Environment & Climate
Climate change is real and it must be tackled — but it cannot be done in a vacuum. Unilateral economic sacrifice by the United States while the world's largest polluters operate without consequence is not a climate policy. It is a competitive disadvantage with no environmental payoff. The solution is global coordination, and the path to that coordination runs through American leadership, not American self-immolation.
Drilling — Directional Reduction, No Forced Shutdowns
No new drilling permits are issued. Existing operations are protected — they represent real jobs and existing energy supply that cannot be removed from the grid overnight without economic consequences that fall hardest on working Americans. The goal is a gradual, directional reduction as alternatives scale to replace capacity. The timeline is driven by what the grid can absorb, not by a political deadline.
Three Technology Priorities
Vertical axis wind turbines: Traditional horizontal turbines require significant land clearance and spacing. Vertical axis turbines generate energy in a fraction of the footprint, can be deployed closer together, and operate effectively in variable wind conditions — maximizing output from limited land.
Solar panels over irrigation canals: Covering irrigation canals with solar panels generates clean energy while shading the water beneath — reducing evaporation in regions where water loss is a serious resource problem. This dual-use approach has already been piloted successfully in California and India. The infrastructure is already in place. The technology works. We deploy it at scale.
Tidal generators: Coastal tidal energy is one of the most consistent, predictable, and underutilized renewable resources available. Unlike wind and solar, tides operate on a fixed, reliable schedule. Deployment in coastal regions captures energy that is currently going entirely untapped.
Sanctions as a Diplomatic Tool
Countries that egregiously pollute face crippling economic sanctions, applied as a matter of United States foreign policy. The United States determines when and how sanctions are applied — this is not a multilateral permission structure. But the goal is not punishment. It is leverage. Sanctions create the economic incentive for the world's largest polluters to come to the table for a coordinated global solution — the kind of solution that actually moves the needle, rather than asking Americans to sacrifice while China and India burn.
The stick creates the conditions for the multilateral conversation. That conversation is the real objective.
Data Centers Disclose What They Draw
Large data centers use substantial water for cooling — millions of gallons a day for the biggest campuses — and until recently, most states had no separate permitting or disclosure requirement specific to this use at all. Minnesota changed that in 2025, creating a dedicated water permitting requirement for data centers, and other states are following.
This is a state-level permitting decision, not a federal one. A Sunsetter serving in state government supports mandatory public disclosure of water source, volume drawn, and cooling method (air-cooled systems use dramatically less water than evaporative cooling, and a facility's choice between them should be visible, not buried in a permit application nobody reads) for any data center above a defined size threshold. In water-stressed regions specifically, a Sunsetter ties permitting directly to demonstrated local water availability, not a general state-level water rights framework that wasn't built with a single facility's millions-of-gallons-a-day draw in mind.
Communities Get a Say Before the Deal Is Signed, Not After
The recurring pattern in data center fights nationally: a project stays quiet until a council vote or a land option leaks, and only then does a community learn what's actually being proposed. By the time residents organize, the deal is often already substantially negotiated. This is a local land-use and utility-interconnection decision — a Sunsetter serving on a city council, county commission, or planning board supports mandatory public notice and comment before any data center land-use or utility agreement is finalized, not after, and brings proposals to the public before they're substantially negotiated rather than presenting a done deal for ratification.
This has a real environmental justice dimension worth naming directly: data center siting has repeatedly landed in communities already carrying disproportionate environmental burden — the fight in Denver's Globeville-Elyria-Swansea neighborhood involves a data center expansion in an area already affected by highways, industrial zoning, and a Superfund site. A transparency requirement doesn't automatically fix that pattern, but a community that finds out about a proposal only after it's decided has no ability to raise it at all.