The Lights are Staying on in America

Not flickering. Not rationed. Staying on.

Pessimism is having a moment in America. The climate doomsayers promise America cannot grow without destroying the planet. The degrowth crowd equates prosperity with sin. The merchants of fear and discontent sell the idea that keeping the lights on itself is the problem. They offer a future of less power, fewer choices, and lower expectations, wrapped in moral language. ACC rejects that vision. We reject it because it is wrong, and because it is un-American.

We refuse the politics of scarcity. We will not trade reliability for applause or prosperity for empty theories about degrowth. We intend to meet rising energy demand with cleaner power, not with excuses. That is the standard a serious conservation movement should hold.

In other words, the lights are staying on in America.

Not flickering. Not rationed. Staying on.

At ACC, we had a strong, productive year because we did what works. We showed up in the places that matter with the people who actually build things. Our membership base grew. Our branches led projects that improved their communities and reminded their peers that hope is not naïve. Our policy team advanced reforms that make clean energy easier to build, cheaper to finance, and faster to deploy. Our communications reached Americans who were tired of being told that the future must be smaller, colder, and leaner. We kept saying the obvious truth out loud: American energy abundance is the path to conservation. It always has been. If you want cleaner air, you need better technology. If you want lower emissions, you need energy systems that scale. If you want resilient ecosystems, you need a country confident enough to invest in them.

Plenty of people spent this year predicting collapse. They said the grid cannot handle growth. They said clean energy cannot replace legacy power. They said Americans must trade comfort for virtue. They said families should accept higher bills, fewer choices, and a dimmer future because that is what the planet requires. None of that was true. This year offered more proof. Renewable energy kept expanding. Nuclear reentered the national conversation with historic momentum. Natural gas continues to displace dirtier fuels and keeps the grid stable. Batteries are improving. Permitting reform is moving from think tank white papers to legislative reality. Transmission fights are being won. At the same time, Americans kept choosing stewardship again and again: states moved forward on forest management that will cut wildfire risk instead of worsening it, wildlife and habitat projects gained ground because locals got a seat at the table, and young conservatives kept showing up to do the unglamorous work of conservation in their own backyards. We are closer to abundant clean energy and active conservation than the pessimists want to admit, and we are getting there the American way: build, improve, repeat.

What makes this year special is not just a list of wins. It is the overall direction of the movement. ACC is growing because we refuse to treat conservation as a luxury belief or a bureaucratic hobby. We treat it as a responsibility, as a duty, as something to which we are called. We do not lecture people about living modern lives. We want those lives to get better. We do not romanticize scarcity. We want Americans to thrive while the planet gets cleaner. We reject the idea that environmental progress requires national decline. That idea has always been wrong, and it has never been more dangerous. A country that cannot power itself cannot protect anything. Not its landscapes, not its families, not its future.

Our members understand this instinctively. They live in the arena, not in the comment section. They clear trails, restore shorelines, protect wildlife habitats, and advocate for smarter policy because they love the places that raised them. They are not waiting for permission from a cultural gatekeeper. They are not interested in the purity tests. They want to build. They want to conserve. They want their country to lead. That is why ACC keeps gaining ground while other parts of the environmental world shrink into infighting and confusion. People are hungry for a movement that respects them and tells the truth. They are tired of being scolded by activists who offer despair and virtue signaling as substitutes for plans and action. They want to build.

So yes, the lights are staying on in America. The future is not a candle in a storm. It is a country that keeps building, keeps improving, and keeps proving that conservation and abundance belong together. If the naysayers are disappointed, they can stay disappointed. We have work to do, and we are winning because we keep doing it.

Thank you for being part of this movement. Thank you for believing that America is worth stewarding. Thank you for rejecting despair. The wins in this report are yours. The bright horizon ahead is ours to reach together.

Danielle Franz, Chris Barnard, and Stephen Perkins serve as the American Conservation Coalition’s Executive Leadership Team.