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In this episode, I talk with Matt Traldi, co-founder of Greenlight America, about the fight for clean energy at the local level. We discuss how small groups of opponents are successfully blocking renewable projects across the country, and how his organization is working to turn the tide by mobilizing local supporters and giving them the tools to advocate effectively at critical government meetings.

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David Roberts

All right then. Hello everyone, welcome to Volts for January 8, 2025, "Organizing local support for clean energy projects." I'm your host, David Roberts. Two years ago, I did a podcast with journalist Michael Thomas about the network of right-wing groups fueling local opposition to clean energy projects across the US.

I lamented then, as I have many times since, that the pro–clean energy side does not have anything even remotely similar. Instead, individual developers are almost entirely on their own for community outreach and education — and they're not particularly good at it, at least most of them. A recent survey found that developers cite local opposition as a leading cause of delayed and canceled energy projects, right up there with interconnection difficulties

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Since that pod, a number of groups and efforts have sprung up to try to improve the general information environment around clean energy, but one group in particular is hyper-focused on the specific problem of getting clean energy projects approved and built.

It's called Greenlight America. It launched last year and has since raised about $5 million and built up a staff of about 20. It was co-founded by longtime activist Matt Traldi, who co-founded the Trump resistance group Indivisible and before that, worked for labor unions for a decade. Greenlight helps local clean energy supporters understand where and when they can get involved on behalf of clean energy projects.

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I'm excited to talk to Traldi about his theory of change, how his organization works, where local support for clean energy can be found, and how intense it tends to be, and what ordinary people can do to get involved.

All right then, with no further ado, Matt Traldi, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.

Matt Traldi

Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

David Roberts

So, before we get into Greenlight, let's just quickly sort of establish your bona fides. You've been around this world for a while. Maybe tell just a brief history of your activism and then, in the course of that, how it is that this pulled you in.

Matt Traldi

So, thanks for the intro. Thanks again for having me. As you mentioned, I started my career in politics and activism in the labor movement. I worked for a handful of unions, most recently SEIU. And then in 2016, there was an election and I, like a lot of people, was very upset with the results. And I got involved in drafting a Google Doc guide about what people could do about it in their own communities, how they could stop the Trump agenda by focusing on their own members of Congress. That became the Indivisible guide. We put it on the Internet, it went viral, we crashed Google Docs, and then I spent the next few years helping build the Indivisible organizations and support the incredible movement of Indivisible groups across the US.

Then, a couple years ago, a few things happened at once. The first is that while I was at Indivisible, I got to work a little bit on passing the Inflation Reduction Act. And I felt, and still feel, incredible excitement and optimism that we're actually going to do what's necessary to make the clean energy transition happen and to lower emissions and fight climate change in the process. And I hadn't always felt that excitement and optimism, so I really wanted to listen to that, you know, to follow that. And right around the same time, my wife and I decided to have a kid.

Our daughter, Avery, she joined us last year. She's 13 months old now.

David Roberts

Congrats.

Matt Traldi

Thank you. Thank you. And it's a total stereotype, but for me, it really changed my time horizon. At Indivisible, we were always working on whatever the most urgent political problem of the moment happened to be. Instead, I was thinking, "What is life going to be like in 50 years for my daughter?" As you know, and as many of the folks listening know, when you look out that far, emissions reduction is very, very important. It really rises to the top of the list. So both of those things led me first, really just to start learning as much as I could about clean energy and about what would be necessary to build it.

I'm not a clean energy expert. I'm an organizer and campaigner. I started having a lot of conversations with folks who knew more about clean energy than I did. I learned some things that you and many of your listeners already know: We need to build a ton of clean energy, an absolutely crazy amount. Most of the emissions reduction in the next decade will come from the power sector. In that time, we need to build almost two large-scale, utility-scale clean energy projects per day for the next 10 years.

David Roberts

Yeah, I really... You say people get that, but I honestly don't think that even people in our world really get that. The numbers like two utility-scale projects a day is very eye-opening.

Matt Traldi

Yeah, it's like nothing we've ever seen or done before.

David Roberts

Yeah, that's a pace of building that's unprecedented in US history.

Matt Traldi

That's right. That's right. The good news, though, is that the technology is there, the costs are low, wind and solar are the cheapest energy you can build. But I learned there is this major problem, which is local permitting. Right now, hundreds of projects every year across the US get held up by local permitting and really, that's because a small number of opponents can show up and can block a project, can pass a ban, can block an ordinance that would enable clean energy development at that local level. Right now, those opponents are showing up and supporters are not.

So, we're losing by forfeit in communities across the country every week. That immediately piqued my interest because, as I mentioned, I'm not a clean energy expert, I'm not a technology person. I'm glad people are working on cold fusion — I'm the wrong person to send to help with that challenge. But an organizing and campaigning challenge that I hopefully can help with a little more. So that's what we're doing at Greenlight .

David Roberts

Right. And so, the problem, as you say, is in these local battles. They're pretty small scale. And so, there are relatively few people involved generally. Consequently, a relatively small group of people that shows up and makes a big noise can make a huge impression on these things. Like, I just want to emphasize that you don't need, like the anti-clean energy forces, huge numbers of people, right? It doesn't have to be a big popular thing. You can do a lot of damage with a few people.

Matt Traldi

That's exactly right. And a lot of this goes back to the fundamentals of local advocacy and local government. You know, things that I learned a lot about from watching Indivisible groups across the US try to influence their own members of Congress, their own representatives. Local advocacy is all about who shows up. Local government operates through hearings and planning and zoning commission meetings. These are the unsung heroes of how our government works, how our society stays together. These are folks spending hours in the middle of the day talking about installing speed bumps for the county budget.

And a tiny number of people come to these. You know, it might be a dozen people at one or 20 people at another, but the people in the room have immense influence — particularly, I would say, folks who actually live in that community. That's one of the core things about local advocacy. Because local decision makers, county councilors, folks of that type, they care about their constituents, both for high-minded reasons and also because they might want to get reelected. So they need the support of their community. And those are also people they know, their neighbors, the folks that their kids go to school with.

The kids are the people who show up. So, we found that even a relatively small number of people, three people here, five people there, can absolutely change the outcome, and for massive projects that have a hugely outsized impact. So, Greenlight, really, we're here to help people show up and communicate persuasively to know where and when to show up so that they can influence whether clean energy projects do get built.

David Roberts

It's worth emphasizing that things are going in the wrong direction in this particular area. Like this USA Today story was about this survey, the survey I mentioned, had this striking statistic: In the past decade, about 180 counties got their first commercial wind power projects, but in the same period, more than twice as many counties blocked wind development. So, it does seem like renewable energy development is spreading quickly, but it also kind of seems like this organized opposition is spreading even more quickly. So, you sort of alluded to it there, but tell us what the sort of broad theory of change is here.

So what's your working theory as you approach trying to solve this problem?

Matt Traldi

You know, first, I'll just say we're students of the opposition. This is another thing that I learned from my time at Indivisible. You know, we really learned from the Tea Party everything that they had done to stop progress under President Obama. And, you know, we're trying to apply many of the same strategies, tactics, and lessons to our work.

David Roberts

Well, you know, I think about, like — not to get pulled away by the subject — but this is something that always struck me, even at the time, is that it didn't seem like there were that many people involved in the Tea Party. But every little protest, you know, they send one person to a town hall with a politician. That one person yells, you know, gets on the nightly news and like, it sounds like a big thing, you know what I mean? Like, it just, like it's a small number of people, but making a very big noise and sort of creating the illusion.

It's like you're hiking through the woods, you know, and they're like creating the illusion that you're surrounded by bears, even though there's like one person out there. So, it is like projecting yourself onto a screen, making yourself look bigger and scarier than you are. That is something that that side seems very good at.

Matt Traldi

100%. And often when we look for the fingerprints, you know, it's hard to talk about the opposition without talking about fossil fuel companies and interests and their role in spreading disinformation about clean energy and also in fomenting opposition at the local level. Because you really have two parts of the opposition. There are local opponents, neighbors of projects, you know, who they might be dealing with disinformation about a clean energy technology, or they might be, you know, personally inconvenienced by a project in their community or something like that, but they're just regular people, you know. And then at the same time, you have these powerful fossil fuel interests that have a kind of existential vested interest in stopping the quick deployment of clean energy and the future in which we're going to have abundant clean energy for all Americans, you know, that is directly counter to their interests.

And, you know, often we go looking for the fingerprints of these organizations. You know, are they funding the local folks who show up? You know, are they funding the Facebook group? And it's usually not that, you know, there's no smoking gun, that they're, you know, somehow passing out millions of dollars to these local folks, but they've figured out some tactics that really work for exactly this kind of local organizing. The first thing I'd mention is they create tools and they give them away. So, national opposition groups, they come up with disinformation arguments about different clean energy technology, they come up with tactics about how to start a Facebook group, what to say at the local meeting, all of that stuff, and they give it away to anyone who will use it.

David Roberts

Yeah, this is something that came up in that pod that I referenced with Michael Thomas a couple of years ago about the dirty energy campaigners. It's like you go to a local community where maybe Bob the farmer discovers they want to build a solar panel field right next to him. In isolation, Bob the farmer probably doesn't have a lot of strong pre-existing sentiments about solar one way or the other. Most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. So he might be sort of like vaguely irritated.

But then he goes and googles whatever, like, "solar farm next to you" and finds these right-wing groups that are like, "Here, Bob, here is a PDF that you can print and pass out at the meeting. Here's a bunch of arguments for why solar is bad. Here are the meetings where this is going to be decided." You know what I mean? It takes Bob's sort of vague discontent and shapes and directs it. Not like it hands Bob a check or doesn't invent Bob, you know what I mean? Or doesn't hire Bob. It finds Bob. Bob is real. But Bob gets supercharged by these groups.

Matt Traldi

That's right. And everything they put together, local activists like Bob the farmer, they're the audience, right? It's not the decision-makers, you know, because a national group, whether a fossil fuel group, you know, a nonprofit like Greenlight, we don't have any power or influence with local decision-makers. But those folks in the community, they do. And so everything you create is with those local activists as an audience. I also think we can learn a lot from the fact that opposition groups, they're happy to have Bob or whoever the neighbor is use their materials. They're not looking for the perfect messenger or the perfect message.

You know, they're trying to make sure that at every one of these hearings, there's someone to yell, right? There's someone to try to gunk up the works.

David Roberts

Someone yelling versus no one yelling is the relevant difference. What they're yelling is of secondary importance.

Matt Traldi

Yep, that's exactly right.

David Roberts

Or just like having a body there versus not having a body there. That's the big change.

Matt Traldi

Yeah, showing up is 90% of local activism, you know, and we should know that. We know how to do this. But to get back to your question about Greenlight's theory of change, it's really based on studying the opposition and exactly this, what we know about local advocacy, that local residents showing up is 90% of the battle. So, we think of our role in a couple of different ways. The first is local activists need to know where and when to show up. So, we track clean energy projects. We have something we call the "early warning system" to figure out where these hearings are going to be, where a clean energy project might win approval or might get blocked, or where a local ordinance might get passed or a ban might get passed.

David Roberts

Yeah, I mean, that alone is huge. I wouldn't know that stuff. Like, I wouldn't know where to look for that stuff. You know, a lot of this stuff is like, they don't advertise. It's not clear. Just knowing this stuff is going to happen is such a big deal.

Matt Traldi

Absolutely. And, you know, local governments have very limited resources to publicize these hearings. Also, most of the hearings, as we talked about before, are not that crowded. Right. You know, it's not like usually people are banging down their door to attend. So that's step one. It's just knowing where and when to show up. The second step really is about, we think about our role as supporting a network of local groups and local supporters to show up. Again, it's never going to be helpful if a national nonprofit on the opposition side or on the support side is showing up.

And, you know, the local decision-makers, they don't care what I think, you know, here in D.C.

David Roberts

Matt, do you remember? You do. I'm sure you've been around, so I know you remember. Do you remember when, like, the hordes of Howard Dean enthusiasts, young Howard Dean enthusiasts, were sort of, like, flown into rural Idaho? What year was that when Dean...? Was that 2004?

Matt Traldi

It was 2004. Yep, I remember that race.

David Roberts

It's a very classic. I think everyone on our side of political organizing still thinks about that. Just these, like, Dean-drones banging on rural Ohio doors. It did not go well.

Matt Traldi

Yeah, you know, the messenger really matters in all of this work, and, you know, having someone local in particular, someone with credibility in the community, it makes a huge difference. And then the last thing I'd say, that's a core part. So step one, when and where to show up. Step two —

David Roberts

I want to spend some time on one.

Matt Traldi

Sure.

David Roberts

What is that early warning — what does that look like? Do you just have people out crawling the net or how's that structured?

Matt Traldi

So, there are a couple of different components of it. The first thing is absolutely people, you know, human researchers. I spent a while in the labor movement as a researcher. So, you know, we're a ways away from, you know, the AI replacing the skill and judgment of a human researcher. But a large part of it is human researchers looking on the Internet.

David Roberts

That does honestly seem like something where AI might actually help at some point, though, like just scrolling through large amounts of text.

Matt Traldi

Yeah, well, we do use — this is, you know, probably you'll get a bunch of, you know, nasty comments if I call this AI, because it's not technically AI, but we do use web crawlers to really augment their work. So, and that's something that has changed a lot. When I was a researcher, you needed to do, you know, some coding in order to set up a web crawler. You know, you needed to know Python or something. And now, you know, it's pretty easy to set up web crawlers and, you know, basically to get alerts each time a certain website makes a change.

So, for example, each time a particular local government website uploads a new PDF of their meeting agenda. And then a more sophisticated version would be each time they upload one and it includes the word "solar."

David Roberts

And, you're not looking for just sort of like any local meeting about clean energy? These are specifically about projects. Specifically about specific projects. Are you trying to sort of narrow your search that way?

Matt Traldi

Yes, and no. Specific projects are really central to what we do, but we also look for ordinances or bans that enable or block clean energy development. You know, you mentioned earlier the number of counties that have bans on wind energy. It's a growing number. It's 15% of US counties that have bans on clean energy in some way or another. You know, it's a really scary number because that includes a lot of the places that are the best for wind and solar development. They've considered the ban because there were projects being proposed there. So, it's really important if a county is considering a ban to be able to engage as well, or if there's an opportunity to pass a favorable ordinance to basically get good rules on the books that then will allow projects to move forward in an uncomplicated fashion when the individual projects are moving.

David Roberts

And these are clean energy projects specifically? So, I sort of wonder how or whether you bump up against housing, because of course that's like the hot thing now for everyone, including in climate. Are you restricting your gaze to energy projects?

Matt Traldi

That's right. So, we're only working on clean energy. And because our work is responsive to what industry is proposing, enormous amounts of solar right now, that's definitely the biggest volume of projects. Some onshore and offshore wind, battery storage projects, etc. We think of ourselves as "YIMBY for clean energy." So, we compare notes a lot with the YIMBY folks who are working on housing. You know, I think there's a lot that we can learn from the work in that space and, you know, hopefully some stuff we can share as well. But the geographic footprint tends to be a little different.

I would say that many of the housing fights are in metropolitan areas.

David Roberts

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Matt Traldi

Whereas, you know, one thing that wind and solar have in common is that you need land to build them. And so, these tend to be rural areas, less densely populated, where there's a higher volume of wind and solar projects moving forward and higher potential for future development.

David Roberts

Okay, so first — you have these sort of three programs — the first is the early warning system, where you've just got your antenna out for meetings, local meetings related to clean energy. Then the second is this partnership network. So like you said earlier, you do not have the staff, and it would not be strategically wise, regardless, just to have a central staff of people that you send out to places to parachute in and tell them what to do. So, you are mainly about activating local partners. Locals. And I guess my question about this is, how reliable is it to find supportive partners?

Do you feel like they're always there? Have you ever gone to look and be like, "Well, no one around here seems to want this." You know what I mean? How reliable is it to find groups and people that you can work with?

Matt Traldi

It's a great question and kind of an existential one for Greenlight's work.

David Roberts

The whole theory of the case here is that there is a latent public support for this that you can activate, right?

Matt Traldi

That's right. So, one thing I'd say first is, I really strongly agree with what you said earlier that, you know, most folks don't know or care about a clean energy project moving forward. You know, there's not a silent majority of opponents. There's not a silent majority of supporters. There's a silent set of folks who don't know or care. Right. That's the majority. In the abstract, support for clean energy is quite high. You know, if you poll folks and just ask, "You know, do you think abundant solar energy is a good idea?"

People will, you know, 70% of people will say yes. And that tends to be true even in rural and conservative places. So, a big part of our work is really about activating potential support, sharing information with folks both about what a clean energy project can do for that community, the benefits it can offer, including economic benefits, as well as the massive impact that individual people can have by showing up. Most people don't realize — I recycle, you know, and I've read all the articles about how, you know, half the stuff I recycle probably isn't really recycling.

And, you know, I do it because I really want to do something positive and I'm willing, even when I know objectively that, you know...

David Roberts

It's ritualistic to some extent, right? It's like, almost like a religious practice or something.

Matt Traldi

That's right. And I think it speaks to a lot of people who really do have this desire to make a difference.

David Roberts

Yeah.

Matt Traldi

And so, to have this incredible opportunity where you could be one of five or 10 people who show up at a hearing, and if you're one of those five or 10 people and you win approval for a 400 megawatt onshore wind project and it displaces coal in the power system, those five or 10 people have the impact of something like 260,000 gas-powered cars coming off the road for a year.

David Roberts

Yeah, I mean, in terms of like, you know, living in the activism world, most activism most of the time is an exercise in frustration. But like this, this is an area where there is a pretty reliable and pretty short distance between action and result. Right? Like, this is one of those areas of activism where you actually can see results on a human timescale. You know, it's a rare thing in activism.

Matt Traldi

That's exactly right. And you know, honestly, this work, if there's one thing that I hope everyone takes away from listening to this, it's that I feel incredibly hopeful because of doing this work. At Greenlight, we've supported local groups to advance 4.4 gigawatts of clean energy in just the last year. That avoids approximately 2 million tons annually of emissions. It's incredibly tangible. And particularly when there are so many complicated and dire things going on with our politics and there's so much potential bad news, it really is a gift to be able to work on something so tangible, so beneficial in your own community, but that has this massive global set of implications if you're able to win.

David Roberts

Yeah, it's a little bit similar to when I did the pod on PUCs on Public Utility Commissions. Similarly, like an opportunity for a relatively small number of people to have a relatively outsized impact.

Matt Traldi

That's right. And really, it's about how our system of government works and where you have power. At Indivisible, Leah Greenberg, one of our co-founders, one of the co-executive directors there, she used to always say, "We didn't write the Indivisible Guide to give people hope. We wrote it to tell them they had power. But realizing that you have power is a very important ingredient of hope." And it's easy to look at national politics or global climate negotiations and think, "I have no power here." There's so little that I can do that has an influence.

But people really have power in their local communities. It's a small number of people who live there. It's a small number of people who show up.

David Roberts

Do you find that, because most of these battles are sort of being lost by default, by forfeit, if you go and activate someone and someone shows up, you generally win?

Matt Traldi

I wouldn't quite say, generally, but our win rate is pretty good when people actually show up. Yeah. So, I divide up into a couple of different sets of circumstances. Sometimes, you have local decision makers who themselves are, I'm going to say, reasonable people. You know, they're not, they don't feel super ideological about building a wind farm or a solar farm. They don't think the wind turbines are going to cause cancer or whatever crazy disinformation. But, you know, fundamentally, they're responsive to their constituents. They'd like the benefits that the development will bring to their community. But if everybody who shows up is opposed, they're going to block the project because that's their job, is to represent their constituents.

And so, in those cases, we really do think that even a couple of local supporters can give decision-makers cover to do the right thing, political cover, that they're just looking for something to hold onto. And we hear this sometimes from local decision-makers. They say, because they got input in both directions, that they had to weigh the factors themselves for what would be better for the community and decided yes. So that's one kind of situation. I would say that either when you have more hesitant decision-makers themselves, or when there's a lot of opposition organizing, you know, a lot of people showing up on the other side, it can be important to have more people show up, you know, in support, to have larger numbers.

I'll just give an example. We worked with the Western Colorado Alliance on overturning a ban on solar development in Mesa County, Colorado, and there was a ban in place. So, that's a difficult starting place. The decision makers were willing to ban solar. We'd heard that they were potentially open to passing an ordinance that would enable solar. But a lot of the details were up for debate in terms of things like setbacks. How far would solar have to be from property lines, which, if you make them big enough, then you can't have a solar project.

And in that particular case, because it really could go either way based on the decision makers and the starting line, so to speak, we tried really hard to out-mobilize the opposition. Western Colorado Alliance really gets most of the credit for this. They mobilized 30 people to a hearing, and 13 people spoke at the hearing. 11 of them were supporters and only two opponents. And so, we got a favorable ordinance in place with none of the restrictions that the opposition proposed. And I do think actually out-mobilizing, having more supporters there, in that particular case — maybe we still would have gotten rid of the ban, but if we hadn't had the numbers in that case, then maybe some of the restrictions would have made their way into the ordinance.

David Roberts

Yeah, well, getting back to my previous question, have you ever had a situation where you go and look for supportive local partners and just can't find any?

Matt Traldi

So far, we have not. There's always someone. It does really vary, though. When I was in the labor movement, there was this cliché that people would use: "What's the one thing leaders have in common? They have followers." They don't have anything in common other than the fact that leaders all have followers. I think there's a little bit of a parallel for this type of work, which is to say: "What's the one thing that partners who can mobilize people have in common? Well, they have members who want to show up for this stuff." Other than that, they're really different.

Some of them are state-based organizations, you know, that have members in a lot of communities around the state. We even work with chapters of national organizations, you know, that's Sierra Club chapters, local Indivisible groups, you know, folks like that. And then sometimes it's truly local groups. And then the last thing I'd say is that we also reach out directly to individual local folks who we think might be supportive. So sometimes it can be a little bit of an adventure, you know, finding the supporters.

David Roberts

But let me ask about the individuals because I'm curious about this. You know, we were talking about Bob earlier, Farmer Bob. So, he's got some sort of vague concerns about solar. And what these sort of anti-clean energy groups do is sort of say, "Yes, Bob, you're right. Here are some talking points, here are some materials," right? This just sort of supercharges Bob. That seems to me a lower level of difficulty than what you're trying to do. For the simple reason that they don't care whether the information is accurate or not, or whether Bob becomes well-informed, you know what I mean?

Like, they just got to give Bob stuff to yell and scream about. So, in some sense, that's a lower bar to clear. But, like, if you just find a Farmer Bob in a local community who has vaguely positive feelings about solar and you want to do the same thing, you want to give him material talking points, how easy is it to sort of train up a random local? Do you know what I mean? Do you feel like you can prepare them to speak well and accurately? Like, how big of a lift is that?

Matt Traldi

This is a really exciting question, and I think it gets to the core of what I love about our work at Greenlight . So first, I'll just do a disclaimer, which is to say, it's easier to campaign against things than to campaign for things. It's easier to organize against things than to organize for things. And that is, you know, something that I'm not even talking here about clean energy, but as the broader progressive project, so to speak, we have to tackle it.

David Roberts

It's human nature.

Matt Traldi

That's right.

David Roberts

That's why a group like yours has been so long in coming, right? Like, it's not an easy dilemma to solve, how to marry activism with positive, "Yes, building". You know, like, that's the — no one's really figured that out.

Matt Traldi

That's absolutely right. But, some things are incredibly rewarding about our work. First, as I mentioned earlier about recycling, we find that there are a lot of people out there who want to do something, want to have a positive impact in their community, want to, in particular, do something about climate change. And in general, what we find is that local supporters are sharp. They want to win, they want to be effective, and they want the right tools to be effective, to be persuasive. And that's really important because one of the tricky things about Greenlight's work is that — the reason I'm here is climate change.

David Roberts

Rural communities, all things being equal, tend to be more conservative and clean energy, generally speaking, is culturally coded left. You know, I don't know if that's uniform everywhere, but generally speaking. So, I'm guessing part of what's on your mind when you go to these rural local communities is you don't want to show up talking like a leftist, right, or you don't want to assume shared progressive values. So, like, how much work do you put in to sort of de-partisanizing your materials?

Matt Traldi

This is a central question, and it's one we think a lot about. What I would say is, we have an interesting — and this is not unique to Greenlight or to this issue, you know, this is true for a lot of volunteer activism movements — we have this interesting dichotomy, right, where many of the individual activists who are going to participate in a campaign that Greenlight supports, perhaps they're a member of a local environmental organization or something like that. For them, the reason they engage might be climate, it might be emissions reduction.

David Roberts

Well, almost by definition, if they care enough to be active, they're unusual, right? Almost definitionally.

Matt Traldi

That's exactly right. They know, and we know, that perhaps to the local decision-makers, you know, perhaps to their neighbors, climate is not going to be a winning message. And so they need to know, you know, what will be an effective way to make the case for these projects. And, you know, one thing I want to say here, it's easy for those of us who care so much about climate change to be a little cynical about — is the reason climate's not a winning message in these places, you know, is it because of Fox News and right-wing lunacy and so forth?

But the sympathetic thing I want to say is this: a local community, they're not deciding, is clean energy good? They're not deciding, is climate change real? You know, they're deciding, should we build this project here?

David Roberts

Well, I mean, look at every NIMBY group in history. They're all like, "Oh, no, no, we support affordable housing, don't get us wrong. Just not here."

Matt Traldi

That's right. And so, they're deciding based on what they perceive as being good or bad for their community. Many of these, again, are rural communities. The rural way of life is very important to them. They want to preserve the community the way it is. They don't necessarily want a project that maybe is good for the globe or for the US to come in that's going to totally change everything that they value. On a human level, I think we have to be sympathetic to that.

And so, ultimately, in our view, the winning argument for these projects, the thing that local activists can share that's going to change people's minds so often, really, is about what does that local community get from the project? What are the benefits that they get? What are the things that it'll allow them to do? And there are tons of stories about this school in West Texas where every student got an iPad for the first time because of a wind project built in the community. I heard one about a school, Michigan High School, that was able to build a new football stadium from a clean energy project and then won the state championship.

So, these are the things, the tangible examples, and this is the last thing I'd say too: in general, clean energy is a very technical subject, and volunteers do need support from us in order to speak to the technical details, the setbacks, decommissioning the panels, all of that stuff. But something that I said earlier, I'm a student of the opposition. Something that the opposition does so well is they focus on stories and not facts. So if we're going to support local people, local groups, to be effective advocates for clean energy, they do need some facts.

Absolutely. Because otherwise, we're setting them up to get tricked and to not have the information they need. But they're going to win with stories of what the clean energy transition can do for their community, for communities like theirs. Not with facts and numbers and all the things that we, as progressives, as policy wonks, we love that stuff.

David Roberts

I would be horrible at this.

Matt Traldi

I'm struggling through it. I'm struggling through it.

David Roberts

Do you ever work with developers? Because, like, how much or what the community is going to get out of it, to some extent, comes down to the developer. Like, the developer can offer more or less. Do you ever work with developers to sort of sweeten the package before you wade into these fights?

Matt Traldi

So first, just to say in general about our relationship with developers: Greenlight, we collaborate with industry, with the clean energy industry as often as we can. We're always going to be more effective if we're sharing information back and forth, if we know what the developer is hearing from community stakeholders, if they know what we're hearing, what questions we're getting, all that stuff. So, we try to always do that. And we've benefited from a lot of amazing partners in the clean energy industry. And I would say there's a growing awareness of this challenge and commitment to tackling it among clean energy companies.

That, to me, is incredibly heartening. You know, they are companies trying to make a profit, sure. And also, it's not a coincidence that they ended up trying to build this thing that we all need. We need abundant clean energy for the future of the US and of the planet. And they've set themselves to this social purpose, so to speak. So, I have a lot of admiration and appreciation for them. We don't accept funding from developers. So, they don't pay us to work on their projects or anything like that. And that's a conscious choice that we think is really important for us to be an independent voice and for our partners as well.

David Roberts

Are there projects that you chose not to support because you didn't think they were good for communities? Like, are there, you know what I mean? Like, how absolute is your support for clean energy?

Matt Traldi

Yeah, it's a totally fair question. So first, I would say we never work against a clean energy project. We're a new organization; we try to only do one thing and do that one thing well. And the one thing is trying to get clean energy projects approved. But we will turn down — so during our pilot program, we ended up working on 11 campaigns, but we got approached by about 200. So there's a massive demand out there and we couldn't possibly work on every project. So we have to have some way of selecting.

David Roberts

Says a little bit about the unmet need here, just to put a flag on that.

Matt Traldi

It's true. And one of the ways that we decide on projects, we do look at what we call flags internally. So, there can be green flags, things that make us excited about a project. And then there can be red flags, things that would scare us off. I'll just give — because I come out of the labor movement — labor as an example. A green flag might be if a project has union commitments in terms of how it'll be built, that would make it more attractive to us. And a red flag might be if there's an active labor dispute, you know, we're going to steer clear. Right.

There are so many moral and strategic questions. It's just not, you know, there are enough projects out there. Let's not do that. So, there are similar kinds of flags across a bunch of different areas. Another one that I'll pop out is in the western US, in particular, there are a lot of projects that get built either on tribal land or that have implications for tribal cultural heritage. And that's something where we just think of that as a moral issue versus just a kind of campaign calculation.

If there's a tribe objecting to a project, that's probably going to be it for us in terms of whether we can support it. There are edge cases, of course, with all of these things. But it's just to say that we do think a lot about these different considerations and would decline. We wouldn't oppose a project ourselves because we're not in that business, but we would decline to work on a project if we thought the red flags were such that it didn't make sense.

David Roberts

Okay, so let's finish this list, because we're almost done with the list. The three programs are: one, the early warning system, so you're just looking around for relevant meetings where things are happening. Two is this partnership network. So, when you find something happening locally, you go activate and educate local partners, but the local partners lead. And then the third thing here is your actual campaigning, your execution of campaigns. And here, in your founding document, you said "Winning with precision." You've mentioned a few things about how you go about winning, but just say a quick word about what do you mean by precision here.

Matt Traldi

Yeah, absolutely. So this really speaks to your question about how we support local volunteers to be effective, which is that a big part of the reason, in addition to not knowing when and where to show up, a big part of the reason potential supporters are not engaging is that clean energy is a technical subject. These projects are all specific projects with various pros and cons, trade-offs, and so forth. And it can be a difficult landscape to jump into. Greenlight, one of the reasons we exist, really is to support local groups, local partners, local supporters.

We think having an organization like us, where this is really the only thing we do, is beneficial. You know, a local group might be working on 10 or 20 things, yes, but this is all we do. And so, because of that, we can really develop the tools and resources to help folks engage effectively. Precision is really about that. How do we support folks where even a small number of people can be effective, can be persuasive, messengers can show up at the right time and say the right kinds of things? Even if a lot of that will be personalized, with them of course deciding what to say, we can help them not run afoul of any details of the project and not say something that's going to backfire with the audience.

And the other thing really is about assessing the local community, the decision makers, and so forth, and thinking about what will be influential to them. I'm going to give an example of all of these elements coming together on one of our campaigns. So, we caught through our early warning system, through one of the web crawlers, actually, we caught this proposed new ordinance language in Erie County, Pennsylvania. It's a relatively pro-clean-energy place. And the new ordinance language was going to require that before projects could go up for local permitting, they would have to have interconnection approval.

David Roberts

Well, that's never going to happen.

Matt Traldi

It's never going to happen. And you know, we say at Greenlight that local permitting is the biggest obstacle. And some people who work on interconnection would complain, right?

David Roberts

They would say it's a tight race.

Matt Traldi

Interconnection is just as big. Exactly. It's a tight race. These are two big problems. And the effect of this language would be to delay projects for years while they were waiting on interconnection and potentially to kill projects because the economics of the project wouldn't pencil out if it had a three-year longer development time horizon. And in this case, because we've done a bunch of work in Pennsylvania, we have amazing partners there, Penn Environment, Clean Air Council, Solar United Neighbors.

And so, we were able to kind of get the network together pretty quickly. Our analysis was that these were relatively favorable decision-makers, you know, that they would want to make a pro clean-energy decision. So, what was needed was just for them to hear from across the spectrum of folks who care about clean energy deployment that we wanted this requirement gone. Penn Environment led a sign-on letter. They got 19 organizations to sign on, just saying, "We want this requirement removed." Solar United Neighbors hosted a power hour, got some volunteers involved, and it was only three volunteers who spoke at the hearing and made this ask for this language to be removed.

But because of that, that's the precision part. Because of that assessment of what was needed in the situation, we were able to get these six words removed from this ordinance. The favorable ordinance passed without these six words. And there's more than 900 megawatts of solar in the queue in Erie County. So that's potentially a win with a really long tail. All from this combination of an early warning system that tells us there's a problem, a strong network in Pennsylvania of local partner groups and local supporters, and then this supercharged support. How do we get folks to show up at the right time, say the right thing, have the right tactics so that we're able to win?

David Roberts

And it's worth saying, although maybe this is obvious by implication, but the more you do this, the more you strengthen those local networks and the less of a lift it is the next time. Right?

Matt Traldi

That's exactly right. The first campaign we work on in a state is so much work because we're going to partners who've never heard of us. We're introducing ourselves, we're saying, "By the way, you know, you could work on this thing with us where you'd have the same impact as, you know, planting 18 million tree seedlings and growing them for a decade." You know, it sounds like snake oil, you know, it's too good to be true. Right. In contrast, the fifth or sixth campaign we work on in the state where we've got strong partners, we're supporting them, they kind of know what they can count on us for.

They have a sense of each other's strengths and, you know, where they have members and all that stuff. It really starts, the magic really starts happening. You know, we're all able to move pretty quickly. And that's important too, because timing is one of the biggest challenges of these things. Usually, we'd love to have long notice before one of these hearings, but usually, it'll be, you know, 45 days public notice before a hearing or something like that. We're always trying to push that number up, and we benefit a lot — the other input to the early warning system that I should have mentioned is developers themselves will often tell us when they have a project moving to permitting, but even that is inexact because they know when they're planning to submit it, that might change.

And then they submit it, and then the county council decides when it's going to be on the hearing docket. So, getting the timing right and being able to respond quickly with a good network of partners makes all the difference.

David Roberts

A little bit of a nerdy question, but what is the significance of Greenlight having both a C3 and a C4?

Matt Traldi

So, Greenlight America is our 501(c)(3). And Greenlight Action is a 501(c)(4). 501(c)(3)s, at least of the type Greenlight America are educational organizations. They can raise awareness, they can, you know, share information. They can do coalition building. You know, lots of the work that Greenlight does. 501(c)(4)s are called "social welfare organizations", but really the most common type is advocacy organizations. So they engage either in direct lobbying, where they themselves are going to government officials and asking them to take some kind of action, or in grassroots lobbying, where they're working with volunteers to ask their own elected representatives to take some kind of action.

And Greenlight Action mainly engages in grassroots lobbying. You know, one of the things I'd mention here is that many of the opposition groups — this is the recurring theme of this call — is, you know, we're students of the opposition. We try to learn from what they do. Many opposition groups are structured as 501(c)(4)s so that they can do this more direct work to try to influence specific decisions made available.

David Roberts

That just means you can campaign for a specific piece of policy or specific politician?

Matt Traldi

That's right. So, it's making an ask of an elected leader to take a particular action or vote. So, to pass a local ordinance to approve a specific project. And 501(c)(3)s can do a little bit of that, but it's not their primary purpose, and they're more limited. Our side has more 501(c)(3) organizations and so more doing general education and awareness raising, but maybe not weighing in at that critical moment asking that local county council to specifically pass this ordinance or to specifically approve this project. And so, we think of grassroots lobbying work as so important.

It's central to our analysis of the problem here that folks show up in their own communities at these critical moments and ask their elected leaders directly what they want them to do.

David Roberts

Wait, Matt, you're saying that raising awareness is not the be-all, is not the end of the...?

Matt Traldi

That's right. It's, you know, it's not to — both are important, but I do think that often our side, we sometimes tend to take a knife to a gunfight.

David Roberts

We love awareness. We cannot raise it high enough.

Matt Traldi

That's right. That's right. More awareness. That's what we need.

David Roberts

You can never have too much. You've said several times that you are learning from the opposition. I wonder, do you spend any time as an organization talking about or going after or explicitly fighting the other side, exposing the networks of money and all this? There's a lot of attention to that kind of thing. Are you in that business at all?

Matt Traldi

That's a great question. The short answer is that's not our focus. A big part of the reason is, as we talked about earlier, the opposition really has these two parts. The one part is community members in a local community where a project is getting built, neighbors of the project who may be getting disinformation, they may have their own reasons that they're inconvenienced by a project. But you know, we really don't think that demonizing those folks is, it's not good for the community, it's not good for our prospects. You know, we tend to steer clear of that.

And the big fossil fuel interests that are kind of behind some of the disinformation that is getting spread, or you know, things of that type, often don't show up by name in these communities.

David Roberts

So, that's part of why it works. I mean, it's part of the beauty of the whole thing.

Matt Traldi

That's right. So, it can kind of be a bank shot. We do generally think that part of effectively countering disinformation can be mentioning that it's being intentionally spread by these outsiders.

David Roberts

That's a little bit what I was getting at. Like, do you go into these meetings and say, "Hey, look, these things you're saying are not only not true, they're from this network of groups that are funded by fossil fuels, etcetera, etcetera."

Matt Traldi

Yes, that can for sure be a component of combating it effectively. But, you know, there's this depressing thing about disinformation that I just wanted to share because, as a member of the fact-based community, I find this very confronting. So, the number one rule in working on disinformation is that you can't myth-bust it; you can't fact-check it. Right? Because, unfortunately, if you fact-check it, what people remember is there's controversy.

David Roberts

They remember it.

Matt Traldi

That's right. And so, you know, that's really tempting to all of us. But, you know, getting to this thing about stories, the focus in combating disinformation has to be reorienting to the story about why building the project is a good idea, why clean energy can bring benefits there.

David Roberts

And the story that "You've been duped" is never, even if it's true, never an inspiration to anyone.

Matt Traldi

That's right. So, we do find, and this was true, Indivisible has this amazing program called the Truth Brigade that worked on disinformation in the democracy space more so. And we did find there, and you know, we find at Greenlight as well, that sometimes it can be helpful in the midst of telling the positive story to mention there are these powerful forces who are from outside the community who are saying crazy things and distracting us basically from the way we want to make this decision, which is really like, what's best for our community? Will this project help us? And if so, how?

David Roberts

Well, this is... What is the narrative? The race class?

Matt Traldi

Yep.

David Roberts

That's what they're always talking about, right? Is it that you don't counter the specific facts or the specific pseudo facts because, like you say, in the process of countering them, you just end up repeating them and people just end up remembering them more. You try to expose why they're doing what they're doing. Like, what is the larger goal here? Why are they spewing these pseudo facts? It is to divide and distract us. Right. Like that's the focus of the message.

Matt Traldi

That's exactly right. And I'll say this thing sometimes about offshore wind because, you know, there's all this stuff about whales and offshore wind. And I, I'll say the same thing. Sometimes if we're talking about whales, we're losing. You know, it's not a real concern. People are talking about it in places where there's not even steel in the water yet. So, how could offshore wind be...? And so, you know, it's our job mainly to talk about how the clean energy transition is going to benefit a specific community where a project's getting built and also benefit all of us.

We've got this future coming of abundant clean energy and the rural revitalization that comes with that. The more we're talking about that, the better. And to the extent we go into the disinformation at all, it has to be, as you said, about why are these powerful forces trying to block it? Why are they coming up with this stuff that is a distraction at a fundamental level from whether we should build this project? And just to sound a hopeful note on this, most folks who say they oppose clean energy projects in their own communities do not actually believe these crazy things, you know, that there's cadmium leaking into the groundwater or whatever.

And so, I do think that, you know, we risk giving it too much oxygen if we dwell on the fact-checking.

David Roberts

I mean, a lot of it has the vibe of, like, "This makes me feel bad. I don't like the feeling of contemplating this and then going out and looking for something to support that feeling." Right?

Matt Traldi

That's right.

David Roberts

So what would you do with 10x your current budget?

Matt Traldi

I love this question.

David Roberts

In other words, if I could just hone it a little bit, is this very specific thing you're doing — which I think is like one of the things I like about what you're doing. I've seen many, many, many socially minded groups sort of dissipate because they're doing a million things, none of them particularly impactful. So, I love it that you're focused on this one thing. And I just wonder, like, if you had 10x the budget, is there enough of this one thing that it could absorb 10x of your effort? Or if you had 10x the budget, are there other things you would branch out into?

Matt Traldi

I love this question. I'm so excited that you asked it. And, you know, how long we have another, like, two hours, right, for my answer on this? So, the first thing, just to say, I'm going to broaden the lens a little bit from Greenlight for a moment and say clean energy deployment and siting needs more support from climate philanthropy, not just for us, but across the ecosystem. Right now, this area of work gets a tiny, tiny fraction of giving.

David Roberts

Matt, it's crazy. This is the work. This is the thing. People are aware, for F's sake. You know, like...

Matt Traldi

That's right.

David Roberts

They're aware. Let's do stuff now.

Matt Traldi

That's right. This is where, you know, if you care about emissions reduction, which I do. Right. This is where all of the emissions reduction is going to come in the next few years. And so, you know, again, just to say, you know, if you're a billionaire and you're listening to this, you know, of course, I welcome your support at Greenlight, but more generally, you know, come on in, the water is fine. There's a lot to do in the clean energy deployment space. And you know, we work a lot with local partners, as I mentioned. And, you know, local groups truly have very limited resources.

David Roberts

Yeah.

Matt Traldi

And they're pulled in a million directions. Tiny budgets, limited staff. And that stands in the way of doing this work.

David Roberts

Yeah. People underestimate how much just knowing a thing is happening — like, I think people have it in their mind that, like, oh, there's this. There are these professional groups out there who are on top of these things, you know, like somebody is watching. But like, very often you find that nobody's watching and just doing what you're doing. Just going and saying, "Hey, there's a meeting two weeks from now." It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's amazing how much that can accomplish.

Matt Traldi

Absolutely. So then, on Greenlight in particular, the first thing I'd say is there's immense need. I mentioned that, you know, during our pilot period, we worked on 11 campaigns and we were approached about 200 different projects and that rate has continued.

David Roberts

Well, there's 20x. That's 20x your budget right there.

Matt Traldi

That's right. That's right. And you know, I'm an optimist about the clean energy transition. That is, I hope everyone listening to this feels a little jolt of optimism going into the holidays. I think we're 100% going to make this happen. The economics are on our side, the momentum is on our side. I think the next few years are going to be the best years in U.S. history for clean energy deployment, for energy deployment overall. I know that things can look a little grim if you look at national politics, but in this area, there's an enormous opportunity, an enormous amount to accomplish.

And the more deployment is growing, the more the industry is growing, the more need there is for this work. The more projects are getting blocked, the more local fights there are, all of that stuff. And so, we expect, you know, right now there are a couple hundred projects that move forward and also that get blocked every year. And we think within the next few years that'll be more like 600 or 700 that could get blocked.

David Roberts

So you did 11 in a year?

Matt Traldi

We've now done a couple dozen. 11 was during — we had a pilot program of six months, yeah.

David Roberts

So, a couple dozen a year. But if there's 700 of them, we need a lot more of you.

Matt Traldi

We need a lot more. Next year, we're hoping to do 70 to 100 projects. That's our goal for next year. But, you know, really, we could be doing a lot more. A big part of that — our model for engaging is very regionally focused. So, you know, with 10x the budget, we'd have 10 times as many campaign staff and more states and regions across the country. And that just allows for all the reasons that, you know, having someone based in a region, they know the partners, they know the social context, they're just able to support folks in communities who are actually showing up much more effectively.

Having someone in D.C. doesn't do it, right? So that's a big part of it. Also, the early warning system, this big research project of where are these critical milestones? When can people show up so that we stop losing by forfeit? That's something that's just a huge focus for us as we grow. And one other area that I would just kind of lift up as really important is about building more and more partnerships. So, you know, the places where we've been able to invest, like Pennsylvania, I mentioned earlier, in relationship building with partners, in kind of all collaborating together, that's where we're really able to have as much impact as possible.

And that takes time, it takes investment, takes work, all of that stuff, both from us and from the partner organizations. Obviously, the folks that we're working with. So those are just a few things. But I would say that we're not right now planning on becoming an organization that does 100 different things. We think this one thing is super important and local work to support people on the ground, groups on the ground in communities where clean energy is moving forward to win, to get these projects across the finish line.

David Roberts

This is facts on the ground, right?

Matt Traldi

That's right.

David Roberts

I mean, this is something I feel like just like the left, generally so enamored of words and ideas, and so neglectful of just facts on the ground and how much immense influence is exerted by facts on the ground. So, like every solar field you enable installed, makes literally everything else easier after that. Right? Like, you're changing the firmament here with every one of these, making all the other more specific jobs easier.

Matt Traldi

100%. And you know, this gets back to something you said early in the conversation, which is that we also have facts on the ground in terms of our movements, our movement infrastructure, and we haven't invested in local organizing, not just on clean energy, but more broadly as a movement. And one of the things that I'm most excited about Greenlight's work is that element of we're going into local communities that may not have had a ton of progressive advocacy work of any kind for quite some time and working with local partners.

David Roberts

Yeah, and those partnerships last after this fight is over, right? I mean, they persist.

Matt Traldi

That's right. And in the long term, I really think that another thing you said earlier in the conversation that I think people don't yet imagine the scale that we're going to be building at and that we need to build at, and it's going to be a massive transformation, not just for our energy system, but for our economy and in particular for these rural communities. Often utility scale, solar farm or wind farm, we're often talking about the biggest development of any kind that's happened in this rural county ever. And these are places that not all of them certainly, but many rural communities have declining population, declining tax base, they need development.

David Roberts

I mean, it's an ongoing threat to our politics.

Matt Traldi

That's right. And so, if there's a prospect of something that is great for the country, great for the world, and you can preserve these communities, you know, preserve the rural character of a community while also, you know, building this project, infusing new resources, etc., I think that's going to be really where the magic happens, because ultimately we won't — we talked about this earlier. Communities are not deciding "Is clean energy good?" They're deciding "Should we build this project here?" We won't build the clean energy transition unless the answer that many of them come up with is yes.

And that answer is going to be because they actually benefit, you know, that they actually are, you know, they're not just bearing a cost for the rest of us. So that's, I think, what's so exciting about this. And I do see 10x, 20x. You know, I don't worry about us running out of clean energy deployment work to do anytime soon.

David Roberts

All right, well, on that note, we'll wrap it up. I just want to reiterate how important this work is at our particular historical juncture. This is the inflection point here. The technology work has been done to a large extent, a lot of the policy work has been done, and now it's really just block and tackle, putting the stuff in the ground. So, thank you so much for doing this work. And like you say, if you're a billionaire listening, please wake up to the need for this kind of work and open your checkbook. All right, thanks so much, Matt.

Matt Traldi

Thank you.

David Roberts

Thank you for listening to Volts. It takes a village to make this podcast work. Shout out, especially, to my super producer, Kyle McDonald, who makes me and my guests sound smart every week. And it is all supported entirely by listeners like you. So, if you value conversations like this, please consider joining our community of paid subscribers at volts.wtf. Or, leaving a nice review, or telling a friend about Volts. Or all three. Thanks so much, and I'll see you next time.

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A coalition of faith-based organizations, social justice groups and citizens has launched a campaign to eliminate costs for calls to people incarcerated in Wisconsin prisons and jails. (Photo by Caspar Benson/Getty Images)

For Royalty Grace, contacting her 20-year-old incarcerated son is both precious and costly. Grace told a room full of people in Milwaukee, “Every phone call, every message, every video call, every fleeting moment of connection comes with a price, literally and emotionally.” On Wednesday morning Grace was joined by others who knew her pain. The group gathered for the launch of the new statewide Connecting Families Campaign by WISDOM, a coalition of faith-based organizations, social justice groups and citizens, to eliminate costs for calls to people incarcerated in Wisconsin prisons and jails. 

“When a loved one is incarcerated, families like mine are not just dealing with the emotional toll of separation,” said Grace. “We’re navigating a financial system that profits off of our desire to stay connected to our loved ones.” Providing calls for people incarcerated in prisons is a $1.4 billion industry nationally. In Wisconsin, families contend with a patchwork of vendors and services, depending on where their loved one is housed. The Department of Corrections (DOC) contracts with the company ICSolutions to provide state prisons with phone calls and video visits. Jails and other county-ran facilities use a variety of  different vendors and practices. 

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) began to learn about the issue shortly after getting elected to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. Clancy, speaking during the WISDOM campaign launch on Wednesday, recalled touring what was then called the House of Corrections (now the Community Reintegration Center) asking people housed there what they would change about the facility. “So many people at that institution said ‘make phone calls free,’” said Clancy. “I spoke to one gentleman who…who had to pretend to his wife and children that he didn’t want to talk to them because he knew that every phone call they made to talk to him took food off their table and medicine out of the mouths of his kids. That is a horrific, terrible choice that we as a county, and as a state, and as a society are asking families to make. And it has to end.” 

Joined by Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Clancy advocated for state legislation to create uniform phone service policies across Wisconsin. By adopting the same plan, Clancy feels that municipalities could “leverage that purchasing power” to make communication more affordable and more consistent for incarcerated people and their families. States including Massachusetts, Minnesota and Colorado have moved towards making prison or jail calls free. WISDOM’s Connecting Families Campaign will also raise awareness of the quality of phone service for incarcerated people. Some families have reported unreliable service on phone calls and video visits, further compounding their frustrations. 

Not being able to reach friends or family can have a severe negative effect on incarcerated people. Rep. Madison shared his own story of visiting a high school friend imprisoned in Green Bay. Life hadn’t been easy for the friend, who’d been transferred to Green Bay Correctional from a youth facility. “I remember going to visit him, and seeing scars on his arm,” said Madison. “And I asked him what those scars were from, and he told me every time they sent him to the hole he felt so isolated, that he resorted to cutting himself to be sent to Mendota [mental health facility] so that he could get the chance to get a free phone call, so that he could all us, his friends — his family — because he spent most of his childhood in our foster care system.”

Being able to reach people who care about you is a lifeline when you’re incarcerated. Additionally, the more access to the outside incarcerated people have, the better their chances of successfully reintegrating into society upon their release. Jamone Hegwood, who spent 13 and a half years of his life in prison, has seen what happens when people lose contact with the outside. “I have come across hundreds and hundreds of guys that are institutionalized,” said Hegwood during the Wednesday campaign launch, referring to people who’d become more used to prison than being free. “Normally the institutionalized guys are the guys that does not have communication with their family. So the only thing that they know is prison.”

After living in a world limited to wardens, walls and gates, “when they come into the community, they are pretty much just like being dropped on an island,” said Hegwood. People who  maintaining contact with loved ones, can better separate themselves from prison and its internal politics. Sa ‘Aire Salton, a licensed mental health provider, said many incarcerated people are traumatized by their incarceration and locked in a cycle that often returns them to prison or jail. That cycle can only be broken with communication and love.

Frank Penigar Jr. told the group gathered for the WISDOM launch  that he was incarcerated for 26 years, during which time he met his biological mother. Penigar said that during the time he got to know her, while he was incarcerated, “we had 18 years where she was able to nurture me that she wasn’t able to do from her womb. And so, that’s how we learned about one another.” Gradually, Penigar found out about the family he’d never known, waiting for him when he got out. Penigar said that communication with loved ones is very important when you’re incarcerated. “And if it can be free, like we going to be pushing for it…it’s a real thing.”

“It’s real,” he added. “I went through it.” 

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Michael Fanone, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer who defended the U.S. Capitol and suffered injuries on Jan. 6, 2021, is pictured at the attack’s second anniversary. Fanone on Wednesday denounced President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to pardon people charged in connection with the attack. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Tennessee Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen and two former police officers who protected the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, on Wednesday condemned President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to pardon those charged in connection with the insurrection.

Cohen, former U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone said on a call organized by the Not Above the Law coalition, a collection of pro-democracy groups often critical of Trump, that pardons for those who took part in the 2021 attack would be a blow to the rule of law.

Trump has said he would issue pardons for those prosecuted for charges stemming from the deadly riot four years ago in which a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Cohen, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who has sought to limit the presidential pardon power, said Trump should be held accountable for the attack.

The Tennessee Democrat said that in pardoning those charged with crimes on Jan. 6, Trump would be “absolving himself” and argued that the president-elect bears the responsibility for the riot.

“If it weren’t for Donald Trump, this would not have occurred, and this is a way for him to absolve to some extent, I guess — assuming he has a conscience — to absolve his conscience by pardoning these people that are in jail because of him and, of course, he should be there as well, in my opinion,” Cohen said.

Gonell, who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, said it was “devastating” to listen to what Trump has said about pardons. Gonell also testified in 2021 in front of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

“History is going to remember those officers who died as a result of the insurrection — not the ‘victims’ or ‘warriors,’ as (Trump) claimed to be saying about the insurrectionists,” he said Wednesday.

He invoked the names of the five police officers who died in connection with the attack.

“Officers like Brian Sicknick, Howard Liebengood, Jeffrey Smith, Gunther Hashida and Kyle DeFreytag — those are the names that people need to remember and not allow Donald Trump and his acolytes to erase history, to rewrite it, because at the end of the day, some of these officers who defended the Capitol against the mob on Jan. 6, 2021, are also going to be there for his swearing in in a couple of weeks.”

Fanone was also one of the police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and testified in front of the House committee.

“I was beaten and repeatedly tased, I suffered a heart attack and was left with a severe concussion,” Fanone said, noting that he “came face-to-face with the hatred and violence that MAGA extremism represents.”

Trump on pardons

More than 1,500 people were charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Trump, who has described the Capitol rioters as “political prisoners” and “hostages,” did not specify during a Tuesday press conference whether he would pardon those charged with violent offenses, including attacking a police officer, but did say he would issue at least some pardons.

“We’ll be looking at the whole thing, but I’ll be making major pardons,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago when asked about the violent offenses. Questioned about pardoning those who were charged with assaulting a police officer, Trump went into a rant filled with falsehoods, including saying Ashli Babbitt was the only person killed in the riot.

Three other people part of the crowd at the Capitol also died. 

Gov. Doug Burgum, at the time the governor of North Dakota and now President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of the Interior, presents his budget recommendations before a joint session of the Legislature on Dec. 4, 2024. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)  

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats raised concerns Wednesday that Republicans have scheduled a hearing for one of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees before he completed the necessary paperwork and an FBI background check.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Martin Heinrich separately criticized the decision, saying it sets a troubling precedent.

“Yesterday, the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources noticed a hearing for Governor Doug Burgum to serve as the next secretary of the Interior, without minority consent, as has long been standard practice,” Schumer said during a floor speech. “Senate Democrats on the committee expressed reasonable objections to proceeding to this hearing, because the committee has not yet received basic information on Governor Burgum’s background.”

Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, released a written statement that he was extremely disappointed Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, chairman of the committee, scheduled the hearing for Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota.

“The Senate has a constitutional duty to advise and, if it determines, consent to the President’s nominees. This requires careful consideration of each nominee,” Heinrich wrote. “To achieve this, for decades, nominees that have come before the ENR Committee have submitted responses to a standard questionnaire and a completed financial disclosure form, approval from the Department’s ethics office, and completion of an FBI background check. Until these steps have been completed, I will not consent to notice of nomination hearings.

“Every nominee, every party, every administration should be subject to the same standards. I would urge Chairman Lee to reconsider his decision.”

A committee spokesperson said Heinrich has not yet received confirmation the FBI completed Burgum’s background check.

Heinrich also hasn’t received Burgum’s financial disclosure report, called Form 278e, or paperwork from the Office of Government Ethics saying their personnel have reviewed his financial disclosures and ethics agreements, and they believe he is in compliance with ethics laws, as required by the Ethics in Government Act, according to the spokesperson.

Lee in his own statement wrote that it was “disappointing to see Ranking Member Heinrich seeking to delay issuance of a hearing notice instead of focusing on delivering what voters demanded in November’s election: restoring American energy dominance after years of high energy prices and policy failures.”

“Governor Burgum submitted his paperwork to the Office of Government Ethics last week, and the committee has the same amount of paperwork that Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats had in 2009 when they noticed confirmation hearings,” Lee wrote. “I, as chairman, have made every effort to work with our Democratic colleagues, but we won’t give in to delays that undermine the American people’s mandate. It’s time to move forward and focus on solutions that will unleash America’s full energy potential, and I hope Democrats will work with us to deliver results for the American people.”

Burgum hearing anticipated next week

Burgum’s hearing is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m., making it one of the first hearings for any of Trump’s nominees. Trump announced in November that he wanted Burgum, who ended his second term as North Dakota’s governor in December, to lead the Interior Department.

Burgum, 68, graduated from North Dakota State University in 1978 before going on to attend Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he received a master’s of business administration in 1980.

He worked at Great Plains Software, becoming CEO before Microsoft bought the company in 2001. Burgum then worked as senior vice president for that company until 2007. A year later, he co-founded venture capital firm Arthur Ventures.

Yahoo Finance estimated in 2002 that Burgum’s net worth was approximately $1.1 billion.

Burgum was first elected as governor of North Dakota in 2016 with 76.5% of the vote and then reelected in 2020 with 65.8%.

Other confirmation hearings scheduled for Tuesday include a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing for former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, whom Trump plans to nominate for VA secretary, and an Armed Services Committee hearing for Pete Hegseth, whom Trump wants to lead the Department of Defense.

The confirmation process is expected to continue Wednesday with hearings for Trump’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; his selection for secretary of State, Marco Rubio of Florida, in the Foreign Relations Committee; and the pick for Office of Management and Budget director, Russ Vought, in the Homeland Security committee.

Others are likely to be scheduled in the days and weeks ahead, but the Senate cannot take floor votes on the nominees until after Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.

No hearing yet for RFK Jr.

Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Bill Cassidy said during a brief interview earlier this week he didn’t know when he would begin committee hearings with Trump’s nominees for public health agencies, like the National Institutes of Health or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since they hadn’t yet completed their paperwork and background checks.

The Louisiana Republican said he hoped to begin those hearings before the end of January, but wasn’t sure if that would be possible.

“The only reason I hesitate is because, obviously, we have other hearings and I’m not sure if everything … that we need to receive, we have received. So partly, this is outside my hands,” Cassidy said.

Other committees, he said, were also waiting on paperwork and background checks from some of Trump’s nominees before scheduling hearings.

“I know other committees have had issues that they’ve not yet received everything they need to receive, in which case I don’t control that process,” Cassidy said.

The ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as bird flu, or H5N1, is one reason Cassidy gave for why he wants to quickly confirm public health nominees.

“Well, H5N1 is serious, absolutely. And, of course, you want to get people in there, you want it to be the right person, on and on and on,” Cassidy said. “So I think we proceed with all due haste.”

Louisiana reported the country’s first human death related to the ongoing bird flu outbreak on Monday, shortly after Cassidy gave his comments about the confirmation process.

Cassidy met on Wednesday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, in the senator’s Capitol Hill office, a typical part of the nomination process.

Cassidy, a physician who earned his medical degree from Louisiana State University Medical School in 1983, wrote on social media afterward that he had “a frank conversation” with Kennedy.

“We spoke about vaccines at length,” Cassidy wrote. “Looking forward to the hearings in HELP and Finance.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

President-elect Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause his sentencing in a New York hush money case. Shown is the court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday to pause his sentencing in a New York hush money case, arguing it cannot go forward in light of the high court’s presidential immunity ruling last summer.

Trump, who is days away from his second inauguration, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in Manhattan on 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records. He is asking for a stay to prevent future proceedings in the case.

New York Justice Juan Merchan wrote in the sentencing order that he is not seeking jail time for Trump, but rather an “unconditional discharge” that would leave the president-elect with a criminal record in New York but avoids any serious penalties.

A jury convicted Trump in May after a weeks-long trial focusing on his bookkeeping maneuvers to cover up a $130,000 payment made by his personal lawyer ahead of the 2016 presidential election to silence a porn star about a past sexual encounter.

Trump’s request to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket asks the justices to expediently take up the questions of whether immunity extends to presidents-elect, whether the evidence admitted in the New York case violated his immunity, and whether he’s entitled to a delay in his sentencing.

“President Trump is currently engaged in the most crucial and sensitive tasks of preparing to assume the Executive Power in less than two weeks, all of which are essential to the United States’ national security and vital interests,” read a brief signed by Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer, whom Trump has nominated to be the next U.S. solicitor general.

“Forcing President Trump to prepare for a criminal sentencing in a felony case while he is preparing to lead the free world as President of the United States in less than two weeks imposes an intolerable, unconstitutional burden on him that undermines these vital national interests,” Sauer wrote.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche’s name also appeared on the request. The president-elect has chosen Blanche to be the nation’s next deputy attorney general.

Merchan has given Trump the option to appear virtually for the sentencing.

Supreme Court ruling forced delays

Merchan on Monday denied Trump’s request to that state court to cancel the sentencing hearing, saying the request recycled earlier requests from Trump’s legal team to toss the case.

“This Court has considered Defendant’s arguments in support of his motion and finds that they are for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past,” Merchan wrote.

A state appeals court affirmed Merchan’s decision Tuesday.

In December, Merchan rejected another Trump attempt to throw out the hush money case based on an argument that evidence had been impermissibly admitted.

The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling restricted prosecutors’ ability to investigate presidents and Trump’s team argued the evidence gathered in the case violated that restriction.

Merchan had delayed Trump’s initial sentencing date following the Supreme Court’s July decision that former presidents enjoy criminal immunity for official acts and presumptive immunity for some actions on the office’s perimeter.

The Supreme Court took up Trump’s question of presidential immunity as he fought against Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s case alleging interference in the 2020 election.

The court ruled, 6-3, in Trump’s favor, in a July 1 decision. Three justices appointed by Trump are part of the court’s conservative majority.

Trump is set to take the oath of office on Jan. 20.

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives file past the flag-draped casket of the late President Jimmy Carter in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers, military officials and other dignitaries celebrated the late President Jimmy Carter’s life and achievements before, during and after his White House term at a service in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda Tuesday where he will lie in state until Thursday.

James Earl Carter Jr., who served as the nation’s 39th president from 1977 to 1981, died at the age of 100 on Dec. 29 at his home in Plains, Georgia.

The cavernous rotunda filled with dozens of Carter’s relatives and former members of his Cabinet who sat not too far from the current U.S. Supreme Court justices, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Biden administration officials and congressional leaders.

The voices of the U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club filled the dome with the Navy hymn and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” In a nod to Carter’s love for his home state, the U.S. Army Band Brass Quintet performed a rendition of “Georgia On My Mind” as senators, including that state’s Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, filed past the late president’s casket.

The flag-draped casket laid on the same pine catafalque that supported President Abraham Lincoln’s casket in 1865.

Camp David and Habitat for Humanity

Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a eulogy remarking on Carter’s career in office and humanitarian work in the decades that followed.

“Jimmy Carter established a new model for what it means to be a former president,” Harris said, highlighting his work with Habitat for Humanity and leadership in eradicating Guinea worm disease.

Harris, a California Democrat, praised the former president’s environmental work during his time in the White House, including signing a 1978 bill that significantly expanded the protection of redwood trees.

She also highlighted Carter as a “forward-looking president with a vision for the future” for his establishment of the Department of Energy, Department of Education and Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as his legacy of appointing a record number of women and Black judges to the federal bench.

Harris said Carter deserves to be remembered on the international stage for his role in leading the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty signed in September 1978 by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

“Jimmy Carter was that all-too-rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty and grace,” she said.

Harris continued, “Throughout his life and career, Jimmy Carter retained a fundamental decency and humility. James Earl Carter Jr. loved our country. He lived his faith, he served the people, and he left the world better than he found it.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson also delivered eulogies.

Johnson recalled that he was just 4 years old when Carter was inaugurated.

“He’s the first president that I remember. Looking back it’s obvious now to me as an adult why he captured everyone’s attention,” the Louisiana Republican said. “Jimmy Carter was a member of the greatest generation.”

Johnson recounted Carter’s upbringing in rural Georgia during the Great Depression and his decision to join the Naval Academy during World War II. Shortly after the war, Carter served on one of the first nuclear submarines.

“It’s telling that today the USS Jimmy Carter, a top-secret attack submarine, now roams the oceans bearing the name of the only president who served in such close quarters,” Johnson said.

Carter will be honored Thursday at a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden has declared Thursday a national day of mourning, closing all federal offices in the nation’s capital.

Ceremonial arrival

U.S. service members carried Carter’s flag-draped casket Tuesday morning from The Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta where the late 39th president had been lying in repose. The 282nd Army Band from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, played “Amazing Grace” as Carter’s four surviving children and their families followed the procession.

Carter’s remains traveled from Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, and arrived at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just after 2 p.m. Eastern Tuesday. 

The funeral procession stopped for a brief ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial where Midshipmen stood in formation and the U.S. Navy band performed “Four Ruffles and Flourishes” and “Hail to the Chief.” Carter, a Navy veteran, attended the U.S. Naval Academy from 1943 to 1946.

Carter’s casket was placed on a horse-drawn caisson, or carriage, and a military procession mirroring Carter’s inauguration parade in 1977 led the late president’s remains to the east side of the Capitol.

Honorary pallbearers included Carter’s 11 surviving grandchildren.

Carter’s late wife Rosalynn died in November 2023.

Carter will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until Thursday morning. The public can pay their respects on Jan. 7 from 8:30 p.m. to midnight Eastern, and from 7 a.m. on Jan. 8 through 7 a.m. on Jan 9. 

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In many markets outside North America, the Toyota Hilux has cemented itself as one of the most popular choices in the pickup segment. Over decades, it has earned a reputation for rugged reliability and versatility. However, even icons need a refresh, and the current generation is long due for an overhaul.

A camouflaged prototype that was caught testing in Thailand and the recent trademark of the Hilux Travo moniker suggest that the next-gen truck is near the final stages of development. According to the latest reports, the new Hilux is expected to debut in the second half of 2025.

More: Toyota Hilux Champ Turns Into A Seven-Seater SUV

The spy shots, shared by the Thai website Headlighmag, show a white pickup with camouflage covering the front and rear ends. The middle portion appears largely unchanged from the current-generation Hilux, retaining the existing structure, roof, doors, and greenhouse design. The pictured model features a dual-cab body style, but it’s reasonable to expect single-cab and chassis-cab variants to remain in the lineup.

The front end has undergone a complete redesign, presenting a more aggressive stance. Slimmer headlights, seemingly connected by a trim piece, complement a boxier grille and sculpted side sections of the front bumper.

The fenders also appear updated, incorporating plastic cladding for a rugged aesthetic. At the rear, the truck sports a redesigned bed with angular taillights and integrated steps on the bumper, adding both style and functionality. While interior details are scarce, we can anticipate a revamped cabin with higher-quality materials, updated technology, and overall improvements in fit and finish.

A New Generation in the Works

Toyota has been tight lipped about the debut of the next generation Hilux, but all signs point to a heavily updated model rather than a clean-sheet design. This aligns with the brand’s approach for the Camry sedan and the upcoming RAV4 SUV.

In the same context, the new Hilux is expected to ride on an upgraded version of its predecessor’s tried-and-true IMV ladder-frame platform rather than using the more modern TNGA-F architecture found in the Tacoma and the Land Cruiser.

More: Toyota Tests Hydrogen Hilux With Mirai Tech And 373-Mile Range

Despite the carry-over chassis, Toyota engineers will likely work on the suspension and steering setup, resulting in a more refined ride and better handling. The potential introduction of electric power steering could pave the way for a more sophisticated ADAS suite. Additionally, the Hilux may benefit from the inclusion of disc brakes on both axles across the lineup, further modernizing the truck’s capabilities.

As for powertrains, it’s likely the new Hilux will stick with the mild-hybrid 2.8-liter four-cylinder diesel already available in the outgoing model, alongside non-electrified gasoline and diesel options depending on the market. Additionally, Toyota has showcased prototypes with fully electric and hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains and has officially confirmed that a Hilux EV will go into production in Thailand by the end of 2025, most likely based on the next-generation model.

Name And Rivals

Another sign of things to come is the Hilux Travo trademark, which was filed on December 23, 2024, with Thailand’s Department of Intellectual Property (DIP). Naturally, this has stirred speculation among local media that the “Travo” name will serve as a suffix for the ninth-generation model in the region, following the example set by the eighth-gen Hilux Revo and the seventh-gen Hilux Vigo. However, in most other markets, the truck is simply known simply as the Hilux. No extra frills, just the truck people know and trust.

More: Toyota Hilux Transforms Into A 6×6 Military Truck Ready For Battle

The current Hilux generation has been with us since 2015, staying relevant through a series of updates in 2017, 2020, and as recently as 2024. The latest revamp added a redesigned nose with a sculpted bumper and a modern grille, along with a mild-hybrid diesel, but the rest of the bodywork and the interior can’t hide the truck’s age, especially when compared to newer rivals.

Speaking of competitors, the Hilux is up against some serious heavyweights. The Ford Ranger, which debuted in 2021, is set to receive a mid-cycle update in 2025, keeping it fresh and highly competitive.

Other regional rivals include the Mitsubishi L200/Triton, Isuzu D-Max, Mazda BT-50, VW Amarok, the newly introduced Kia Tasman, and an ever-growing army of Chinese contenders like the GWM Cannon Ute and the BYD Shark. It’s clear that Toyota needs to bring its A-game with the next Hilux if it wants to maintain its spot at the top.

Spy Shots: Headlightmag

After several years of teasers, Scout Motors finally showed off both of its products late last year. Now, it’s revealing a bit more about how the public reacted, and things look good. Here are some interesting details about what customers appear most interested in and how Scout is reacting.

Initially launched in 1961, the brand left the market for decades before VW bought and relaunched it. Now, it’s working to bring two models to market, the Terra pickup truck and the Traveler SUV. Each will be available with either an all-electric or an electric range-extended (EREV) powertrain that promises a range of up to 500 miles (805 km).

More: California Dealers Tell VW To Cease-And-Desist Scout Direct Sales Model

A new report says that over 50,000 clients have signed up and paid a deposit to buy a new Scout. Of them, the majority have requested the range-extended EV. That enables them to run solely on electric power alone or to add range via the on-board gas-burning generator. For Scott Keogh, Scout’s CEO, the EREV platform is a big part of why these cars are drawing so much attention.

EREV Puts An End To Range Anxiety

“This gives us a 50-state vehicle,” Keogh said Tuesday in a Bloomberg TV interview with Ed Ludlow. “The two challenges we see with electrification, charging infrastructure — and of course this takes that all off the table — and plus there’s convenience. I think with those two things, a range-extender makes a lot of sense.” He added that around 70% of the reservations have been for the Traveler SUV, which confirms the company’s own expectations.

VW CEO Oliver Blume laid out his view of the success while at CES. “The market response has been very, very positive,” he said.” The response was ‘This is heritage.’ … It is kind of a love story.” On his part, Keogh told CNBC “We’re super happy with the numbers. There’s been good reaction to the EREV.”

Leveraging a range-extended electric drivetrain is a smart move for Scout. Few other automakers have used it and there’s no doubt that it can reduce the range anxiety many prospective electric vehicle owners have. The charging network isn’t big and consistent enough for peace of mind for those who want to take a trip in their EV.

Flexible Enough To Respond To Any Policy And Market Changes

Gas-burning SUVs aren’t clean enough for others, so an EREV could be the best of both worlds. VW is currently building a $2 billion plant for Scout in South Carolina and, according to Keogh, it doesn’t need significant modifications to manufacture the range-extended versions.

More: VW And Rivian Team Up To Develop EV Tech for 2027 Launch

Given the uncertainty concerning the incoming Trump’s administration’s stance on electric vehicles and the (quite possible) scrapping of tax credits, Scout’s CEO believes that “This gives you ultimate flexibility. Regardless of the way America goes, we are put in a position for the next 20 or 30 years to have a tech platform that can navigate it.”

Scout is also continuing to innovate. The brand says it’s now going to offer satellite internet connectivity, meaning you can stay connected while being off of the grid.

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The automotive industry is in the midst of a revolution, with electric powertrains and autonomous driving systems now more commonplace than ever. While automakers battle to perfect self-driving cars and electric SUVs, industries like agriculture and landscaping are quietly deploying their own fleet of cutting-edge tech. At CES 2025, John Deere rolled out a range of autonomous and electric machines that might not just lighten workloads but could redefine how certain jobs get done.

Meet John Deere’s Robot Mower: The Quiet Giant

One of the most intriguing new products unveiled by John Deere is an electric robot lawnmower. Looking a little bit like a robot designed for a battlefield in a Hollywood movie, the lawnmower is powered by a 21.4 kWh battery. This should give it enough charge to be able to operate for up to 10 hours, making it perfect for large commercial-grade lawns.

Read: Kamaz “Robocop” Is An Autonomous Dump Truck For The Russian Coal Mines

The robot uses four pairs of stereo cameras to give it a 360-degree view of the world. Beyond the lawnmower being able to operate autonomously, the electric powertrain has its own advantages over traditional gas-powered mowers. For example, because it’s much quieter, workers could start jobs earlier in the morning.

While it seems unlikely that driverless cars will replace human-operated ones in the foreseeable future as full autonomy is still making baby steps that are often troubling, mowers like this could become commonplace much sooner. John Deere cites a recent study revealing that 84% of landscape business owners struggle to find and retain qualified labor.

Robots to the Rescue, Says John Deere

“Our agriculture, construction, and commercial landscaping customers all have work that must get done at certain times of the day and year, yet there is not enough available and skilled labor to do the work,” said John Deere Chief Technology Officer Jahmy Hindman.

“Autonomy can help address this challenge. That’s why we’re extending our technology stack to enable more machines to operate safely and autonomously in unique and complex environments. This will not only benefit our customers, but all of us who rely on them to provide the food, fuel, fiber, infrastructure, and landscaping care that we depend on every day” Hindman added.

Beyond the Lawn: Deere’s High-Tech Fleet

Three other self-driving vehicles have been presented by John Deere in Las Vegas. The first is the second generation of its autonomous tractor, complete with 16 cameras and a Nvidia GPU. John Deere is also looking to bring its autonomous vehicles to construction sites, unveiling an articulated dump truck that can carry over 92,000 lbs of materials. Vehicles like these are becoming more common in quarries and mine sites around the world, promising to improve productivity.

The second high-tech tractor presented by John Deere is specifically designed with orchards in mind. It’s diesel-powered and pulls sprayers through nut orchards. These typically need to be sprayed six to eight times per year, and John Deere added a LiDAR to ensure the truck doesn’t get lost or confused in densely packed orchards where GPS signals may be blocked.

Maybe you can’t stop progress, and things right now point to fully autonomous vehicles becoming, at some point, the new norm. While companies like John Deere claim that they will help business owners who need more skilled labor, we can’t help but wonder if they’ll eventually also cost all workers their jobs…

Cox Automotive has released their latest Car Buyer Journey study and it found new vehicle buyers are more satisfied with the overall shopping experience than ever before. Buyers had a 75% satisfaction rate and the company chalked that up to a variety of factors including improved incentives, more inventory, and digital tools – among other things.

However, satisfaction varies depending on what you’re buying. 82% of new EV buyers were “highly satisfied,” which bested rates for hybrids (76%) and ICE-powered vehicles (75%). A large part of this is being attributed to the use of digital tools during the buying process. As Cox explained, 76% of EV buyers used digital tools, while only 42% of ICE buyers did. However, you might not want to read too much into that as 64% of hybrid buyers used digital tools and they were barely more satisfied than ICE buyers.

More: Study Suggests Heavy Dependence On Cars Makes You Unhappy

Interestingly, EV buyers are more engaged as they’re more likely to read and watch reviews. These customers also put more of an emphasis on safety and technology during their decision-making process.

Putting EVs aside, dealership satisfaction reached a record high of 81%. Furthermore, 42% of new car buyers said their latest purchase was better than their previous one.

However, satisfaction among all vehicle buyers declined 2% due to disgruntled used car shoppers. These customers are facing a number of headwinds including tight inventories, elevated prices, and high interest rates. Access to modern digital tools, that support a seamless buying experience, are also limited.

While the used car buying experience has plenty of room for improvement, Cox noted the “64% satisfaction rate among used-vehicle buyers was higher than at any time before the global COVID pandemic.”

Speaking of COVID, the shift to online paperwork is saving customers considerable time at the dealership. New car buyers save 49 minutes, while used car buyers save 40.

However, the study found buyers still value time spent at dealerships, especially test drives, vehicle pick-ups, and interactions with the sales team. Cox’s Vice President of Research and Market Intelligence, Isabelle Helms, said “It is a common misconception that most vehicle buyers today want a completely online car-buying process. The findings in the latest CBJ Study indicate that buyer satisfaction is influenced not merely by the time involved, but rather by the efficiency of the transactional aspects of the buying journey.”

Cox Automotive

Elon Musk spent more than $270 million to help get Donald Trump into office, likely believing that a Trump-run administration would help his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. Musk’s personal wealth has soared by over $200 billion since the election, thanks primarily to the surging price of Tesla shares. However, according to one analyst, Tesla profits could fall by as much as 40% this year when Trump steps into the White House.

Ryan Brinkman from JPMorgan believes if the incoming President eliminates the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, which he is widely expected to do, it “poses a significant earnings risk for Tesla”. The EV maker had a strong Q4 but overall 2024 global sales weren’t as strong as expected, with 1,789,226 vehicles delivered, slightly fewer than in 2023. This marked the first time in over a decade that Tesla didn’t increase its annual sales.

Read: Is Time Running Out For $7,500 EV Tax Credits? Experts Advise Buyers To Hurry

According to Brinkman, “the slowing of deliveries even ahead of a likely subsidy removal we think has the potential to refocus investors on the deterioration in deliveries, revenue, gross profit, EBIT, EPS, and FCF estimates across all periods.” He added that Tesla could have the most to lose from the shifting regulatory backdrop and may see its profits fall by roughly $3.2 billion, or 40%.

The analyst added that during the Trump administration, shares of BEVs sales could fall in “nearly every geography,” and suggested that Tesla “does not appear to us on track to dominate the global auto industry amidst the electrification transition, which we view as only the starting point for present valuation,” as quoted by Business Insider. JPMorgan also estimates that in 2024, Tesla’s global share of BEV sales fell from ~15.5% to ~13.7%.

Curiously, Elon Musk has publicly supported the abolishment of the EV tax credit. He believes scrapping the credit will hurt rival brands, including GM, Ford, and Hyundai, which rely heavily on the subsidies to make their EVs more affordable. As Tesla has the first-mover advantage in the EV space and is the current market leader, it can develop and sell its EVs at a lower cost than most of its rivals and – in theory – could grow its share. We shall wait and see if he’s proven right, or whether JP Morgan analyst’s predictions of gloom come to pass.

2/ JPM note from this morning. This analyst has a Sell rating on $TSLA so it presents a more negative view than others with Buy or Hold ratings.

Tesla Inc
4Q Deliveries In Line w/ JPM But Below Street, Representing More Risk to 2024 Consensus EPS Which Has Already Fallen -36%;…

— Gary Black (@garyblack00) January 3, 2025

Waymo continues to lead the way in the development and introduction of robotaxis, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfected the technology. Not only did its autonomous cars spark an NHTSA investigation over crashes, but in August last year, dozens developed a weird habit of gathering together at a parking lot in San Francisco and honking their horns in the middle of the night. Last month, one of them took a passenger on a rather dizzying ride in Los Angeles.

In December, Mike Johns ordered a Waymo to ferry him to the airport, where he had to catch a flight. It picked him up, but then proceeded to drive around in circles in the parking lot rather than actually taking him where he needed to be.

Read: Waymo Is Somehow Valued More Than Ford After Raising $5.6B

Worried that he was going to miss his flight, Johns got in contact with Waymo’s customer support who quizzed him on what was going on. “It’s circling around a parking lot,” he told the operator. “I’ve got my seatbelt on, I can’t get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy.”

At one stage, the Waymo operator can be heard asking Johns if he had the Waymo app on his phone and instructing him to tap the My Trips button on the lower-left corner, presumably in an attempt to pause the ride. Johns replies that Waymo itself should be able to take over the car and shouldn’t need to use his phone.

After five long minutes of circling the same traffic island, Waymo’s team managed to regain control of the Jaguar I-Pace. The errant robotaxi finally snapped out of its loop and got Johns to the airport, though not without leaving him shaken and frustrated.

Speaking to CBS News, Waymo stated that it had identified the issue as a software glitch and assured everyone that it’s been addressed to prevent future looping incidents. To its credit, the company didn’t charge Johns for the ride.

“Where’s the empathy? Where’s the human connection to this?” John said after the weird experience. “It’s just, again, a case of today’s digital world. A half-baked product and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle.”

H/T to Roadandtrack