Read this post on Josh’s Substack: Powering Spaceship Earth.
The Abundance Institute held our first summit May 19, 2025. I spoke on a panel with Gideon Powell and Packy McCormick.
Our shared message derives from this graphic. Energy and quality of life are tied together. As the graphic shows, all rich countries are also heavy energy users. Or, if you’re energy-rich, then you’re just regular rich. The flipside is also true—if you’re poor, then you’re not using a lot of energy. That’s the fundamental role that our mastery of energy provides for daily comforts and life support.
By design, the graphic illustrates a doubling at each marker from the previous. That scaling can be confusing (logarithmic or log-log since we do it on both axes). So, if you want a concrete way to think about why this matters, remember that every food calorie takes at least seven calories of energy as input.
My closing couplet on the panel reflects this thinking:
Prosperity is energy-intensive. So, make it as easy as possible to build and plug in more generation capacity.
States are working to roll back red tape
Because she played the gracious moderator for our panel, Jennifer Butler, who leads federalism work at the State Policy Network, didn’t get to weigh in. That’s unfortunate because she’s paving the way forward on energy abundance in her own work. At the Abundance Institute, a lot of our success comes from working with partners like this who know the ground game and local institutions best.
Luckily, Butler published a great argument about the important work of states in making it easier to plug in more generators and to do it faster. Her proposal: have states take up more of a role in performing the work required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA):
This isn’t just theory, it’s already working in transportation projects. Through a federal program called NEPA Assignment, states including Texas, Florida, and California have successfully taken full control of environmental reviews for federally funded highway projects. Texas cut environmental assessment timelines by 121 days, while California slashed draft EIS preparation time by more than 31 months.
There’s a lot to be said for it, as is evident from the timeline reductions that Butler references. As she concludes, giving states more authority can lock in better policy:
Once states take ownership of the NEPA, it becomes much harder for future administrations to recentralize control. That’s the genius of federalism: Power closer to the people is power that’s harder to take back.
If Trump wants to leave a legacy of building, energy dominance, and renewed national strength, finishing the job on NEPA reform is essential. The next phase is clear: Empower the states to lead — they are ready to deliver.
There’s a whole suite of state-level policy groups connected to Butler’s work at the State Policy Network. They’ve had huge successes rolling back onerous regulations of all kinds. Occupational licensing, bad building rules, telehealth, and more.
Now, by advancing smart NEPA delegation and clearing the way for faster permitting, Butler and the rest at SPN are helping states step up where the federal government has stalled.