The June 2026 edition of our newsletter marks America’s 250th birthday by remembering that “net zero” isn’t anything new. It’s what energy looked like in 1776.

Colonial Americans heated with wood, cooked over open fires, lit their homes with candles and whale oil, and ran mills with water wheels, windmills, and draft animals. Coal, oil, natural gas, and electricity accounted for essentially none of daily life. The United States consumed about 250 trillion Btu of energy that year. Today, we consume nearly 94 quadrillion.

Fewer than 2 percent of Americans now produce enough food to feed the country. The other 98 percent became engineers, doctors, teachers, and entrepreneurs because denser energy freed them from growing and gathering their own fuel and food.

This newsletter also previewed our work on BlueStatesHighRates.com. State profiles for the original 13 colonies launched July 4th, with the rest of the country to follow shortly. Glenn Beck gave the report a segment on his show, highlighting the new BlueStatesHighRates.com site and its state-by-state breakdown of what’s driving electricity prices.

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