While some legislators are working to keep California-style policies out of Arizona, corrupt municipal leaders in cities such as Phoenix and Tucson clearly haven’t gotten the memo. For years, these cities have subjected businesses to an unfair fee for their own shopping carts being stolen. Rather than targeting theft, homelessness, or law enforcement strategies, this policy shifts blame onto retailers, effectively punishing the victims. A classic California-esque idea infecting our Arizona cities.
Representative Nick Kupper introduced HB2460 this legislative session to combat this insanity and introduce some common sense. This bill prevents local governments from fining retailers over abandoned movable property, such as shopping carts and handheld baskets. Retailers already lose money from cart theft; charging them to reclaim their own stolen property is ridiculous.
This type of policy is the definition of “California-ing Arizona.” California has regulated abandoned shopping carts for decades, with state law dating back to 1992 authorizing cities to penalize retailers when carts are not retrieved from public spaces. Tucson and Phoenix are now following in those footsteps…
By Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin and U.S. Representative Andy Biggs |
After decades of finger pointing and failed negotiations over the rights and distribution of the Colorado River, the future of the West stands at a crossroads. The stalemate over water scarcity between seven western states threatens America’s economy and national security. It’s the kind of stalemate that only a grand deal and a major investment can break through to save our region.
With the Colorado River under strain, and time running out, America needs a visionary, a builder and a deal maker. Thankfully, we have all three of those in President Donald J. Trump.
For over half a century, the construction of large dams and canals was the mark of a truly great president. Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt, the first major water reclamation project in the West—the Roosevelt Dam—was authorized to provide Arizona with water that expanded our country’s agricultural, industrial, and military base.
That achievement proved Washington could turn big ideas into reality. Following Roosevelt, nearly every U.S. President across the political spectrum championed large-scale water infrastructure projects in the West, building the dams, canals, and reservoirs that allowed western states to grow. In fact, the West would not be what it is today had it not been for great presidents building great water infrastructure.
Calvin Coolidge authorized the Hoover Dam and All-American Canal; Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Colorado—Big Thompson Project; Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the Glen Canyon Dam, Central Utah Project, and initial storage units in the Upper Basin; Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the Central Arizona Project; and John F. Kennedy authorized the San Juan—Chama Project.
Our nation’s greatest modern presidents have left their mark through building major water infrastructure projects and the time is right for the next wave of investment to begin. Americans want their leaders to put America first, refocusing federal spending at home.
By building something big and meaningful, President Trump could save the West and leave a lasting legacy for the next 250 years in America. President Trump could “Make American Water Great Again.”
Few political figures have had President Trump’s instinct for sensing when a looming issue is about to explode into a defining national moment—spotting opportunities before others see them and acting decisively when others freeze. That instinct, combined with his willingness to act, has led some to speculate that Trump may already be eyeing a major water play in the West. Trump also understands the value of strategic federal assets—such as the Panama Canal—which advance the nation’s interests on a grand scale.
As a builder, constructing a new water resource would fit perfectly with Trump’s identity. A new dam or canal would be the crown jewel of his American portfolio, a monumental project built not for private business but for the American people, turning big ideas into physical steel, concrete, and—most importantly—water that can sustain America for generations.
And he wouldn’t have to start from scratch. Long-shelved proposals—intended to be built but killed by environmental activists—still loom in the background. Big projects like the Marble Canyon Dam (Arizona), Echo Park Dam (Colorado), and Temperance Flat Dam (California)—assumed to be dead—could be revived at any time. President Trump would have the opportunity to succeed where others have failed.
At the same time, numerous new projects have been proposed that could increase water supplies in the West. Large-scale desalination projects, interstate water pipelines, storage facilities, reservoirs, and advanced water reuse systems have all been proposed and are ready to go. Arizona has taken the lead on developing these projects, but multiple western states would benefit from them if any were constructed. With President Trump’s support and blessing, these projects could be moved from a hope to a real revitalization of American infrastructure.
Building any one of these would make a difference. Building all of them would define an era. All President Trump would need to do is pick one, announce it, and build—instantly taking credit and moving us closer to saving the Colorado River for our nation’s economy and national security. Perhaps one could even be named after him: the Donald J. Trump Imperial Dam.
Such a project would not only grant the President unprecedented negotiating power in the West, but also provide thousands of blue-collar jobs that would help to reinvigorate America’s working class. Over 21,000 workers were employed during the construction of Hoover Dam, which created critical jobs at a time when many Americans felt uncertain about the economy.
America remembers its greatest presidents because of what they built—big, bold projects constructed at a scale worthy of a great nation. President Trump can do the same. If President Trump wants to build a lasting legacy, the path forward is clear: solve the Colorado River crisis by building big, bringing new water resources to the West, and increasing the supply for everyone.
Representative Gail Griffin chairs the Arizona House Natural Resources, Energy & Water Committee and has been a leading voice on water and resource policy in the Southwest. Congressman Andy Biggs represents Arizona in the U.S. House of Representatives and has long advocated for policies that strengthen the economy, protect American resources, and support the future of the West.
When asked, “What was the original purpose of public education?” A.I. gave this response:
The original purpose of public education in the U.S. focused on fostering a literate, cohesive, and obedient citizenry to support a new democracy, ensure social order, and provide basic religious instruction.
Since at least 1962, public education has been heavily influenced by secularists. As a result, students are not literate or cohesive, and their obedience has been co-opted into secrecy and rebellion against parents. Of course, democracy means mob rule.
How did we get here?
One obvious answer lies in the worldview of secular humanism. The ideologies of this religion threatens to turn innocent children into a godless, genderless, enraged monolith. Secularism is a parasite that causes symptoms of mental illness, moral confusion, and self-induced hysteria. Parasitic infestations have three phases: growth, reproduction, and transmission.
The growth of secularism in K-12 education manifests as:
Social emotional learning (SEL)
Evolutionary theory
Ethnic studies (CRT)
Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE)
Rainbow flags and gay celebrations on campus
The acknowledgement and acceptance of every religion but Christianity
The reproduction of secularism in K-12 education manifests as:
School officials referring minors to abortion clinics
Boys invading girls’ sports and private spaces
The transmission of secularism from K-12 education to society manifests as:
High school graduates with little to no reading, writing, or math skills
Increased sexual activity, STDs, and unwed pregnancies among youth
High abortion rates among women in their 20s
Low IQ citizens who predominantly vote for radical policies
Emotional immaturity, violence, and lack of personal responsibility
Suicide and premature death
The average American child, from age 4 to 17, will spend about 14,000 hours in school. Most of these students will undergo secular brainwashing in the form of “academic standards,” “core competencies,” and state testing. Parents have been lulled into a false sense of trust, abdicating their rights and responsibilities to government workers. Even “good” educators (the conservative ones who remain fearfully silent) shouldn’t have unchecked influence over a child’s mental, emotional, or moral development.
The pervasive ignorance of secularism explains why people interpret “separation of church and state” to mean Christians can’t pray, read Scripture, or invoke the name of God publicly. Secularism is also why Americans call the United States a “democracy.” The secularist worldview is so morally inferior that it can only be defended by calling opponents racists, white supremacists, fascists, and homophobes.
The demonization of Christianity, prayer, and Bible reading has only escalated as Arizona lawmakers attempt to pass legislation that fortifies First Amendment rights and parental rights in K-12 education.
Secularists linked LifeWise Academy—an organization with a mission to offer Bible education to public school students during school hours—to Arizona House Bill 2266. Secularists claim bussing children to nearby churches for Bible studies during the school day is harmful to academic communities. But encouraging kids to walk off campus with “F— ICE” t-shirts during educational hours is okay? Only in the mind of a secularist.
Deer Valley board member and AZ legislator, Stephanie Simacek (D-LD2), called Lifewise “a controversial, far-right, religious instruction program.” Regarding HB 2266, the secularist told her constituents she would “continue to oppose bills that do nothing to serve public education.” Essentially, high moral standards, respecting authority, and taking responsibility for one’s actions have no place in taxpayer-funded, government schools.
The life’s purpose of a secularist boils down to persecuting Christians, opposing common sense legislation, and infiltrating public school systems to spread anti-Christ propaganda through immoral policies and curricula on all grade levels. Secularism is a spiritual, intellectual, and emotional drain on every generation. No child should be entrusted to an institution that’s predominantly run by godless people.
Parents must continue to seek alternative learning methods and regain control over their kids’ education. Don’t let secularism destroy their innocence and corrupt their moral character. Furthermore, taxpayers should keep rejecting bonds and overrides. Don’t incentivize sleazy administrators and weak board members to advance a secular agenda. Let the schools close and the buildings be repurposed. The kids will be fine if more parents and silent educators step up.
Public education—especially in Arizona—is a colossal failure. The lie of “separation of church and state” must be exposed. Steering children back to God is the only way to defeat secularism and defend our Constitutional Republic. Support constitutional legislation like AZ House Bill 2266 and the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA). Support Christian organizations like LifeWise Academy. Most importantly, support parental rights in K-12 education for all American families.
The professional climate alarmists aren’t fading away. They’re practically mutating. Louder, angrier, and more desperate than ever, they’ve learned that if outright activism draws too much scrutiny, the next best move is infiltration and subversion. Now they’re embedding themselves deeper inside trusted institutions and laundering their message through official channels.
Some in the media want Americans to believe Democrats are quietly retreating from aggressive climate messaging. The opposite is true. The most zealous voices in academia and government are amplifying the panic, using their credentials not as evidence of expertise but as weapons of intimidation. Their “science” isn’t about discovery. It’s about control.
Michael Mann is the perfect example. He turned a routine Olympic broadcast into a climate sermon, claiming snow conditions were proof of global collapse. That wasn’t scientific analysis—it was fearmongering presented as commentary.
Texas A&M professor Andrew Dessler follows the same script. In one moment, Dessler argued that economic models used by plaintiffs to calculate damages for the so-called social cost of carbon are “made up.” Then, in the next, he is engaged in emotional outbursts. In academia today, volume and anger aren’t liabilities; they’re virtues. The showmanship draws attention. In any other field, emotion like that would be disqualifying. That’s not science; it’s performance.
This culture of performative panic has moved into a new and more dangerous phase: subverting institutions through the bureaucratic backdoor. Look at the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), which recently and quietly pulled the climate chapter from the online version of its official Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. They did so because the chapter, written by activist scientists pushing extreme climate narratives, triggered a backlash that threatened the FJC’s credibility and funding.
But here’s the trick: the chapter didn’t disappear. It’s still live on the National Academies of Sciences (NASEM) website, where the organization has explicitly stood by itin the pages of The New York Times. The Academies, which hold the copyright, may even continue printing versions that include it. While the FJC shields itself from scrutiny, it quietly directs readers to NASEM, outsourcing climate indoctrination to a proxy. This is by no means a retreat. It is reinvention — a deliberate laundering of the same activism through new institutions to preserve the illusion of legitimacy.
The same academics who once claimed to be neutral arbiters of truth are now weaponizing institutions to hide their activism behind bureaucratic credibility. They’re embedding their ideology deeper into the machinery of government, courts, and policy schools—places the public rarely looks. This is the next phase of their radical climate crusade. When their narrative collapses under scrutiny, they simply shift it to another institution and continue the mission.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans pay the price. Soaring energy costs, unreliable grids, and overregulation are the fruit of policies born in ivory towers and rubber-stamped by agencies too afraid to challenge the climate orthodoxy. Families choosing between groceries and heating bills don’t need another federal manual telling judges that skepticism is heresy—they need affordable, dependable energy. Climate extremism punishes the people who keep this country running.
Those who believe the climate radicals are retreating are fooling themselves. They’re not backing down—they’re burrowing in. Every time they’re exposed, they shift venues or change labels, but the mission stays the same: centralize control in the name of “saving the planet.” When power over how we heat our homes, drive to work, or grow food moves from citizens to bureaucrats, liberty vanishes with it.
The veneer of science gives this movement authority it doesn’t deserve. Scratch that surface, and it’s politics all the way down. Real science welcomes debate. Climate extremism silences it. The FJC’s quiet erasure and NASEM’s defiance show just how far this has gone—the climate cult doesn’t compromise; it adapts.
Americans need to see this clearly: the radicals aren’t losing ground. They’re evolving into something even more strategic. It’s time for those who believe in freedom, affordability, and reason to speak up before bureaucracy and ideology complete the takeover.
Mr. Isaac, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and CEO of the American Energy Institute.
For Maricopa County motorists, high gasoline prices are no longer an occasional inconvenience but a recurring hit to their wallets.
The story is the same every year. Every summer as temperatures rise, prices at the pump jump as well, often by as much as fifty cents per gallon in Maricopa County. Yet these price fluctuations, as frustrating as they have been for drivers, may soon look mild compared to what’s coming.
Arizona’s Historic Fuel Problem Will Only Get Worse In the Future
Arizona’s chronically high gas prices have been driven by two key factors. The first is that Maricopa County is required to use a specialized “clean burning gasoline” (CBG) blend that only a handful of refineries from around the country can produce. Compounding this issue is that Arizona does not have any in-state refining capacity of our own, making us reliant on imported refined fuel from high-cost California.
These complications have made our state vulnerable to price shocks. In 2003, a major pipeline failure limited gasoline shipments into Arizona and caused immediate price spikes and shortages.
In 2022, while gas prices did increase throughout the nation due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Maricopa County motorists were hit with significant price spikes, and consistently paid far above the national average. In 2023 and again in 2024, price volatility in Phoenix surged even when national averages stabilized.
On a crisp, sun-drenched afternoon in the spring of 2023, I found myself walking down Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., in front of the William Jefferson Clinton Building, headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Standing in its shadow, I wondered when, or if, sanity would ever return to the building. My mind drifted to the regulatory malfeasance that gave this agency power to treat carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant, the 2009 Endangerment Finding.
For years, this bureaucratic decree masqueraded as settled science. Climate zealots claimed CO2 and other greenhouse gases threatened public health as agents of planetary overheating, ignoring both a paucity of supporting data and contradictory evidence that inexorably accumulated.
Now, three years after my visit, EPA has rescinded the regulation as it applies to motor vehicles. The basis of its action is twofold: First, the agency has concluded that by attempting to regulate greenhouse gases, EPA exceeded its authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act. Second, the environmental effect of regulating tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases is negligible.
There is more to be done. Reason and good sense would have the EPA remove the Endangerment Finding’s hold over industrial emissions of greenhouse gases, like those coming from power plants, and would undertake to dismantle the rule’s flimsy scientific justifications.
Nevertheless, EPA’s action undermines an ideological foundation for the broad attacks on fossil fuels that have constrained American prosperity and choked the developing world’s aspirations for modern lifestyles.
The 2009 regulation was used to justify the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan – part of the so-called War on Coal – and tailpipe emissions standards that forced unwanted electric vehicles onto dealership lots. The rule has contributed to the closing of power plants, energy shortages, high electricity prices, and multiple billion-dollar losses for car manufacturers whose customers mostly prefer internal combustion engines. It has also fueled endless litigation against producers of hydrocarbon fuels.
Because CO2 is necessary for all life, beginning with its role in plant photosynthesis, regulation of the gas gave EPA jurisdiction over the entire U.S. economy. Climate crusaders abroad followed EPA’s lead.
Worldwide, the economic waste resulting from the rule is staggering. The Climate Policy Initiative estimates that between 2011 and 2020 that climate spending totaled $4.8 trillion. Estimates for “energy transition investment” – money dumped into the wind, solar and EV rat hole – was $2.3 trillion in 2025 alone.
That is trillions diverted from healthcare, infrastructure, education and genuine alleviation of suffering and advancement of human flourishing. Imagine those resources being directed to improving carbon-intensive energy sectors that have produced the wealthiest and healthiest civilizations in all of history.
Since the dawn of the industrial age, we have witnessed an unprecedented increase in global life expectancy. We have seen a drastic reduction in deaths from natural disasters – not because the weather is milder, but because people are better protected by modern infrastructure and technology made possible by fossil fuels. We have achieved historic highs in agricultural production, feeding a population of 8 billion.
CO2 has played a pivotal role in the greening of the Earth, acting as an atmospheric fertilizer that boosts crop yields and expands forests. Even methane, demonized alongside CO2, is merely a byproduct of a livestock industry essential for providing protein to a ballooning global population. Emissions of neither gas contribute significantly to global temperatures.
Once the EPA designated CO2 a legal hazard, U.S. diplomats, aid agencies and technical experts carried that framing into global climate negotiations, development programs and financing arrangements.
Over time, the EPA’s stance became a de facto reference point for regulators elsewhere. If the U.S. “gold standard” for environmental protection treated CO2 as an endangerment, ministries from Europe to Asia would use similar language in national climate laws.
With the EPA backing away from its regulation of greenhouse gases, developing countries should waste no time in severing whatever restrictions Western climate overseers have placed on their use of fossil fuels. For too long, climate policies have impeded economic growth and denied access to reliable supplies of electricity, to safer indoor fuels for cooking and heating, to refrigeration and to clean water. The result has been higher rates of morbidity and mortality among the world’s poor.
CO2 is not the enemy of humankind. Misguided attempts to criminalize its emissions are!
Vijay Jayaraj is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundationand Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Va.He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.
