As Americans enjoy their freedom — as they have a God-given right to do — they drive where they want in privately owned cars (gas powered, hybrid, or electric), live comfortably in heated-and-air-conditioned homes, and spend their evenings cooking dinner on gas (or electric stoves), and watching whatever television program or sporting event they choose. All of it brought to them by virtue of abundant and affordable energy.
According to 2024 data published by the U.S. Department of Energy, 82.16 percent of the energy consumed in the United States came from fossil fuels, including coal, petroleum and natural gas. Another 8.67 percent came from nuclear power plants.
In other words, more than 90 percent of the energy used in this country last year came from these sources.
Only 1.64% came from windmills; and only 1.17 percent came from solar panels.
As this nation’s economy and population has grown, so too has its power needs. Since 1960, in fact, the consumption of energy produced by fossil fuels and nuclear power has more than doubled.
But the consumption of nuclear energy peaked in 2019 — and has stagnated since then — while facing a campaign of opposition from liberal environmental groups.
This is ironic, however, because as the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power increased in recent decades, greenhouse gas emissions declined. From 1990 to 2022, for example, fossil fuel consumption increased by 8.64 percent, according to the Department of Energy. But during that same period, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, greenhouse gas emissions declined by three percent.
Nonetheless, groups including the Sierra Club, 350.org, and the National Resources Defense Council have sought not merely to stop the growth of this type of energy production, but to roll it back. In theory, they would replace the production lost from nuclear power and fossil fuels with energy produced from “renewable sources,” including windmills and solar panels.
They are particularly opposed to the development of nuclear power — even though nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gases.
“The Sierra Club,” says its website, “continues to oppose construction of any new commercial nuclear fission power plants.”
350.org also opposes the construction of new nuclear plants. “New nuclear,” its website says, “is a dangerous distraction in the race to solve climate change.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argues that “expanding nuclear power is not a sound strategy for diversifying America’s energy portfolio and reducing carbon pollution.”
However, some progress has been made recently in resisting this campaign to foist renewable energy development upon the United States. In 2021, some of this nation’s largest banks — including Wells Fargo, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America — joined the Net Zero Banking Alliance. This alliance, said the Sierra Club’s magazine, “signaled a commitment by member institutions to develop voluntary targets that support a climate goal of 1.5C above preindustrial levels.” Since then, however, each of these banks has dropped out of the alliance.
Unfortunately, the ”renewables only” advocates have also achieved some victories in recent years.
Since 2001, the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign has supported the closing of more than 300 coal-fired power plants in this country. In 2021, construction of a liquid natural gas export terminal in Oregon was also canceled. Then, in 2023, a proposed gas-fired power plant in Connecticut was canceled, too. These groups also pressured California into nearly shutting down the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which provides 9% of the state’s electricity, before state energy commissioners voted to extend its operation to 2030.
The relentless campaign to force America away from fossil fuels and nuclear power and towards wind and solar is also driving America toward energy dependence on the People’s Republic of China.
The Heritage Foundation published a report last year by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Miles Pollard that showed how this is happening. “China has succeeded in dominating the world’s supply chains in green energy products and components,” it said. “If America continues to require the use of these green energy products, it will cede economic power to China, giving China control of American energy security.”
Limiting how we produce energy in the United States will, as a matter of course, impose limitations on our freedom. Reliance on China for our energy supply chain will make our country susceptible to economic coercion. Limiting how we produce energy, means less of it and fewer choices about how to use it. This is of course baked into the climate activists’ view of world, one where experts tell us we must drive EVs, use electric stoves, and eat less meat, so that even the smallest of life’s details are predecided.
To preserve freedom, we must unfetter ourselves from ideologically driven restrictions on fossil fuels and overcome decades of naysaying about nuclear power. In so doing we can ensure a future where abundant affordable energy gives every American real choice, which is the heart of freedom.
Seven months into Trump’s return to office, the wreckage of the Biden administration continues to surface—especially in America’s transportation infrastructure. Previously, we highlighted the troubling impact of Pete Buttigieg’s tenure as Secretary of Transportation. His legacy of failure is becoming increasingly clear and public as new coverage reveals how his ideological grant programs, neglect of core responsibilities, and blatant mismanagement have damaged our economy, harmed communities, and sabotaged our personal freedoms.
As covered by the New York Post, Buttigieg, who was charged for four years to oversee the world’s most significant infrastructure network, instead made it his mission to “reimagine” the entire system, framing it as irredeemably racist and in need of dismantling as he famously told Al Sharpton in his “roads are racist” interview. Buttigieg funded his radical agenda through a series of state and local grants. Programs like “Reconnecting Communities” funded the removal of functional highways based on the claim they were originally designed to displace minority neighborhoods, even though those highways are used today by people of all races.
These weren’t transportation programs—they were anti-transportation programs. They prioritized “road diets,” bike lanes, and leveling roads in the name of equity while Americans sat in traffic and airports collapsed under system failures.
The AZ Free Enterprise Club was one of the only organizations sounding the alarm about the ideological hijacking of the USDOT which even despite mainstream knowledge of the corrosive teachings of critical race theory in k-12 education brought to light after COVID, seemed far-fetched to many. We documented how seemingly harmless programs like Vision Zero and the Safe Systems Approach—heavily funded through federal transportation grants—were actually vehicles for social engineering.
Now it is clear how thoroughly he indoctrinated the administration…
Every year, a horde of school district officials and their lobbyists come before the state legislature, rattling their tin cups, begging for more money for their supposedly underfunded schools. They tell sob stories about crumbling buildings and underpaid teachers who had to pay for school supplies from their own pockets. Their schools, they say, are financially starved.
Hogwash.
School bureaucrats don’t want you to know it, but school spending is at an all-time high, and Arizona’s school districts are sitting on more than $20 billion in cash reserves and buildings they don’t need while student achievement craters. A new report from the Common Sense Institute (CSI) reveals the shocking scope of waste plaguing our traditional public school system, and it’s time taxpayers demanded answers.
The numbers are staggering. As has been documented, Arizona’s school districts are already hoarding $7.8 billion in cash reserves, up $1 billion since the prior fiscal year. Now we learn they’re also sitting on $12.2 billion worth of excess real estate—78 million square feet of unused and underutilized space that could house 630,000 additional students. Combined, that’s over $20 billion in resources that could be put to better use serving Arizona’s children.
Since 2019, district school enrollment has declined 5% statewide, yet these same districts increased their building space by 3% and boosted capital spending by a jaw-dropping 67% to $8.9 billion. As CSI has documented, districts have added 499 new buildings while losing 47,500 students. This isn’t just inefficient, it’s fiscally reckless.
The massive spending on new buildings might be justifiable if schools were overcrowded or expecting a huge influx of new students, but they’re not. In fact, Arizona’s district schools are already significantly overbuilt, operating at just 67% capacity while charter schools run at 95% capacity and private schools at 75%. CSI estimates that the excess space in district schools could accommodate 630,000 additional students—nearly half the current statewide district school enrollment.
The excess capacity comes at an enormous cost. CSI estimates that the market value of excess district space alone—$12.2 billion—could fund a decade of capital expenditures. Alternatively, eliminating maintenance costs for unused space would save taxpayers $1 billion annually. That’s real money that could reduce taxes, improve education, or address Arizona’s other pressing needs.
There are plenty of willing buyers. Indeed, the fastest-growing school systems—charters and private schools chosen by increasing numbers of Arizona families—struggle to find adequate facilities. Yet school districts often go to incredible lengths to avoid selling buildings to them, such as when Tucson Unified School District sold an unused building for 25% less than what a Christian school had offered, just so that a “competitor” wouldn’t have it.
In response to such cases, Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law requiring school districts to sell buildings to the highest bidder, even if it’s a private or charter school. Now, rather than comply, school districts are just letting their underutilized space languish and forcing the taxpayers to pay the bill.
The wastefulness is also a slap in the face to teachers and students alike.
As we noted previously, the districts have enough cash reserves to raise the average teacher pay from $64,420 to more than $80,000 for 10 years and still have funds left over. If they sold off all their underutilized space, they could raise the average teacher pay to $100,000 for a decade and still have billions left over.
There is no evidence that spending on buildings is contributing to student learning. As the buildings have gone up, math scores have gone down, plummeting 25% since 2019. As CSI documents, the lowest-performing schools have the most excess space, operating at just 19% capacity, while high-performing schools run at 70% capacity.
This isn’t about helping kids learn; it’s about protecting a bloated bureaucracy that puts institutional self-interest above student needs.
Fixing the problem will require realigning incentives. CSI recommends more transparency—including a “Facilities Condition Index” that would give policymakers and the public objective information about the quality of existing school facilities—and more state oversight of severely underutilized facilities. In the meantime, any funding requests from the school districts should be greeted by state lawmakers with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Arizona’s children deserve better than a $20 billion monument to government inefficiency. They deserve a system that puts their education first, not one that hoards resources while performance plummets. If local officials can’t or won’t deliver, then state lawmakers will have to step in.
Jason Bedrick is a Research Fellow and Matthew Ladner is a Senior Advisor for education policy implementation at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
The Environmental Protection Agency officially proposed to terminate what President Trump has long called the “climate hoax.” If successful, the federal government will be out of the climate regulation business with no hope of returning to it without congressional authorization.
The Trump EPA proposed to rescind a 2009 Obama EPA rule called the “endangerment finding.” In that rulemaking, the Obama EPA determined that emissions of greenhouse gases threatened human health and welfare by causing global warming. Simultaneously with the EPA proposal, the Trump Department of Energy issued a scientific report summarizing why emissions are actually a good thing and threaten nothing.
The scientific findings, however, are superfluous since EPA never had express authority from Congress to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act in the first place. Controversy and litigation about EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases resulted in the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. In that case, the Court determined in a 5-4 holding that EPA could, but did not have to, regulate emissions.
But the decision was controversial. Clean Air Act co-author and famed Democrat Congressman, the late John Dingell, afterwards stated: “I think the Supreme Court came up with a very much erroneous decision on whether the Clean Air Act covers greenhouse gases. I was present when we wrote that legislation and we thought it was clear enough that it did not, and we didn’t clarify it thinking that even the Supreme Court was not stupid enough to make that finding.”
Following the decision, the Bush EPA decided that it would not regulate emissions. When the Obama administration came into power in 2009, it reversed the Bush EPA’s decision and began using the endangerment finding as the basis for regulation of smokestack and tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.
Although many questioned the scientific basis of the Obama EPA’s decision, it was impossible to get a judicial hearing on the science. Federal judges informally decided decades ago that they would defer to regulatory agency decisions on questions of science.
With the endangerment finding apparently firmly in place, the Obama administration, and later the Biden administration, proceeded to regulate tailpipe and power plant emissions of greenhouse gases.
Cracks in the ability of EPA to use the endangerment finding soon began to appear. In 2014, the Supreme Court determined that the Clean Air Act did not authorize EPA to use the endangerment finding to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial smokestacks. In 2022, the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA nullified an effort to regulate emission from power plants, holding that EPA could not launch major regulatory programs without express congressional authorization.
Today, all that remains of EPA’s endangerment finding-based rules are tailpipe regulations in the form of the Biden EPA’s de facto EV mandate, a rule that the Trump administration is in the process of reversing.
Since the Obama EPA made the endangerment finding, electricity prices have soared. Gas prices and inflation soared during the Biden administration. Tens of thousands of high-paying coal miner jobs have been destroyed and their communities devastated.
Our electricity grid has been made less reliable by the advent of existentially subsidized wind and solar power. Periods of peak electricity demand like summer heat waves and winter cold spells now routinely result in blackout/brownout warnings. This problem will get worse before it gets better with the ongoing electricity demand from AI data centers and the re-industrialization of America.
Blue states and their climate activist allies will no doubt sue the Trump EPA to stop the rescission of the endangerment finding. But all this will accomplish is the Supreme Court almost certainly reversing its original sin committed in Massachusetts v. EPA. Some of us can’t wait.
Steve Milloy is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, a biostatistician, and lawyer, who publishes JunkScience.com and is on X @JunkScience.
This year, the tax cuts from the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 were set to expire. Failing to extend the cuts would have resulted in a 22% tax hike for the average taxpayer. For Arizonans, it would have meant an average tax increase of $2,824. And there would have been an even larger tax increase for Arizona small businesses. Thankfully, earlier this summer Congress finally passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), not only extending the personal income tax cuts from 2017 but making them permanent.
The OBBB also included several new tax provisions as well, such as no tax on tips and overtime, an increase in the standard deduction, full expensing and special depreciation for business, just to name a few. This assortment of changes to federal tax law now leaves states like Arizona with a big decision to make: provide partial conformity tax relief, full tax relief, or do nothing and provide no conformity tax relief at all.
This should be an easy choice, as choosing the non-conformity option would leave Arizona taxpayers with one big ugly tax bill to pay.
K-12 superintendents are the CEOs of public schools, spearheading a cabinet of professionals who manage district resources and implement safety and academic programs. Superintendent qualifications may include a doctorate of philosophy (Ph.D.) or education (Ed.D.) and some experience in finance, communications, and organizational leadership.
Superintendents are paid exorbitant salaries topping close to $1 million, depending on the district size. This amount does not include performance bonuses, work vehicles, mobile devices, or lavish vacation packages—er, I mean, “out-of-state professional development conferences.” Whether superintendents do good or evil, employment agreements stipulate that they receive full compensation and benefits, largely at the taxpayers’ expense.
Arizona public schools are home to some of the most ethically challenged and morally questionable high-level administrators. K-12 superintendents across the Valley primarily care about aesthetics and the “business of the district.” Below is an incomplete list of superintendents with controversial reputations, alongside the elected officials who bow to their almighty paper-pushing agenda.
Newly hired Higley USD Superintendent David Loutzenheiser now sits on the dais with governing board members, leaving his cabinet on the floor. This arrangement was approved by the purple-haired board president, Amanda Wade, who once advocated for striking the word “immoral” from teacher-student communication policies. Radical board member Tiffany Schultz—who once declared that professional dress codes “sexualize children’s bodies”—backed Wade’s decision to disrupt the chain of command. No one but Loutzenheiser benefited from this stunt. He set a bad precedent for what’s to come. Read more in AZ Free News.
Earlier this year, a resident in the Cartwright Elementary School District sued two board members for nepotism, citing A.R.S. 15-421. Cassandra Hernandez (elected at age 19) is the daughter of board president and state representative Lydia Hernandez (D). Despite using different addresses on their campaign applications, constituents cried foul and called for their resignations. The Hernandezes led a charge to install the disgraced former Maricopa County Superintendent Steve Watson as district superintendent. Watson is accused of fraud and leaving behind an infestation of financial deficits, lawsuits, and dysfunction in the county office. Cartwright residents have no reason to expect Watson will leave their district any better than he found it.
Deer Valley USD residents constantly complain across social media about Superintendent Curtis Finch’s dismissive “leadership” style. Residents are also suspicious of Finch’s camaraderie with board president Paul Carver, who once told a room full of conservatives that Finch is the best superintendent in the state. Both men support a twice-failed ballot measure that would allow the district to exceed its budget. Finch defended the 15% override, stating: “The anti-public school movement is growing here in Arizona, which is a crime against humanity.” Whether or not good things are happening in DVUSD is up for interpretation, but declining enrollment numbers are the telltale sign of a district in freefall. Go Parents!
No list of sketchy superintendents is complete without Scottsdale USD’s Scott Menzel. He is a freak show in his own right, accounting for the majority of the district’s media exposure. Menzel is widely known for shaming white people who don’t feel guilty about their skin color. Before vacating their seats, debased board members Zach Lindsay, Libby Hart-Wells, and Julie Cienawski extended Menzel’s contract through 2025. Under his “leadership,” SUSD chartered more student-led sexuality clubs, adopted an anti-police curriculum, and circulated hundreds of pornographic books in school libraries. As a result, in 2024, the Arizona School Administrators organization proudly named Menzel the National Superintendent of the Year (this title must be reserved for clowns).
Peoria USD has a slightly better handle on its administration problem since board president Heather Rooks removed Superintendent K.C. Somers from the dais. This establishes a clear separation of employer and employee while respecting the expertise each brings to the district. Unfortunately, though, Somers is developing a reputation for operating in subtle forms of manipulation and subversion, as if he’s trying to sabotage the board members he can’t control. I once attended a meeting where Somers yowled at board members when they ripped off the COVID-19 funding band-aid. Interestingly, before coming to Arizona, Somers was the superintendent of a Colorado school district steeped in scandal and cover-up. He would do well to note that PUSD residents won’t sit for that.
(Dis)honorable Mentions: Tolleson Union HS Superintendent Jeremy Calles morally and financially bankrupted his district. Former Mesa Public Schools Supt. Andi Fourlis oversaw an untold number of social gender transitions without parental knowledge. Tucson USD Supt. Gabriel Trujillo encouraged and attended a student-led drag show on campus, even after one teen was sexually abused by a high school counselor who organized the opening event. Chandler USD Supt. Frank Narducci declared a “week of kindness” and distributed 9-1-1 stickers after unchecked bullying led to one student’s murder and another student’s suicide. There’s more, but we’re out of time.
Those who can’t get elected apply for high-power jobs. Most K-12 superintendents have no campaign grit and no winning personality. Thus, they depend on compromised board members to execute their agenda. Superintendents don’t represent the whole community—they represent the educated community. They may be intellectual experts, but they don’t swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution, and they are not the final governing authority.
The board of education—elected officials who report to taxpayers (that’s you!)—hires the superintendent, and they ultimately decide what to approve or reject. No one is demanding perfection. Arizona families simply want integrity, transparency, and common sense. K-12 community members who experience dissatisfaction with bloated, overcompensated administrative teams should call, email, request meetings, alert the media, and speak at school board meetings. When superintendents refuse to operate within the scope and ability of their job description, expose them.
