WASHINGTON, January 13, 2026 — I think we still have a few more days where it’s appropriate to wish each other a happy new year, so I’ll do that here. I’m trying to focus on two things as we enter 2026, which we know will be a challenging year with fights that will have real consequences on people’s lives: gratitude and resolve.
I’m grateful for many things, but here are a handful. First, while our healthcare delivery system is not without its challenges, I believe that, if you have insurance, America remains the best place in the world to be seriously sick or injured. I got to see that up close twice over the holidays, first as a family member broke their hip and then as a dear friend needed brain surgery at the beginning of the week. I’m profoundly grateful for the care they received. I’m also grateful for the time I spent with my family. Despite the sparse snowfall that my beloved Rocky Mountains have seen this winter, my wife, kids, and I got four better-than-expected days skiing together. My wife didn’t grow up on skis, but a couple of years ago she realized it’s the one activity that all four of us really enjoy and can do together as a family, so we try to ski together as much as possible.
I’ve expressed this in this space before, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to try to make a difference in our country on the issues I care most deeply about, and grateful for so many exceptional colleagues here at EDF and EDF Action. If you get to work with people you not only like and respect, but who inspire and teach you every day, your professional life is going to be pretty fulfilling, and that’s exactly where I find myself here. One colleague whom I find particularly inspiring is EDF’s exceptional General Counsel, Vickie Patton. I’m passing along a story that many of us may have missed because it ran over the holidays. It includes Vickie’s perspective and is based on information uncovered through EDF’s records requests made under the Freedom of Information Act. A reporter from The New York Times traveled to Miami, Arizona, to examine the impact of the Trump administration’s decision to waive pollution control requirements for a copper smelting plant. I’d encourage you to read the whole piece, but it’s also worth excerpting from at length here:
“Under rules put in place by the Biden administration, the facility’s owner, Freeport-McMoRan, would have been required to install technology to reduce its toxic emissions. But in October, President Trump exempted the smelter from complying with limits on lead, arsenic, chromium and other hazardous pollutants for the next two years.
Freeport did not have to present an exhaustive argument for why it deserved a reprieve. There was no economic analysis or engineering study. It was as easy as sending an email to the Environmental Protection Agency, where a senior official provided guidance to a lawyer for the company, according to emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
It’s one of many efforts by the Trump administration to weaken or waive environmental protections that companies view as overly burdensome. In the past year, the administration has proposed rolling back more than a dozen regulations governing air pollution, water contamination and planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.”
Such a relentless assault on our public health protections would challenge anyone’s resolve, but resolve is exactly what we all need to fight to protect the things we most value, including the health, safety, and economic well-being of our fellow Americans. Over the holidays, the Trump administration dramatically expanded its mandate requiring coal-fired power plants to remain open, citing authority it claims under a purported “energy emergency.” As a result, facilities in Washington, Indiana, and Colorado were ordered to continue operating. The Colorado order is especially hard to justify. First, the facility is not currently operational due to a broken valve that will need to be repaired before it can even come back online. Second, plans for the plant’s closure have been in place since 2016, and just this past August, Colorado regulators determined that taking the facility offline would not threaten grid reliability. Third, estimates suggest that complying with this 90-day order will cost an additional $21 million over that short period alone. Finally, the CEO of the power company that is subject to this order has stated on the record that 100% of these compliance costs will have to be borne by ratepayers.
The effort to privilege dirty, expensive, and unreliable energy that accelerates climate change is accompanied by a parallel attack on clean energy. On December 22, the Trump administration issued stop-work orders on all major offshore wind projects, citing national security (specifically, radar interference) as the justification.
I couldn’t be happier that EDF is fighting the administration’s illegal actions in court. I’m confident that new polling research EDF Action is currently conducting will show – among other things – that these actions also don’t make sense to American voters. Looking at the year ahead, one of the things I’m looking forward to is finding more for EDF Action to elevate the real impacts on ratepayers and taxpayers. Doing so will help ensure we’re making the case in the court of public opinion alongside the arguments EDF is advancing in courtrooms.