yet anyone who has watched a child burst out the door on a warm May morning knows instinctively that this cannot possibly be the whole truth of a good life. Children yearn for the forest and the field. They want the brook and the mud and the bugs and the low branches that tear at their sleeves. They want pockets full of strange rocks and hands stained by berries and knees grass-green from skidding around the yard. They want to disappear into the woods for an hour and return carrying treasures they barely understand themselves and we adults have forgotten the meaning of. Their love for the natural world emerges from participation. From bug bites, from brambles, from long evenings outside while the light lingers over the far hill.

Perhaps that is why late spring feels so restorative to us adults as well. The children draw us back into patterns we have neglected, forgotten, lost. We slow down enough to notice the wild strawberries flowering at the field’s edge or the scent of damp pine rising from the forest floor after rain. We begin measuring the day by birdsong and sunlight again rather than crises and headlines. The children remind us that the world is still tangible, still seasonal, still alive beneath all the noise of modernity. Their scratches and sunburns become proof of something larger, evidence that they are forming the sort of attachments from which all good stewardship eventually grows.

Yes, a child slightly bruised, bloodied, and battered by May is often a child fully alive.

A child growing in fidelity to place.

The bites fade, the scratches heal, the sunburn peels away by June. What remains is familiarity with the land, affection for their little particular plot, confidence moving through the verdant understory of the natural world. These are the beginnings of a marrow-deep commitment to the good green things that raised us, that which we grew alongside. Conservation grows from that fertile soil more reliably than anywhere else. It does not grow first in committee hearings or classrooms or campaigns, but in the long grass beyond the porch where children wander out into the season and return home carrying the red litany of the whole living world written on their fair skin.

Ryan Anderson is the Stakeholder Communications Manager at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC) and the author of Echoes from an Old Hollow Tree. Follow him on X @OldHollowTree.