Unlikely champion notches green energy win in megabill
Now a little-noticed section of the House-passed Republican megabill includes portions of the House Freedom Caucus member's 'Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act.'
Specifically, the bill would share revenues from renewable projects with counties and states where the projects are located. The hope is that spreading cash around will make renewables more attractive for local governments.
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'I'm a guy that's all about all of the above,' Gosar said during an interview this week. 'Arizona's got great solar. We can't turn our back on it.'
Despite that enthusiasm, don't expect him to sign on to the Green New Deal just yet. He's more than happy to see renewable energy tax credits get rolled back in the reconciliation package, known formally as the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' H.R. 1.
'As long as nobody's getting any subsidies, and everyone's playing fair and square across the board, I think we win,' he said.
The Senate is now working on its own version of the budget reconciliation bill, with the hope of getting it to President Donald Trump's desk by July 4.
Lawmakers there say they have been eyeing changes to some of the rollbacks House Republicans made to energy tax credits. Under budget reconciliation rules, only a simple majority in both chambers is needed to pass the legislation.
Renewable energy backers have had little to cheer about in recent weeks. Aside from some nuclear and renewable fuel provisions, Gosar's language is one of the few green energy wins in the megabill.
Still, what's in there now is a slimmed down version of the 'Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act,' reintroduced in March as H.R. 1994.
Like many previous iterations over the past half-decade, that proposal includes provisions to speed up permitting and create a fund for conservation efforts, neither of which made it into the megabill. The former wasn't included because of Senate procedural issues, Gosar said.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did not give a score for Gosar's portion of the megabill, though it seems likely to increase the deficit because money would be steered away from federal coffers.
According to text of the House-passed package, 50 percent of bonus bids, rentals, fees, permits and leases for renewable projects would go to states and counties that host such projects, divided evenly between the two. Currently, 100 percent of that money goes to the federal government. The new revenue-sharing arrangement would begin Jan. 1.
'We wanted people to embrace this at the district and state levels,' Gosar said. 'That way, some of the money came back to them. It's what we call 'sniffle money.''
Group support
Advocates like the American Clean Power Association have backed Gosar's past efforts, but they've had little to say this time around.
Jason Ryan, a spokesperson for ACP, declined comment, though in March, Frank Macchiarola, chief advocacy officer for the group, hailed H.R. 1994 as 'key to harnessing' renewable energy 'to enhance energy security, improve grid reliability, and boost local economies.'
The conservative Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, however, said it was 'pleased' to see a version of PLREDA make it into the reconciliation bill.
'It will be a positive driver of energy projects, especially in the West, that are crucial to securing American energy independence and national security interests,' Heather Reams, president of the group, said in a statement.
'Furthermore, we appreciate the preservation of flexibility for states and localities in how to best allocate funds and hope to see similar language come out of the Senate.'
According to House Natural Resources testimony from an Interior Department official last July, the Bureau of Land Management under President Joe Biden had permitted renewable energy projects expected to power about 2.4 million homes.
The chair of that committee, Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), deemed the revenue-sharing provision a modest win that should have widespread support. 'It is a bipartisan bill, and it is something Gosar was wanting to see in the package,' he said in an interview.
Partisan rift
It's not exactly bipartisan anymore. Ever since the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the main Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) has refused to join with Gosar on the legislation, instead offering his own version each year. Gosar has called the rioters 'peaceful patriots.'
Gosar seems to have moved on from all that, though he did have thoughts on Levin's parallel efforts.
'I think when you copy me, I think that's a … how should I say this? Great admiration. My work is pretty good.'
Gosar hasn't exactly been trumpeting his legislative victory. In a statement following the House vote on the bill in May, he lauded the legislation's border security and tax provisions, but failed to mention the provision he succeeded in inserting.
When asked if that was an oversight, he responded simply, 'Yeah.'
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USA Today
17 minutes ago
- USA Today
ICE detention is growing in the South. This state was the first.
Louisiana, long known for its 'prison economy,' now houses more ICE detention facilities than any other non-border state. WINN PARISH, LA – Far from the jazz clubs and nightlife of New Orleans, thousands await their fate inside immigration jails. Louisiana has more dedicated Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers than any other state besides Texas – nine total – after it converted nearly half a dozen correctional facilities to immigrant detention. Most are remote, scattered near farms and forests. Among the sites is a unique "staging facility" on a rural airport tarmac for rapid deportations. President Donald Trump is increasingly leaning on Republican-led Southern states to detain and deport millions of immigrants ‒ from "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades to the expansion of a sprawling Georgia immigration facility. Far from the U.S.-Mexico border, Mississippi has the ICE jail with the highest average daily population. But Louisiana was the first non-border state to surge immigration detention capacity, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and Tulane University Law School. The state opened five new facilities to detain immigrants in 2019, during the first Trump administration, and vastly expanded the number of detainees during the Biden administration. Immigrants are sent here from all over the country, far from their families, communities and, often, their lawyers. The Trump administration has confined some of its highest-profile detainees in Louisiana, including now-released Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil and Harvard University scientist Kseniia Petrova. The state's largest immigration jail, Winn Correctional Center, is tucked deep into dense pine woods nearly five hours northwest of New Orleans. The site is so remote that, for years, online maps routinely sent visitors the wrong way down a dirt road. A warning sign cautions visitors: "This property is utilized for the training of chase dogs." Other states might follow Louisiana's example as more federal funds flow to ICE detention. Congress recently authorized the Trump administration to spend $45 billion over the next four years to expand immigration jails around the country. That's nearly four times ICE's previous annual detention budget. USA TODAY traveled to four of Louisiana's nine ICE facilities, hoping to see firsthand what life is like for immigrants detained there. But the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied multiple requests for a tour of any of the locations. In an emailed statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE originally expanded its detention capacity in Louisiana "to address the increasing number of individuals apprehended at the border" under the Biden administration. "ICE continues to explore all options to meet its current and future detention requirements while removing detainees as quickly as possible from the U.S.," she said. Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, described the state as key to Trump's promised mass deportation campaign. "Louisiana really is the epicenter for a lot of what is currently taking place with this administration," Ahmed said. "It's an outcropping of a prison economy that Louisiana has survived on for a long, long time." Deportation hub far from the border Louisiana found its foothold as a deportation hub at the end of Trump's first term, when the administration was looking to expand immigrant detention. The state had reformed its criminal justice system in 2017, with bipartisan support, to reduce sentences for low-level offenders. That had the effect of dramatically decreasing the state's prison population and freeing thousands of incarcerated people – mainly Black men and women. At the time, the Black imprisonment rate was nearly four times the rate of White imprisonment in Louisiana, according to the ACLU. Louisiana eventually rolled back the reforms. But racial justice activists briefly celebrated a win. Then ICE came knocking. The first Trump administration, and later the Biden administration, wanted to detain more illegal border crossers. Louisiana offered advantages: empty prisons, employees already trained in corrections, and access to the Alexandria airport with a detention facility and a history of deportation flights. It also has some of the country's most conservative immigration judges, as well as a federal appeals court that, in immigration cases, often sides with the government, lawyers say. "Louisiana had the infrastructure already there," said Homero López, legal director of New Orleans-based Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, a nonprofit that provides free representation. "ICE comes in saying, 'Y'all have got the space. We've got the people. We'll pay you double what the state was paying.' That's why the expansion was so fast." Louisiana's rural communities offered advantages for ICE Many Americans know Louisiana by its crown jewel, New Orleans, the state's tourism mecca, where social norms and politics are as liberal as the flow of alcohol on Bourbon Street. But Louisiana is largely wooded, rural, proudly conservative and deeply Christian. County governments are called parishes and the poverty rate is the highest in the nation. "People want jobs and who's to blame them?" said Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University research assistant professor who studies immigration enforcement. "It's fairly easy to promise jobs by setting up a detention facility." Rural Louisiana used to make a living from oil and timber. Logging trucks still rumble down forested two-lane roads, but the decline in natural resources and price unpredictability drove some communities to look for new industries. Prisons and now immigration detention deliver good-paying jobs and economic development to places like Winn, Ouachita and LaSalle parishes. LaSalle was one of the first to see the potential. In 2007, local leaders in the parish seat of Jena – current population 4,155 – wanted to diversify the economy. A sprawling juvenile detention facility north of town sat empty. When GEO Group, the nation's largest private detention contractor, swooped in with an ICE contract in hand, local leaders welcomed the opportunity. "Not having to build an entirely new facility was probably a key factor to them locating here," said Craig Franklin, editor of the weekly Jena Times. Plus, "our advantage to a strong employee pool was likely a factor." In Ouachita Parish, the mayor and council of Richwood ‒ population 3,881 ‒ debated whether to approve an ICE detention contract. Mayor Gerald Brown didn't have a vote, but he supported the conversion to ICE detention, he said. "Richwood Correctional Center is one of our biggest employers," Brown told USA TODAY. "There was a lot of back and forth. We did town halls, and we had meetings." The town stood to gain new income as an intermediary between ICE and the private operator, LaSalle Corrections. When it was a jail, the town earned a $112,000 a year fee. Now that it's an ICE detention center, the town is getting about $412,000 a year. "The financial windfall for the community was something I certainly couldn't turn a blind eye to," Brown said. Remote ICE has consequences for the detained The willingness of rural communities to house ICE facilities is part of the draw to Louisiana, researchers who study immigration detention say. Another factor: When ICE tries to open new detention centers near big cities, the agency is often met with resistance from immigrant rights activists and residents with "not in my backyard" arguments. But attorneys say the rural locations have real consequences for the people detained. Data shows that having access to an attorney dramatically improves a detainee's chance of winning release and a chance at staying in the United States. But it's hard for attorneys to get to many of the facilities; Ahmed regularly drives three to seven hours to visit immigrant clients across the state. Baher Azmy, legal director of the New York-based Center of Constitutional Rights, represented Khalil, the Columbia University activist, during his more than three-month detention at the Central Louisiana Processing Center in Jena. He visited twice and said he was struck by its remoteness, the utter lack of space for attorneys to meet their clients and the no-contact family visitation conducted behind plexiglass. Accommodations were made for Khalil to see his wife and newborn baby in a separate room, after a court ordered it. "Getting there was an all-day proposition," Azmy said. "It reminded me of my early trips to Guantanamo," the military jail on the island of Cuba, where he represented clients accused of terrorism in the years after the 9/11 attacks. "The desolation, the difficulty getting there. The visiting conditions were better in Guantanamo than in Jena. As horrible as Guantanamo was, I could hug my client." According to ICE, rules and accommodations at different facilities can depend on their design and capacity, as well as contractual agreements. "Allegations that ICE detention facilities have improper conditions are unequivocally false and designed to demonize ICE law enforcement," McLaughlin said. "ICE follows national detention standards." Exponential expansion of ICE detention The United States has consistently grown its immigration detention through both Republican and Democratic administrations. But the average number of immigrants in detention on any given day has risen rapidly over the past six months, from roughly 40,000 people at the end of the Biden administration in January to more than 58,000 in early July. Under President Joe Biden, ICE moved thousands of migrants who sought asylum at the United States-Mexico border over to Louisiana detention centers, said the ACLU's Ahmed. Now, the centers are filled with people picked up in the country's interior. Nearly half of those in ICE detention in early July had no criminal record or pending charges, according to ICE data. They faced civil immigration violations. When determining whether to send a detainee to Louisiana, ICE considers bed space availability, the detainee's medical and security needs and proximity to transportation, according to an agency statement. The average daily population in Louisiana ICE facilities topped 7,300 in early July. That compares to roughly 2,000 ICE detainees in 2017 at the start of the first Trump administration, according to data collected by TRAC at Syracuse University. Some of that increase is due to a Trump administration decision to withdraw legal status from thousands of immigrants who arrived during the Biden administration and followed the rules then in place. "These are mothers. These are children. These are students. And these are individuals who often had status that was very much legal, that's then been taken away by the administration," Ahmed said. "So what we are seeing is the rendering of documented people to undocumented by the stroke of a pen of the United States government." More: He won asylum and voted for Trump. Now his family may have to leave. Three times this spring and early summer, Will Trim traveled to Richwood Correctional to visit his colleague Petrova, the Harvard scientist from Russia. He said the buildings looked "like warehouses, featureless beige buildings" encircled with razor wire, separated from a low-income neighborhood by a patch of woods. During his visits, few of the people he spoke with in the nearby town of Monroe knew that more than 700 immigrant women were being held locally. According to ICE data, on average, in July, 97% of the women in Richwood Correctional had no criminal record. "If they are being held without charge," he asked, "why is there double-barbed wire? Why is it hidden in the forest?" Dinah Pulver contributed to this report.
New York Post
17 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump defied the world with truth — and upended the status quo
In less than six months, the entire world has been turned upside down. There is no longer such a thing as conventional wisdom or the status quo. The unthinkable has become the banal. Take illegal immigration — remember the 10,000 daily illegal entries under former President Joe Biden? Recall the only solution was supposedly 'comprehensive immigration reform' — a euphemism for mass amnesties. Now, there is no such thing as daily new illegal immigration. It simply disappeared with common-sense enforcement of existing immigration laws — and a new president. How about the 40,000- to 50,000-soldier shortfall in military recruitment? Remember all the causes the generals cited for their inability to enlist soldiers: generational gangs, obesity, drugs and stiff competition with private industry? And now? In just six months, recruitment targets are already met; the issue is mostly moot. Why? The new Pentagon flipped the old, canceling its racist DEI programs and assuring rural, middle-class Americans — especially white males — that they were not systemically racist after all. Instead, they were reinvited to enlist as the critical combat cohort who died at twice their demographic share in Iraq and Afghanistan. How about the 'end of the NATO crisis,' supposedly brought on by a bullying United States? Now the vast majority of NATO members have met their pledges to spend 2% of GDP on defense, which will soon increase to 5%. Iconic neutrals like Sweden and Finland have become frontline NATO nations, arming to the teeth. The smiling NATO secretary-general even called Donald Trump the 'daddy' of the alliance. What about indomitable, all-powerful, theocratic Iran, the scourge of the Middle East for nearly 50 years? Although it had never won a war in the last half-century, its terrorist surrogates — Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis — were supposedly too dangerous to provoke. Now? Most of its expeditionary terrorists are neutered, and their leaders are in hiding or dead. Iran has no air force, no real navy, no air defenses and no active nuclear-weapons program. Its safety apparently depends only on the mood of the United States or Israel on any given day not to fly into its airspace and take out its missiles, nuclear sites, generals or theocrats at will. What happened to the supposedly inevitable recession, hyperinflation, stock-market collapse, unemployment spikes and global trade war that last spring economists assured us would hit by summer? Job growth is strong, and April's inflation rate is the lowest in four years. GDP is still steady. The stock market hit a record high. Trade partners are renegotiating their surpluses with the United States. It turns out that staying in the US consumer market is the top priority of our trading partners. It seems their preexisting and mostly undisclosed profits were large enough to afford reasonable symmetrical tariffs. For now, news of tax cuts, deregulation, 'drill baby, drill' energy policies displacing Green New Deal strangulation and $8 trillion to $10 trillion in potential foreign investment has encouraged — rather than deterred — business. Then there were our marquee elite universities, whose prestige, riches and powerful alumni made them answerable to no one. And now, after the executive and congressional crackdown on their decades of hubris? Supposedly brilliant university presidents have resigned in shame. The public has caught on to their grant surcharge gouging. Campuses have backed off their arrogant defiance of the Supreme Court's civil rights rulings. They are panicked about the public exposure of their systemic antisemitism. They are scrambling to explain away their institutionalized ideological bias and their tawdry profit-making schemes and mass recruitment of wealthy foreign students from illiberal regimes. So, the mighty Ivy League powerhouses are now humbling themselves to cut a deal to save their financial hides and hopefully return to their proper mission of disinterested education. What happened to the trans juggernaut of sex as a social construct and its bookend gospel that biological men could dominate women's sports? People woke up. They were no longer afraid to state that sex is binary and biologically determined — and that biological men who dominate women's sports are bullies, not heroes. Where are the millionaire scamming architects of BLM now? Where is the 'DEI now, tomorrow, and forever' conventional wisdom? Where are Professor Ibram X. Kendi and his $30,000 Zoom lessons on how to fight racism by being racist? They have all been exposed as the race hustlers they always were. Their creed that it is OK for supposed victims to be racist victimizers themselves was exposed as an absurd con. So, what flipped everything? We were living in an 'emperor has no clothes' make-believe world for the last few years. The people knew establishment narratives were absurd, and our supposed experts were even more ridiculous. But few — until now — had the guts to scream 'the emperor is naked' to dispel the fantasies. When they finally did, reality returned. Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.
18 minutes ago
'This Week' Transcript 7-20-25: Rep. Tim Burchett & Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, July 20, 2025 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "This Week" transcript archive. MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC 'THIS WEEK' ANCHOR: And our thanks to Rachel. I'm joined now by GOP Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who has called for more transparency in the Epstein case. Good morning, Congressman. You've co-sponsored the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would force the House to vote on whether or not to release all government files on Epstein. What exactly do you think the government is withholding here? REP. TIM BURCHETT, (R) TENNESSEE: Well, that's the million-dollar question, ma'am. I -- I applaud the president and Attorney General Bondi for -- for wanting to release the grand jury files. I believe that will pretty much cover everything. But I would give everybody a caveat or a -- that's a big word, but a warning that just because somebody flew on a plane doesn't mean they're a daggum pedophile, you know. I -- I'm -- I have a lot of wealthy friends. I -- I aspire to be wealthy, but I've taken a vow of poverty because of my daughter rides horses. So -- but I have a lot of wealthy friends, and they fly on people's planes. And their plane will be down, and they'll say, hey, we're going somewhere, and we've got an extra seat, do you want to go? And they don't even know the person on the plane. So, you know, that's -- that's one of the things I worry about too, because I -- you know, President Trump admitted that he flew on -- on his daggum plane. And -- and so, I worry about some innocent people. I worry about -- there's over 1,000 people that this dirtbag apparently offended. And currently, I believe the devil's dealing with him. RADDATZ: But -- but, Congressman -- BURCHETT: But I worry about some of those innocent names being out on that too as well. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. RADDATZ: So -- so, Congressman, you think unsealing the grand jury records is enough for you now? BURCHETT: I think it's a start. I don't think we're ever going to get to the bottom of anything -- every -- all of it, ma'am. I mean, look at the Kennedy assassination. Do you actually believe Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy from the front and the back, and this magic bullet appears an hour later in a -- in -- on a hospital gurney and -- and in an emergency room. I -- you know, this town doesn't give up its secrets very easy. And I -- and I'd warn people too, now we're getting a hold of this stuff. What happened the last four years under the Biden administration? Senator Dick Durbin blocked my senator, Marsha Blackburn, who valiantly fought to get those records out and only -- and I could pretty much like it wasn't anything. And the media backed him up on it. And now all of a sudden the media thinks they've got something and it's -- it's -- I -- it's leveled towards Trump. But I -- you know, my history with this issues goes back a little way. I spent 16 years in the Tennessee General Assembly and I passed and attempted to pass some -- some of the toughest laws in the country, some of the first (INAUDIBLE) internet crimes against children. I've promoted the death penalty, chemical castration of child molesters and all those bills were ruled unconstitutional. RADDATZ: Congressman -- BURCHETT: Yes, ma'am. RADDATZ: Congressman, I -- I want to go back again. So, you no longer believe or -- or are demanding that all the Epstein files be released? BURCHETT: No, ma'am. I want them -- I want them released. But my warning is this, let's make sure that we're not releasing the names of some of these who -- who were then children, now adults, that were abused by this dirtbag, Epstein, and let's make sure we don't release things that are -- that have innocent names on them. That's my -- that's been my concern with -- with the original -- I thought they were dragging their feet. In the beginning, under the Biden administration, they never did anything. And now all of a sudden it's become a political issue. It's not a political issue with me, ma'am. I've held the hands of people that have been molested, and they carry a life sentence. I just want to make sure that -- RADDATZ: You've -- you've been very critical of -- I'm sorry. You -- you have been very critical of Pam Bondi during this. As the president said, he thinks she's handled it well. So, where is the disconnect there? And -- and do you think she should resign? BURCHETT: I think her communication with us early on was -- was not as goo. I mean that -- the binder, for instance, that she put out, I was very excited about that. But then I found the contents of it. I think it was her limited knowledge and her -- and taking advice from the wrong people, which you do a lot of in Washington. There's plenty of people to give you advice. But when it turns out not good, you turn around and they're nowhere to be found. And I think that's what she did in the beginning. I think if she turns the corner, I'll have -- I have a saying, it's not how you start, it's how you finish. If she finishes strong on this than I'm -- then I'm all for it. I'm sure the learning curve is steep and I -- I think she blundered in the beginning. I really do. As most Americans do. Because those -- that -- what those whites (ph) -- that-- that white notebook that those young folks, those influencers walk out with, I thought that was it. And then when I started digging into it, it was stuff that I -- and I'm -- I'm -- I'm a -- I like -- I like my postings on Twitter but -- or X, but that's about the limit of my computer knowledge, but even I could find those things on the internet that were already out there. So, I think they blundered in the beginning, but I think they're -- they're going to finish strong. Again, I -- I don't know that -- RADDATZ: Well, President Trump -- BURCHETT: Go ahead, ma'am. RADDATZ: Thank you. BURCHETT: Go ahead. I'm sorry. RADDATZ: President Trump has started claiming this is all a hoax, that it's being perpetrated by the Democrats. He says, some of his own supporters who he labeled stupid and foolish Republicans, you are obviously one of those people who wants this released. What's your reaction to how President Trump has handled it? BURCHETT: Well, yes, ma'am. I -- it's his strategy. I -- I -- you know, everybody questions President Trump's strategy. They said the big, beautiful bill wasn't going to get out (ph) on the Fourth of July. Trump comes out and says, I don't care when you put it out. I said, I don't care if you put it out on July 40th (ph), get the bill out. I just want it out. And what happened, daggum, we passed it on the Fourth of July. His cryptocurrency bill, my own Senator Haggerty had the Genius Act, part of that, and everybody said it was dead. It wasn't going anywhere. And there I am on a -- on a phone call. I'm in -- in a meeting with -- with the -- with -- with our speaker and our -- and our whip, Tom Emmert, and 10 or 12 fellow conservatives that had concerns about it. And who -- lo and behold, President Trump calls, answers all of our questions. And the bill passes. And he signed it on Friday. So, you know, I think to underestimate Donald J. Trump is -- is -- is -- is a mistake in this -- in this town. And I think we're learning that. And I -- I -- you know, that's his strategy. I -- was I a little ticked off he said that stuff? Sure, I was. But I'm a big boy, ma'am. I'm in the -- we're playing in the big leagues right now. And, you know, I get criticized every day. I get death threats on a pretty regular basis. So, my skin's about that thick right now. I think I can take a little criticism. But his strategy is -- RADDATZ: It sounds -- it sounds like you can.
