White House Gets Involved in Congressional Permitting Reform Talks
White House officials, including the legislative affairs team and the National Energy Dominance Council, are ramping up engagement in bipartisan congressional talks to reform energy permitting processes (“permitting reform”). Although negotiations recently stalled when Senate Democrats boycotted over a halt on offshore wind projects, formal discussions have, according to super secret sources, resumed following the administration’s progress on onshore wind and solar permits. The White House seeks legislative action to streamline environmental reviews, bolster domestic production, and lower energy costs amid rising electricity demands. Read More “White House Gets Involved in Congressional Permitting Reform Talks”
Big Solar, as in big solar farms (which are ugly and eat up farmland), can’t exist in a fair and open energy market. It’s too expensive. Big Solar fails unless there are massive taxpayer subsidies—you supporting it with your tax dollars. Nowhere is that more evident than what just happened in Centre County, Pennsylvania. The Centre County government agencies that had worked together for years on plans to buy solar energy are ending the initiative after the company they were working with sought to end the current contract amid a “changing financial landscape.” Taxpayer subsidies disappeared, and so, too, has this project. 
A big announcement from the Trump Department of the Interior (DOI). Yesterday, the DOI announced an immediate pause on all large-scale offshore wind project leases currently under construction in the United States. There are five such projects along the East Coast, including one off the coast of New York State. The DOI said the decision stems from “national security risks” identified by the Department of War in classified reports, specifically concerning radar interference known as “clutter” caused by massive turbine blades. Trump previously negotiated a deal with NY Governor Kathy Hochul to allow two pipeline projects—the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project and the Constitution Pipeline—in return for building the offshore Empire Wind 1 project (see 
Two weeks ago, Pennsylvania finally passed a budget, four months late. As part of the deal struck between Democrats and Republicans, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme was permanently ash-canned (see 
On September 29, some 105 Democrat state legislators from 10 states across the PJM Interconnection region released a joint letter urging PJM to take immediate action to accelerate the deployment of unreliable renewable energy projects—to favor unreliable renewables over fossil fuels. The letter, organized by the partisan left-wing National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL), highlights urgent concerns about grid reliability, rising energy costs, and recent federal actions against renewable energy. A group of Pennsylvania Republican legislators responded with their own letter asking PJM to disregard the lunatic letter from NCEL. 
President Trump delivered a speech to the United Nations yesterday, and wow! It was a speech for the ages. The teleprompter was broken, but he delivered his speech “off the cuff” anyway! He told the assembled world leaders, and we quote: “Your countries are going to hell,” particularly Europe. Why? Primarily because they’re pursuing the climate hoax of green energy, what he calls a “green scam,” and because they refuse to block illegal invaders (euphemistically called “immigrants”) from moving in and sucking up the country’s public resources. He left it all at the podium, not holding back anything. 
According to a new report from Enverus and its research division, only 30% of solar and 57% of onshore wind projects are likely to survive the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) recently signed into law by President Trump (see 
If you’ve read MDN for any length of time, you know that so-called renewable energy, wind and solar, are unreliable and really, really expensive. Most people believe renewables overcome those problems by being good for the environment. No so! Renewables are actually bad for the environment. We will explain… 
On Monday, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) to end market-distorting subsidies for unreliable wind and solar. The EO directs the Secretary of the Treasury (Scott Bessent) to terminate the clean electricity production and investment tax credits for wind and solar facilities and implement the enhanced Foreign Entity of Concern restrictions as identified in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The EO also directs the Secretary of the Interior (Doug Burgum) to revise regulations and policies to eliminate preferential treatment for wind and solar facilities compared to reliable, dispatchable energy sources. 
The number crunchers at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) had some time on their hands with the upcoming July 4th holiday, so they researched and wrote a post examining how U.S. energy use has changed since 1776. As it happens, the post is quite interesting! It chronicles the rise of fossil energy and how fossil fuels have dominated the modern era (leading to the highest standard of living in human history). However, it was a section on so-called renewable energy sources that caught our attention. In particular, one “renewable” has been around since the beginning of our country. That same renewable energy source today produces more energy than either wind or solar. And no, it’s not hydro. The renewable we’re talking about is burning wood. 
We spotted an op-ed appearing in the Lower Hudson Valley area of New York State (just north of New York City) that makes some great points. Frankly, they are points we’ve made here on MDN a number of times—how natural gas is critical to the Empire State. The op-ed points out that natural gas powers 60% of the homes in the state and powers over half of the state’s electricity generation. Yet the dunderheaded politicians (Democrats) in Albany insist on destroying fossil energy and replacing it with unreliable renewables. But we digress. The op-ed states that “New York will not grow without natural gas. It’s just that simple.” What’s so unusual (“man bites dog”) about this op-ed is that it was written by the Chairman and President of the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium (NOWRDC)! 
Big Green, particularly the New Jersey chapter of the odious Sierra Club, persists in trying to convince the general public that unreliable renewables (solar and wind) are less expensive than alternatives like natural gas. That’s simply a lie (see 
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” That quote is attributed to Adolf Hitler, a master of lying propaganda. The environmental left is also a master at lying propaganda. Like this lie: “
What have we been telling you for YEARS? That natural gas is not a “bridge” to an unreliable renewable energy nirvana, but is, instead, the destination (see 
The research continues to roll in that deeply blue Democrat states that insist on forcing their citizens to convert to so-called green energy are driving them out of those states. Last week, we brought you an analysis of counties along the Pennsylvania/New York border, on either side (see 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) was created to help advance clean-energy infrastructure and technologies that allegedly had the potential to be adequate energy resources but struggled to secure private investment. In reality, LPO is a taxpayer-backed ATM for unreliable energy technologies and infrastructure that can’t compete without federal funding. It’s a Biden-era boondoggle, and it’s time to scrap it.