“Energy is everything.”
That simple statement by SPN’s Visiting Energy Policy Fellow, Amy O. Cooke, succinctly sums up the reality about energy’s role in the policymaking world. Energy policy impacts state budgets, tax policy, state infrastructure, and much more. Because of this, energy has quickly grown as a major focus for SPN network affiliates across the country.
Nationwide, SPN partners are enacting real influence over their states’ energy policies and the country’s energy future.
New England
For years, the New England region—like much of the country—has placed more and more priority on “green” energy over reliable, efficient, and cost-effective energy. As a result, state leaders in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut have dedicated their states’ energy grids to net zero emissions by 2050.
Yet despite nuclear being the most effective way to achieve reliable and affordable net zero energy, these states have prioritized wind and solar power instead.
However, thanks to the Yankee Institute, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the Maine Policy Institute, the Ethan Allen Institute, and the AFP Foundation, the true costs of relying on wind and solar to achieve net zero emissions is now out in the open.
In September 2024, these SPN partners jointly released a report titled The Staggering Costs of New England’s Green Energy Policies. In it, they showed how prioritizing the more unreliable options of solar and wind would not only increase energy costs by an estimated $815 billion through 2050, but it would also result in frequent and significant rolling blackouts.
The report—which received significant attention—clearly laid out the dangers of prioritizing wind and solar over nuclear. But more importantly, it showed how lifting state nuclear moratoriums and allowing nuclear to compete with renewables can safely, cleanly, and affordably achieve these states’ energy goals. Recently, the report was used by lawmakers in a Congressional hearing on offshore wind.
North Carolina
Sadly, the debate over energy policy often devolves into a false dichotomy of “environmental” vs. everything else.
But what makes an energy source “environmental” or “green?” Often, the most common metric is emissions. This is why many states have attempted to pass policies moving to low or zero emissions by a certain date. While net zero emissions can be a laudable goal, it shouldn’t be the only goal. Net zero emissions does not consider energy reliability, sustainability, cost, or grid requirements. In other words, it’s true that wind and solar generate zero emissions. But if they also require massive (emissions-emitting) alterations to a state’s energy grid and create instability that leaves people without power for hours or days at a time, they can end up impacting people (and the environment) in unforeseen ways.
To change the way North Carolina leaders viewed and legislated energy policies, the John Locke Foundation released the report Energy Crossroads: Exploring North Carolina’s Two Energy Futures, (winner of the Bob Williams Award for Most Influential Research). In it, Locke’s experts showed how instead of prioritizing emissions when debating energy policy, states like North Carolina should prioritize reliability and affordability. By doing this, states can achieve energy goals in sustainable, reliable, and affordable ways. After releasing their report, Locke’s team worked with state leaders to pass two bipartisan bills enacting many of the reforms proposed in their report.
Locke followed up Energy Crossroads with another groundbreaking study: Lighting the Path: Meeting North Carolina’s Coming Energy Needs. Lighting the Path analyzes North Carolina’s energy infrastructure and compares two carbon neutrality scenarios. The report finds that how utilities meet emissions targets will shape energy costs, economic growth, and grid reliability. It concludes that nuclear power is the most cost-effective path, allowing coal and gas plants to stay online and providing time to increase the state’s zero-emissions nuclear fleet.
Energy Reliability and Rapid Response Teams
Reliability is one of the most critical aspects of energy policy. Reliable energy ensures hospitals can care for patients, traffic lights operate, people have food and water, in short, nearly every aspect of life today relies on plentiful and reliable energy.
Because of this, over the past year, SPN’s energy working group has developed its Rapid Response Team to provide guidance and resources to partner organizations and lawmakers in need of resources to either fight back against misguided energy policies or promote free-market policies that can take their states into the future. Over the last year, SPN’s Rapid Response Energy Team has been deployed to states like Arkansas and Arizona to work with lawmakers on those states’ energy issues. SPN’s Rapid Response Team’s work dovetails with the work SPN partners like Opportunity Arkansas and the Goldwater Institute have done to improve their states.
In Arizona, SPN’s Rapid Response team provided language to Goldwater’s Municipal Affairs team, who ushered a major amendment through the Arizona Corporation Commission. The amendment requires any retiring baseload asset in Arizona Public Service’s Integrated Resource Plan be replaced with a comparable baseload resource. In practical terms, this means intermittent sources like wind and solar cannot replace coal retirements.
This work has educated lawmakers and regulators across the country on the importance of prioritizing reliable energy options through legislation in their states. Now, thanks to SPN’s Rapid Response Energy Team, even smaller organizations or partner organizations without energy experts on staff can have a role in shaping and bettering their state’s energy futures.
In addition to the work that SPN’s Rapid Response Team is accomplishing, many SPN Partners recognize that grid reliability is more than just a state-level issue. A perfect example of this is the Mackinac Center’s report Shorting the Great Lakes Grid released in August 2024. In the report, Mackinac’s experts revealed that net zero policies threaten the reliability of the state’s energy grid and could have broader destabilizing effects across multiple states in the Great Lakes region.
Delaware
Rhetoric often overshadows facts and sound data when it comes to energy policy. Case in point: Delaware’s massive offshore wind energy project.
In 2024, during the waning days of the Biden Administration, the federal government quickly approved multiple offshore wind projects in Delaware. These projects promised to significantly transfer much of the state’s energy grid to more unreliable and expensive sources like wind energy. However, thanks to their years of work and energy expertise, the Caesar Rodney Institute (alongside the SPN Offshore Wind Working Group) quickly jumped into action to prevent the state’s energy grid from being fundamentally and haphazardly altered. In February 2025, Caesar Rodney’s energy expert crafted a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum, signed by several SPN groups, requesting that the offshore wind projects that were rushed through the approval process be re-evaluated. Thanks to Caesar Rodney and SPN’s quick work, these offshore wind projects have been paused while administration officials re-evaluate permits to ensure the eastern seaboard’s energy future is secure.
Colorado
Even though nuclear energy has been proven to be one of the cleanest, most reliable, and safe energy options available today, it has suffered from negative PR and unfounded fear.
But thanks to the Independence Institute in Colorado, nuclear energy has renewed life there. Earlier this year, the state passed a bill that added nuclear energy to the state’s list of “clean” energy sources. The Independence Institute provided research and expert testimony that helped get this bill passed. This means that from now on, whenever energy solutions are being discussed and debated in Colorado, nuclear will (correctly) be considered a clean and safe option.
Ohio
This year, thanks in large part to The Buckeye Institute, Ohioans benefited from the most significant energy reforms in 20+ years being passed into law. But the bill, House Bill 15, didn’t happen on its own. It took work and coordination from Buckeye’s team and SPN.
In January this year, Buckeye released a report titled Better Energy Policy for Ohio, with support from SPN, that outlined a series of common-sense reforms that would benefit ratepayers, businesses, and the environment.
After releasing their report, Buckeye’s experts (alongside Americans for Prosperity-Ohio) promoted the reforms and report to everyday Ohioans as well as legislators. After months of work, the result was House Bill 15 being passed into law. Now, thanks to Buckeye, new power plants have an expedited permitting process, energy taxes are lower, and no new special taxes or fees can be charged for specific energy users (like data centers). Also, House Bill 15 reduces some energy subsidies and incentives and eliminates many more. This policy alone is estimated to save taxpayers about $100 million a year. And finally, energy companies will be required to produce transparent heat maps on transmission to look at how much existing infrastructure is being used. Energy companies will now need to justify additional charges rather than just attaching riders without explanation to ratepayers.
As Buckeye’s Vice President of Policy, Rea Hederman Jr. explains, “Ohio is now a national leader in smart, free-market energy policy.”
A state’s energy policy can have ripple effects on nearly every aspect of life there. If a state’s policies are well thought out, sustainable, and affordable, the state’s budget, infrastructure, GDP, quality of life and so much more can benefit. But a state that prioritizes rhetoric and talking points over common sense and facts can plunge residents into an expensive and uncertain future.
Through targeted investments, research, the Energy Working Group, and Rapid Response Teams, SPN is accelerating the Network’s ability to not only comment on their state’s energy policy, but shape it.