6 Ways Repealing The EPA’s Intrusive ‘Endangerment Finding’ Will Make Americans’ Lives Better
The Endangerment Finding is the foundation enabling climate rules like mandating electric vehicles or causing coal fired power plant closuresThe Endangerment Finding is the foundation enabling climate rules like mandating electric vehicles or causing coal fired power plant closuresPlugged in, checked out: The Dept. of Energy needs a reality surge
The Department of Energy needs a complete overhaul.
Congress established the DOE in 1977 in response to the 1973 oil crisis, consolidating a patchwork of energy-related programs under one roof. The department took over the management of nuclear programs, national research labs, and a variety of alternative energy efforts. Its 2025 budget tops $50 billion. It supports 14,000 employees and a staggering 95,000 contractors across 83 field locations.
The Department of Government Efficiency should scrutinize the DOE’s effectiveness like any other federal agency. But this department demands a different kind of review. The issue isn’t just waste or mismanagement. It’s mission.
Energy is the lifeblood of any advanced society. The DOE should pursue one overriding goal: making America energy-independent with a long-term strategy for cheap, abundant power. That’s not what it’s doing.
Yes, the energy sector should remain a free-market enterprise. But it’s also a national asset. Energy production and distribution are essential to American sovereignty, economic security, and global influence. That makes the DOE more than just another bloated bureaucracy — it’s a strategic liability unless restructured with purpose.
If the DOE can’t define that purpose, the DOGE must.
Rapid population growth, AI, crypto mining, robotics, and automation will all drive explosive demand for electricity.
One of the department’s core missions should be to secure American energy independence. This is not just good policy — it’s a national security imperative.
Wars are won or lost based on the ability to fuel military and industrial operations. If America can’t meet its own energy needs, it risks becoming dependent on hostile regimes that can — and will — weaponize energy supplies against us.
Previous administrations have sabotaged this mission. The DOE should not focus on environmental goals like reducing carbon emissions. Those objectives often conflict with the department’s strategic purpose. “Climate change” is not a scientific certainty — it’s an ideological construct. Sea levels have risen 400 feet over the past 20,000 years, submerging the ruins of countless ancient civilizations, and none of that was caused by human industry.
Yet the Energy Department continues to throw billions at preventing a hypothetical sea rise of just a few feet — this time supposedly caused by human activity. That’s not just wasteful; it’s dangerously off mission. Nearly 40% of recent DOE budgets have gone to renewables and carbon capture. That funding should be powering the country — not chasing climate fantasies.
It’s absurd. America holds vast fossil fuel reserves — thanks to innovations like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling — that can provide cheap, reliable energy. These resources can make us energy-independent and globally competitive. The DOE should clear the way for fossil fuel extraction and pipeline construction, starting with permitting on federal lands and aggressive deregulation.
At the same time, the department should end all spending on alternative energy development — except nuclear.
The free market, not the federal government, should drive innovation. The DOE needs to stop subsidizing every corner of the energy industry, fossil fuels included. Government handouts distort markets, discourage competition, and reward political connections instead of performance. Cronyism, fraud, and corporate capture follow wherever subsidies go. A healthy, well-capitalized U.S. energy sector doesn’t need government favors — it needs government to get out of the way. Let consumers, not bureaucrats, decide the winners.
To sharpen its focus, the Department of Energy must shed every responsibility not central to its mission. Environmental policy belongs with the Environmental Protection Agency. Government-run electricity operations, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, should be sold to private firms.
The DOE has no business in genomics. It should transfer its Human Genome Project work elsewhere. The Pentagon — not the DOE — should manage the nuclear weapons stockpile. The department should also end its subsidies for synthetic fuels like ethanol, which distort agricultural markets and drive up food prices. Many of its remaining research functions should be reassigned to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or the National Science Foundation.
The department should also abandon appliance efficiency mandates that degrade performance, frustrate consumers, and increase costs.
It must reject the Biden administration’s bloated Green New Deal agenda, which has dragged the DOE into a fantasyland of bureaucratic overreach. The department should withdraw from the energy-related provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and related executive orders. These distractions must be repealed and the associated spending eliminated immediately.
The DOE needs to recognize the direction the world is headed: toward an electricity-dominated future. Electric vehicles are only the beginning. Rapid population growth, AI, crypto mining, robotics, and automation will all drive explosive demand for electricity. We’ll need fossil fuels to supply the grid for now — but that supply will become harder to access just as demand surges. The DOE must plan accordingly, not wander off chasing green illusions.
The coming surge in electricity demand cries out for a modern-day Manhattan Project — this time led by the Department of Energy. The DOE should lead a national effort to radically expand, modernize, and harden the electric grid. It must accelerate the development of small-scale nuclear fission reactors and push to make nuclear fusion commercially viable.
Nuclear energy — especially fusion — is clean, powerful, and virtually limitless. While the private sector should continue optimizing fossil fuel and alternative energy technologies, the DOE must draw up the blueprint for America’s energy future. It should clear regulatory obstacles that block meaningful progress.
So what should the DOGE do with the DOE? Strip away every distraction and narrow its mission to one goal: ensuring America has cheap, abundant, reliable energy. Everything else belongs on the chopping block.
Clinton-appointed judge orders Trump to 'immediately' rehire fired workers
On Thursday, a judge ordered the Trump administration to "immediately" rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees terminated from six federal agencies.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, called the Office of Personnel Management's decision to lay off the federal workers "unlawful," a "sham," and a "gimmick," Politico reported. He insisted that President Donald Trump's administration had circumvented legal requirements by arguing the terminations were performance-based, which he claimed was not the case.
'The Government has engaged in an illegal scheme spanning broad swaths of the federal workforce.'
"It is a sad, sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that's a lie," Alsup stated.
He demanded that the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs rehire the probationary employees. Yet, Alsup also noted that the agencies have the authority to implement "reductions in force."
"The words that I give you today should not be taken that some wild-and-crazy judge in San Francisco said that an administration cannot engage in a reduction in force," Alsup said. "It can be done, if it's done in accordance with the law."
During a Thursday hearing, Alsup accused the DOJ's legal team of being "afraid" to have individuals cross-examined because it "would reveal the truth."
"I tend to doubt that you're telling me the truth," the judge said. "I'm tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelsey Helland insisted that the directive to terminate the employees "was not an order by OPM."
"Everybody knew the new administration was prioritizing this and the political appointments wanted to comply with that administration priority," Helland explained.
The Government Executive reported that the judge's rehire order impacts roughly 24,000 probationary workers who were fired last month.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Alsup of "attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch."
"The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch — singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President's agenda," Leavitt remarked. "If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for president themselves."
The DOJ filed a notice to appeal.
On Thursday evening, a second federal judge, U.S. District Judge James Bredar, issued a temporary restraining order, calling for more than a dozen federal agencies to temporarily reinstate terminated workers.
The judge wrote, "In this case, the government conducted massive layoffs, but it gave no advance notice. It claims it wasn't required to because, it says, it dismissed each one of these thousands of probationary employees for 'performance' or other individualized reasons."
"On the record before the Court, this isn't true. There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively," he added.
The Trump administration has terminated approximately 200,000 probationary employees across the federal government.
"When, as is likely the case here, the Government has engaged in an illegal scheme spanning broad swaths of the federal workforce, it is inevitable that the remediation of that scheme will itself be a significant task," Bredar stated.
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