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Jamestown Foundation Posts Commentary: Moving Past 'Spirit of Anchorage' Could Spur More Realistic Negotiations
WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by Tatiana Vorozhko, contributing editor at the Reckoning Project, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:
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Moving Past 'Spirit of Anchorage' Could Spur More Realistic Negotiations
Executive Summary:
* Russia continues to demand that Kyiv cede the Ukrainian-controlled parts of its Donetsk oblast, promoting the "spirit of Anchorage" to allege that the United States informally accepted Russian control of the entire Donbas region, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as a starting ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by Tatiana Vorozhko, contributing editor at the Reckoning Project, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Moving Past 'Spirit of Anchorage' Could Spur More Realistic Negotiations Executive Summary: * Russia continues to demand that Kyiv cede the Ukrainian-controlled parts of its Donetsk oblast, promoting the "spirit of Anchorage" to allege that the United States informally accepted Russian control of the entire Donbas region, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as a startingpoint in peace talks.
* U.S. officials have recently disputed that any agreement was reached during the August 2025 talks in Alaska, resetting the stage for more realistic negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Ceding the remaining Ukrainian-controlled areas of Donetsk Oblast would undermine Ukraine's eastern defenses by putting its "fortress belt" into Russian hands, making it an unlikely concession.
* Under Ukraine's Constitution, territorial changes require a constitutional referendum and approval from Ukraine's parliament. Constitutional amendments cannot occur under martial law, which is unlikely to be lifted during active war. Approximately 57 percent of Ukrainians do not support ceding unoccupied territory, suggesting that a referendum is not likely to be successful.
* In early June, Zelenskyy said that the fastest path to ending Russia's war against Ukraine would be an internationally monitored ceasefire along the current line of contact followed by negotiations, without Ukraine first ceding territory.
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Kyiv ceding the remaining Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk oblast has been one of Moscow's most consistent demands. In an interview with a Russian state journalist published on the Kremlin website on June 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that his objective, "the final liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya," remains unchanged, a maximalist claim to Ukrainian territory including the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts (President of Russia, June 28).
On June 25, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington and Moscow had not reached any agreements during the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025. Rubio reset the stage for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, saying, "There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement. If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war" (Interfax, June 25). Russia has asserted that the Alaska meeting yielded a U.S.-Russian understanding about the outlines of a peace deal, which is often called "the spirit of Anchorage," and is regarded in the Kremlin as a positive step for Russian interests. Just one day prior, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had asserted that Russia "believed an agreement had been reached" in Anchorage (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 24). In direct response to Rubio's subsequent rebuttal, Lavrov said on June 26, "When my colleague Rubio says that there were only proposals in Alaska, but there was no agreement, it raises a question for me in terms of what we mean by the agreement" (Telegram/@MID_Russia, June 26).
According to Axios, two officials present at the Group of Seven (G7) summit held earlier in June said that Trump expressed frustration with Putin and signaled he could walk away from the so-called "Anchorage understanding." While the content of the Anchorage talks remains widely unknown, Axios described it as the United States accepting Russian control of Ukraine's Donbas region under a peace deal (Axios, June 27).
As of early June, Russia controlled virtually all of Ukraine's Luhansk oblast, 80 percent of the Donetsk oblast, and about 75 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts (Institute for the Study of War, June 5). Russia amended its Constitution in October 2022 to claim all four oblasts as constituent regions of the Russian Federation, despite controlling only parts of them (Constitution of the Russian Federation, accessed on June 28).
Ukrainian fortifications in the so-called "kill zone"--a heavily contested, approximately 15-30 kilometer (9-18 mile) strip of land on either side of the front line characterized by constant surveillance and concentrated drone strikes, making any movement extremely dangerous--are extensive. They feature a sophisticated web of trenches and anti-tank ditches, concrete slabs (dragon's teeth) to stop tanks and other vehicles, mines, and various metal wires to slow Russian infantry (United24, December 15, 2025). These constantly evolving fortifications exact a heavy price on Russian advances. According to Ukraine's General Staff, Russian forces have suffered more than 1.39 million casualties since February 2022, while making only incremental territorial gains since 2024 (Kyiv Independent, June 21). According to Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russian battlefield losses have exceeded recruitment since this January (The Times, June 26).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has maintained that Ukraine will not legally give up its territories. In an early June interview, Zelenskyy said that the fastest path to ending the war would be an internationally monitored ceasefire along the current line of contact followed by negotiations, without Ukraine first ceding any of its territory (Sky News, June 8).
Entertaining Russia's demand for Ukraine to give up the parts of the Donetsk oblast that it does not control--let alone the unoccupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts--could stall prospects for negotiations. Ukrainian officials, including Zelenskyy and top military commanders, assert that this territory is the backbone of Ukraine's defense in the east (Ukrainska Pravda, January 2).
Ukrainian forces have built extensive fortifications anchored along the "fortress belt" in the parts of the Donetsk oblast that remained under Ukraine's control over the last 11 years. The fortress belt is a roughly 50-kilometer (30-mile) line of several large urban centers--including Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivka, and Druzhkivka--that offers optimal terrain for defense in terms of urban settlements, population density, the Kryvyi Torets and Kazenyi Torets rivers, rising elevation, and slope. Nothing comparable exists or can realistically be recreated in the west (New Voice of Ukraine, April 15).
Although the remaining Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk oblast accounts for only about one percent of Ukrainian territory, relinquishing it would remove Ukraine's principal defensive line in the east, opening the way for Russian advances across the sparsely populated lowlands to cities including Kyiv, Dnipro, and Kharkiv.
Zelenskyy cannot legally give away Ukrainian territory without a constitutional referendum and approval from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada (The Constitution of Ukraine, accessed July 8). Amending Ukraine's Constitution to allow for territorial changes--a long, multistep process--cannot legally be done under martial law, which is unlikely to be lifted during active war. As Zelenskyy put it in August 2025, "I am not going to surrender my country because I have no right to do so. This is not about hiding behind the Constitution. Is the state someone's private property? Is 30 percent of Donetsk oblast my private property?" (Suspilne, August 12, 2025). For Zelenskyy to officially or permanently cede Ukrainian territory without approval from parliament and a referendum would dismantle Ukraine's democratic system. Given Ukrainians' demonstrated commitment to defending their democracy, this would likely cost him the presidency. According to an April poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 57 percent of Ukrainians would find transferring the entire Donetsk oblast to Russian control in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and Europe to be "absolutely unacceptable," suggesting that a referendum to give up all of the Donetsk oblast is likely to fail (Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, April 30).
About 200,000 people remain in the Ukraine-controlled parts of the Donetsk oblast in the 5,600-square-kilometer (2,162-square-mile) area outside the "kill zone" (New Voice of Ukraine, March 3). For them, the question of ceding unoccupied territory is not merely one of sovereignty but of personal survival. Extensive documentation of life under Russian occupation--including more than 800 interviews collected by The Reckoning Project describes a pattern of enforced disappearance, torture, severe punishments, Ukrainian cultural erasure, indoctrination--which encompasses violations of the right to education, identity, and freedom of thought--militarization of children, and forced military service (see March 7, 2024, June 1; UN Human Rights Report, March 20, 2024; The Reckoning Project, September 9, 2025). [1] Russia's invasion has already caused Europe's largest movement of refugees since World War II. Russian aggression displaced nearly three million people between 2014 and 2022, and forced more than nine million people from their homes after Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022 (Harvard University; UNHCR, accessed June 29).
The consequences are not abstract. One case documented by The Reckoning Project concerns two brothers--one an adult, the other a minor with a disability--who attempted to flee occupied territory in the early days of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They were detained at a Russian checkpoint in Kyiv oblast on March 26, 2022, accused of sabotage, and taken to a detention facility in Chornobyl. There, both were interrogated, tortured, and beaten, including with electric shocks. They were later separated, and the younger brother was taken to an orphanage in Belarus, while the elder was transferred to Russia (The Reckoning Project, accessed June 29). Their mother was eventually able to bring her younger son home, but the elder remains in Russian captivity, where Ukrainian civilian detainees and prisoners of war are routinely subjected to torture, starvation, and other forms of inhumane treatment (ODIHR, September 25, 2025).
After Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson following 254 days under Russian occupation, investigators uncovered multiple torture chambers, including facilities where children reportedly had been abused (Ukrainska Pravda, December 11, 2022; Global Right Compliance, March 2, 2023). This maltreatment is a reality that could await civilians living in the remaining Ukraine-controlled part of Donetsk oblast and other regions if they are handed over to Russia. Ukraine may suffer additional economic losses, increased numbers of displaced people, and deeper social fractures if it cedes unoccupied territory.
Ukraine's expanding long-range strikes against targets inside Russia have challenged Moscow's repeated warnings that such attacks would provoke severe escalation, suggesting that some Russian threats may be less absolute than previously portrayed. If negotiations resume, the Kremlin abandoning demands that Ukraine surrender territory it still controls would remove one of the most formidable obstacles to a viable settlement.
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Tatiana Vorozhko is a Contributing Editor at The Reckoning Project
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/moving-past-spirit-of-anchorage-could-spur-more-realistic-negotiations/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Moving Past 'Spirit of Anchorage' Could Spur More Realistic Negotiations
Executive Summary:
* Russia continues to demand that Kyiv cede the Ukrainian-controlled parts of its Donetsk oblast, promoting the "spirit of Anchorage" to allege that the United States informally accepted Russian control of the entire Donbas region, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as a starting ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Jamestown Foundation posted the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by Tatiana Vorozhko, contributing editor at the Reckoning Project, in the foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Moving Past 'Spirit of Anchorage' Could Spur More Realistic Negotiations Executive Summary: * Russia continues to demand that Kyiv cede the Ukrainian-controlled parts of its Donetsk oblast, promoting the "spirit of Anchorage" to allege that the United States informally accepted Russian control of the entire Donbas region, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as a startingpoint in peace talks.
* U.S. officials have recently disputed that any agreement was reached during the August 2025 talks in Alaska, resetting the stage for more realistic negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Ceding the remaining Ukrainian-controlled areas of Donetsk Oblast would undermine Ukraine's eastern defenses by putting its "fortress belt" into Russian hands, making it an unlikely concession.
* Under Ukraine's Constitution, territorial changes require a constitutional referendum and approval from Ukraine's parliament. Constitutional amendments cannot occur under martial law, which is unlikely to be lifted during active war. Approximately 57 percent of Ukrainians do not support ceding unoccupied territory, suggesting that a referendum is not likely to be successful.
* In early June, Zelenskyy said that the fastest path to ending Russia's war against Ukraine would be an internationally monitored ceasefire along the current line of contact followed by negotiations, without Ukraine first ceding territory.
-
Kyiv ceding the remaining Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk oblast has been one of Moscow's most consistent demands. In an interview with a Russian state journalist published on the Kremlin website on June 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that his objective, "the final liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya," remains unchanged, a maximalist claim to Ukrainian territory including the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts (President of Russia, June 28).
On June 25, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington and Moscow had not reached any agreements during the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025. Rubio reset the stage for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, saying, "There was a proposal in Alaska, but there was no agreement. If there had been an agreement, we would have had an end of the war" (Interfax, June 25). Russia has asserted that the Alaska meeting yielded a U.S.-Russian understanding about the outlines of a peace deal, which is often called "the spirit of Anchorage," and is regarded in the Kremlin as a positive step for Russian interests. Just one day prior, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had asserted that Russia "believed an agreement had been reached" in Anchorage (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, June 24). In direct response to Rubio's subsequent rebuttal, Lavrov said on June 26, "When my colleague Rubio says that there were only proposals in Alaska, but there was no agreement, it raises a question for me in terms of what we mean by the agreement" (Telegram/@MID_Russia, June 26).
According to Axios, two officials present at the Group of Seven (G7) summit held earlier in June said that Trump expressed frustration with Putin and signaled he could walk away from the so-called "Anchorage understanding." While the content of the Anchorage talks remains widely unknown, Axios described it as the United States accepting Russian control of Ukraine's Donbas region under a peace deal (Axios, June 27).
As of early June, Russia controlled virtually all of Ukraine's Luhansk oblast, 80 percent of the Donetsk oblast, and about 75 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts (Institute for the Study of War, June 5). Russia amended its Constitution in October 2022 to claim all four oblasts as constituent regions of the Russian Federation, despite controlling only parts of them (Constitution of the Russian Federation, accessed on June 28).
Ukrainian fortifications in the so-called "kill zone"--a heavily contested, approximately 15-30 kilometer (9-18 mile) strip of land on either side of the front line characterized by constant surveillance and concentrated drone strikes, making any movement extremely dangerous--are extensive. They feature a sophisticated web of trenches and anti-tank ditches, concrete slabs (dragon's teeth) to stop tanks and other vehicles, mines, and various metal wires to slow Russian infantry (United24, December 15, 2025). These constantly evolving fortifications exact a heavy price on Russian advances. According to Ukraine's General Staff, Russian forces have suffered more than 1.39 million casualties since February 2022, while making only incremental territorial gains since 2024 (Kyiv Independent, June 21). According to Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russian battlefield losses have exceeded recruitment since this January (The Times, June 26).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has maintained that Ukraine will not legally give up its territories. In an early June interview, Zelenskyy said that the fastest path to ending the war would be an internationally monitored ceasefire along the current line of contact followed by negotiations, without Ukraine first ceding any of its territory (Sky News, June 8).
Entertaining Russia's demand for Ukraine to give up the parts of the Donetsk oblast that it does not control--let alone the unoccupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts--could stall prospects for negotiations. Ukrainian officials, including Zelenskyy and top military commanders, assert that this territory is the backbone of Ukraine's defense in the east (Ukrainska Pravda, January 2).
Ukrainian forces have built extensive fortifications anchored along the "fortress belt" in the parts of the Donetsk oblast that remained under Ukraine's control over the last 11 years. The fortress belt is a roughly 50-kilometer (30-mile) line of several large urban centers--including Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Kostyantynivka, and Druzhkivka--that offers optimal terrain for defense in terms of urban settlements, population density, the Kryvyi Torets and Kazenyi Torets rivers, rising elevation, and slope. Nothing comparable exists or can realistically be recreated in the west (New Voice of Ukraine, April 15).
Although the remaining Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk oblast accounts for only about one percent of Ukrainian territory, relinquishing it would remove Ukraine's principal defensive line in the east, opening the way for Russian advances across the sparsely populated lowlands to cities including Kyiv, Dnipro, and Kharkiv.
Zelenskyy cannot legally give away Ukrainian territory without a constitutional referendum and approval from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada (The Constitution of Ukraine, accessed July 8). Amending Ukraine's Constitution to allow for territorial changes--a long, multistep process--cannot legally be done under martial law, which is unlikely to be lifted during active war. As Zelenskyy put it in August 2025, "I am not going to surrender my country because I have no right to do so. This is not about hiding behind the Constitution. Is the state someone's private property? Is 30 percent of Donetsk oblast my private property?" (Suspilne, August 12, 2025). For Zelenskyy to officially or permanently cede Ukrainian territory without approval from parliament and a referendum would dismantle Ukraine's democratic system. Given Ukrainians' demonstrated commitment to defending their democracy, this would likely cost him the presidency. According to an April poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 57 percent of Ukrainians would find transferring the entire Donetsk oblast to Russian control in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and Europe to be "absolutely unacceptable," suggesting that a referendum to give up all of the Donetsk oblast is likely to fail (Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, April 30).
About 200,000 people remain in the Ukraine-controlled parts of the Donetsk oblast in the 5,600-square-kilometer (2,162-square-mile) area outside the "kill zone" (New Voice of Ukraine, March 3). For them, the question of ceding unoccupied territory is not merely one of sovereignty but of personal survival. Extensive documentation of life under Russian occupation--including more than 800 interviews collected by The Reckoning Project describes a pattern of enforced disappearance, torture, severe punishments, Ukrainian cultural erasure, indoctrination--which encompasses violations of the right to education, identity, and freedom of thought--militarization of children, and forced military service (see March 7, 2024, June 1; UN Human Rights Report, March 20, 2024; The Reckoning Project, September 9, 2025). [1] Russia's invasion has already caused Europe's largest movement of refugees since World War II. Russian aggression displaced nearly three million people between 2014 and 2022, and forced more than nine million people from their homes after Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022 (Harvard University; UNHCR, accessed June 29).
The consequences are not abstract. One case documented by The Reckoning Project concerns two brothers--one an adult, the other a minor with a disability--who attempted to flee occupied territory in the early days of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They were detained at a Russian checkpoint in Kyiv oblast on March 26, 2022, accused of sabotage, and taken to a detention facility in Chornobyl. There, both were interrogated, tortured, and beaten, including with electric shocks. They were later separated, and the younger brother was taken to an orphanage in Belarus, while the elder was transferred to Russia (The Reckoning Project, accessed June 29). Their mother was eventually able to bring her younger son home, but the elder remains in Russian captivity, where Ukrainian civilian detainees and prisoners of war are routinely subjected to torture, starvation, and other forms of inhumane treatment (ODIHR, September 25, 2025).
After Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson following 254 days under Russian occupation, investigators uncovered multiple torture chambers, including facilities where children reportedly had been abused (Ukrainska Pravda, December 11, 2022; Global Right Compliance, March 2, 2023). This maltreatment is a reality that could await civilians living in the remaining Ukraine-controlled part of Donetsk oblast and other regions if they are handed over to Russia. Ukraine may suffer additional economic losses, increased numbers of displaced people, and deeper social fractures if it cedes unoccupied territory.
Ukraine's expanding long-range strikes against targets inside Russia have challenged Moscow's repeated warnings that such attacks would provoke severe escalation, suggesting that some Russian threats may be less absolute than previously portrayed. If negotiations resume, the Kremlin abandoning demands that Ukraine surrender territory it still controls would remove one of the most formidable obstacles to a viable settlement.
* * *
Tatiana Vorozhko is a Contributing Editor at The Reckoning Project
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/moving-past-spirit-of-anchorage-could-spur-more-realistic-negotiations/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: Self-Employed in Germany Less Pessimistic
MUNICH, Germany, July 11 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on July 10, 2026:
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Self-Employed in Germany Less Pessimistic
The business climate for the solo self-employed and microenterprises in Germany improved slightly in June but still remains clearly in negative territory. The "Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed" rose from -27.7 points in May to -25.9 points in June. While the self-employed have less pessimistic expectations regarding the coming months, they assessed their current situation as even worse than in the previous month. "There is still no ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, July 11 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on July 10, 2026: * * * Self-Employed in Germany Less Pessimistic The business climate for the solo self-employed and microenterprises in Germany improved slightly in June but still remains clearly in negative territory. The "Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed" rose from -27.7 points in May to -25.9 points in June. While the self-employed have less pessimistic expectations regarding the coming months, they assessed their current situation as even worse than in the previous month. "There is still nosign of a trend reversal," says ifo expert Katrin Demmelhuber. "Although things are heading in the right direction, a real recovery is a long way off."
However, there are differences between the self-employed occupational groups: While self-employed service providers were considerably less frequently negative in the assessment of their current situation, they were more pessimistic about the coming months. Self-employed retailers were less skeptical in their expectations. By contrast, their assessment of current business worsened and reached a low point.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the self-employed to access loans and other financing options from banks. In the second quarter, the share of self-employed encountering difficulties in loan negotiations rose to 44.8%, up from 34.6%. The share also rose in the economy as a whole, from 31.7 to 40.1%.
Demand for loans remained low: Only 9.3% of the solo self-employed and microenterprises spoke to banks about loans. "The results indicate that access to loans has become markedly more difficult, especially for self-employed retailers," adds Demmelhuber. In retail, the share of self-employed encountering difficulties with access to loans rose from 41.0 to 59,1%. Most recently, more retailers requested loans, with the share rising from 13.3 to 14.8%.
The ifo Institute has been publishing the Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for solo self-employed persons and microenterprises (with fewer than nine employees) since August 2021. As in the composite index, all sectors of the economy are taken into account. However, its main focus is the service sector.
* * *
Publication
The results on solo self-employed and microenterprises are published in detailed charts and tables in the ifo Konjunkturperspektiven.
2026 Journal (Complete Issue)
ifo Konjunkturperspektiven 06/2026
Learn more (* * *
)
* * *
More Information
Survey results (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-07-10/self-employed-germany-less-pessimistic)
Survey "Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed" (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-07-10/self-employed-germany-less-pessimistic)
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-07-10/self-employed-germany-less-pessimistic
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Self-Employed in Germany Less Pessimistic
The business climate for the solo self-employed and microenterprises in Germany improved slightly in June but still remains clearly in negative territory. The "Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed" rose from -27.7 points in May to -25.9 points in June. While the self-employed have less pessimistic expectations regarding the coming months, they assessed their current situation as even worse than in the previous month. "There is still no ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, July 11 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release on July 10, 2026: * * * Self-Employed in Germany Less Pessimistic The business climate for the solo self-employed and microenterprises in Germany improved slightly in June but still remains clearly in negative territory. The "Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed" rose from -27.7 points in May to -25.9 points in June. While the self-employed have less pessimistic expectations regarding the coming months, they assessed their current situation as even worse than in the previous month. "There is still nosign of a trend reversal," says ifo expert Katrin Demmelhuber. "Although things are heading in the right direction, a real recovery is a long way off."
However, there are differences between the self-employed occupational groups: While self-employed service providers were considerably less frequently negative in the assessment of their current situation, they were more pessimistic about the coming months. Self-employed retailers were less skeptical in their expectations. By contrast, their assessment of current business worsened and reached a low point.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for the self-employed to access loans and other financing options from banks. In the second quarter, the share of self-employed encountering difficulties in loan negotiations rose to 44.8%, up from 34.6%. The share also rose in the economy as a whole, from 31.7 to 40.1%.
Demand for loans remained low: Only 9.3% of the solo self-employed and microenterprises spoke to banks about loans. "The results indicate that access to loans has become markedly more difficult, especially for self-employed retailers," adds Demmelhuber. In retail, the share of self-employed encountering difficulties with access to loans rose from 41.0 to 59,1%. Most recently, more retailers requested loans, with the share rising from 13.3 to 14.8%.
The ifo Institute has been publishing the Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for solo self-employed persons and microenterprises (with fewer than nine employees) since August 2021. As in the composite index, all sectors of the economy are taken into account. However, its main focus is the service sector.
* * *
Publication
The results on solo self-employed and microenterprises are published in detailed charts and tables in the ifo Konjunkturperspektiven.
2026 Journal (Complete Issue)
ifo Konjunkturperspektiven 06/2026
Learn more (* * *
)
* * *
More Information
Survey results (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-07-10/self-employed-germany-less-pessimistic)
Survey "Jimdo-ifo Business Climate Index for the Self-Employed" (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-07-10/self-employed-germany-less-pessimistic)
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-07-10/self-employed-germany-less-pessimistic
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Data Centers Lowered Electricity Inflation - Landmark New Study Finds
MINNETONKA, Minnesota, July 11 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by policy fellow Darren Nelson:
* * *
Data centers lowered electricity inflation: landmark new study finds
"Landmark June 2026 study found DCs modestly reduced US electricity prices between 2015 and 2024." - Love 'em or hate 'em; data centers are not the source of electricity inflation
This study was published on June 18, authored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and entitled ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, July 11 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by policy fellow Darren Nelson: * * * Data centers lowered electricity inflation: landmark new study finds "Landmark June 2026 study found DCs modestly reduced US electricity prices between 2015 and 2024." - Love 'em or hate 'em; data centers are not the source of electricity inflation This study was published on June 18, authored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and entitled"Have Data Centers Raised Your Electric Bill? Causal Evidence from the United States." A 4-page fact sheet can be found here (https://restservice.epri.com/publicattachment/98650), and the 45-page academic study here (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.19777).
Statistics
"Observing the capacity expansion of data centers in particular, there does not appear to be a correlation with rising average prices at the state level from 2019 to 2024. However, these correlations do not establish causality due to omitted variable bias from endogenous selection into states, which could flow in either direction. In this paper, we estimate the price changes caused by data centers over this period by deploying instrumental variables to isolate a plausibly exogenous source of variation, thus overcoming unobserved confounding drivers of price changes and data center construction."
In Minnesota, the average electricity price was largely flat from 1983 to 2002, growing only 4.5% from 5.55 to 5.80 cents per kWh. From 2003 to 2018, it exploded 79% from 6.01 to 10.37, and then grew a further 20% of 10.33 to 12.35 from 2019 to 2024.
"It seems plausible a priori that data center developers would be incentivized to locate in places where future electricity prices are expected to be low even with load growth, which would cause negative bias in the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimate. Alternatively, we can tell a speculative story that leads to bias upwards: utilities that clear interconnection queues faster have higher capacity to update their infrastructure; having more capacity to build is costly; and data centers prefer to locate in places where there is quick access to power, which may be correlated with higher prices. These are hypotheses; there may be other plausible stories. An IV approach is required to adjudicate between hypotheses."
Instrumental Variables (IV) estimation is a statistical tool for trying to deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables. OLS is seeking correlation, not causation as such.
"For the instrumental variable, we use the total length of the 1947 Eisenhower Interstate Highway Plan within each state, which we argue is exogenous to electricity prices conditional on GDP and population. The relevancy of the instrument comes from the observation that terrestrial fiber-optic infrastructure is typically located along interstate highway corridors."
This seems reasonable given that, according to Yahoo!Finance in May 2026, "optical fiber cables held the largest share of 71.8% of the data center cable market in 2025."
Economics
"How can higher demand lead to lower prices? Does the law of supply and demand not apply? A key difference between the power sector and other commodity markets is that due to the natural monopoly of distribution networks and high fixed costs throughout the system, retail prices are a function, at least in part, of average costs and not marginal costs. If the incremental cost of meeting demand is smaller than the status quo mix of average costs and marginal costs that are passed through to customers, then new demand mechanically lowers average costs."
By definition, a natural monopoly has decreasing average costs at the current, and foreseeable future, demand levels. And total costs lower than two or more firms combined.
"Consider first a setting in which the physical assets of the power system are held fixed. As demand rises, grid operators dispatch electricity from increasingly expensive generators, which increases wholesale electricity prices as the law of supply and demand suggests. These short-run variable costs are passed through to retail customers via wholesale energy prices or similar mechanisms, but unlike in most commodity markets, retail tariffs must also recover the fixed costs of generation, transmission, and distribution capital. A bump in demand can allow for higher utilization of the existing generation and distribution network. Provided the bump does not violate capacity constraints, this leads to fixed costs that are spread across more kilowatt-hours (kWh), working in the opposite direction as the dispatch effect and pushing average costs down."
The three major electricity companies in Minnesota, whether natural or not, are franchise monopolies regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The PUC process determines whether lower costs translate into lower prices or not.
"If, instead, we allow the power system to change, and if higher demand is not within the expected distribution of demand but a new long-lived demand shift--such as new data centers, electric cars, and heat pumps--then the system will invest in new capital equipment to service this new load, shifting the dispatch curve outward and lowering marginal variable cost. Due to secular technology cost declines and efficiency gains, the incremental mix of new generation assets tends to have a lower average cost than the embedded incumbent asset mix, thus lowering the amortized capital cost of generation per kWh."
Natural monopolies, in contestable markets, have incentives for cost efficiency and technology investment. Franchise monopolies, in regulated markets, do not. The latter is why, for example Xcel Energy, have fully embraced expensive and unreliable wind and solar.
Findings
"While ratepayers fear new load will raise prices, the historical record is consistent with the opposite. From 2014 to 2020 demand fell by 0.3% year over year while average prices grew at a rate of 0.2%, well below inflation during this period. From 2021 to 2024 demand grew on average a modest 1.5% year over year while electricity rates grew at 5.2%, in line with the average annual increase in core consumer prices of 5.8% meaning inflation adjusted electricity rates were flat on average. These recent rate increases have not been uniform across states but concentrated in the Northeast and West Coast."
Minnesota saw annual electricity inflation from 2014 to 2020 of 1.4%, and then 4.7% from 2021 to 2024, compared to general inflation of 1.3% and 3.3% respectively for those two periods.
"We estimate for every 10% increase in data center capacity average residential retail prices fell by approximately 0.4% on average. The result is interpreted thus: from 2019 to 2024 the average residential customer lived in a state where data center capacity grew 160%, which caused their rates to fall by 6%."
From 2019 to 2024, average annual residential electricity rates in Minnesota inflated by 3.1%, whilst data center capacity only grew by 13% from 38 to 43 MW. It has since jumped up 616% to 308 MW in 2026.
"A natural concern is that data centers, classified as either industrial or commercial customers depending on the jurisdiction, might lower overall system costs while shifting costs to residential ratepayers. Industrial and commercial customers typically see lower rates compared to residential households, so it is plausible that residential customers are subsidizing the incremental fixed costs of these lower-rate customers. The estimate can be interpreted thus: a doubling of data center capacity causes residential retail prices to fall by 3.5% for a fixed level of residential demand. These results suggest that data centers did not increase residential rates on average."
In contrast, Minnesota commercial and industrial electricity rates increased 2.9% and 3.6% per annum respectively from 2019 to 2024, compared to 3.1% for residential.
Conclusion
"This study estimates a modest causal impact of data center load growth on decreasing residential prices. This is supported by descriptive statistics and a theoretic model that indicate economies of scale of power systems. Our findings are not without caveats, which we place into three categories: (1) supply constraints, (2) durability of demand growth, and (3) fuel costs."
This EPRI study is a very important contribution to debunking the myth that data centers are the drivers of higher electricity prices. In addition, data centers are providing a public service by both exposing real causes, like renewables, and promoting real solutions, like nukes.
* * *
Darren Nelson is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment.
darren.nelson@americanexperiment.org
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/data-centers-lowered-electricity-inflation-landmark-new-study-finds/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Data centers lowered electricity inflation: landmark new study finds
"Landmark June 2026 study found DCs modestly reduced US electricity prices between 2015 and 2024." - Love 'em or hate 'em; data centers are not the source of electricity inflation
This study was published on June 18, authored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and entitled ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, July 11 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by policy fellow Darren Nelson: * * * Data centers lowered electricity inflation: landmark new study finds "Landmark June 2026 study found DCs modestly reduced US electricity prices between 2015 and 2024." - Love 'em or hate 'em; data centers are not the source of electricity inflation This study was published on June 18, authored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and entitled"Have Data Centers Raised Your Electric Bill? Causal Evidence from the United States." A 4-page fact sheet can be found here (https://restservice.epri.com/publicattachment/98650), and the 45-page academic study here (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.19777).
Statistics
"Observing the capacity expansion of data centers in particular, there does not appear to be a correlation with rising average prices at the state level from 2019 to 2024. However, these correlations do not establish causality due to omitted variable bias from endogenous selection into states, which could flow in either direction. In this paper, we estimate the price changes caused by data centers over this period by deploying instrumental variables to isolate a plausibly exogenous source of variation, thus overcoming unobserved confounding drivers of price changes and data center construction."
In Minnesota, the average electricity price was largely flat from 1983 to 2002, growing only 4.5% from 5.55 to 5.80 cents per kWh. From 2003 to 2018, it exploded 79% from 6.01 to 10.37, and then grew a further 20% of 10.33 to 12.35 from 2019 to 2024.
"It seems plausible a priori that data center developers would be incentivized to locate in places where future electricity prices are expected to be low even with load growth, which would cause negative bias in the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimate. Alternatively, we can tell a speculative story that leads to bias upwards: utilities that clear interconnection queues faster have higher capacity to update their infrastructure; having more capacity to build is costly; and data centers prefer to locate in places where there is quick access to power, which may be correlated with higher prices. These are hypotheses; there may be other plausible stories. An IV approach is required to adjudicate between hypotheses."
Instrumental Variables (IV) estimation is a statistical tool for trying to deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables. OLS is seeking correlation, not causation as such.
"For the instrumental variable, we use the total length of the 1947 Eisenhower Interstate Highway Plan within each state, which we argue is exogenous to electricity prices conditional on GDP and population. The relevancy of the instrument comes from the observation that terrestrial fiber-optic infrastructure is typically located along interstate highway corridors."
This seems reasonable given that, according to Yahoo!Finance in May 2026, "optical fiber cables held the largest share of 71.8% of the data center cable market in 2025."
Economics
"How can higher demand lead to lower prices? Does the law of supply and demand not apply? A key difference between the power sector and other commodity markets is that due to the natural monopoly of distribution networks and high fixed costs throughout the system, retail prices are a function, at least in part, of average costs and not marginal costs. If the incremental cost of meeting demand is smaller than the status quo mix of average costs and marginal costs that are passed through to customers, then new demand mechanically lowers average costs."
By definition, a natural monopoly has decreasing average costs at the current, and foreseeable future, demand levels. And total costs lower than two or more firms combined.
"Consider first a setting in which the physical assets of the power system are held fixed. As demand rises, grid operators dispatch electricity from increasingly expensive generators, which increases wholesale electricity prices as the law of supply and demand suggests. These short-run variable costs are passed through to retail customers via wholesale energy prices or similar mechanisms, but unlike in most commodity markets, retail tariffs must also recover the fixed costs of generation, transmission, and distribution capital. A bump in demand can allow for higher utilization of the existing generation and distribution network. Provided the bump does not violate capacity constraints, this leads to fixed costs that are spread across more kilowatt-hours (kWh), working in the opposite direction as the dispatch effect and pushing average costs down."
The three major electricity companies in Minnesota, whether natural or not, are franchise monopolies regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The PUC process determines whether lower costs translate into lower prices or not.
"If, instead, we allow the power system to change, and if higher demand is not within the expected distribution of demand but a new long-lived demand shift--such as new data centers, electric cars, and heat pumps--then the system will invest in new capital equipment to service this new load, shifting the dispatch curve outward and lowering marginal variable cost. Due to secular technology cost declines and efficiency gains, the incremental mix of new generation assets tends to have a lower average cost than the embedded incumbent asset mix, thus lowering the amortized capital cost of generation per kWh."
Natural monopolies, in contestable markets, have incentives for cost efficiency and technology investment. Franchise monopolies, in regulated markets, do not. The latter is why, for example Xcel Energy, have fully embraced expensive and unreliable wind and solar.
Findings
"While ratepayers fear new load will raise prices, the historical record is consistent with the opposite. From 2014 to 2020 demand fell by 0.3% year over year while average prices grew at a rate of 0.2%, well below inflation during this period. From 2021 to 2024 demand grew on average a modest 1.5% year over year while electricity rates grew at 5.2%, in line with the average annual increase in core consumer prices of 5.8% meaning inflation adjusted electricity rates were flat on average. These recent rate increases have not been uniform across states but concentrated in the Northeast and West Coast."
Minnesota saw annual electricity inflation from 2014 to 2020 of 1.4%, and then 4.7% from 2021 to 2024, compared to general inflation of 1.3% and 3.3% respectively for those two periods.
"We estimate for every 10% increase in data center capacity average residential retail prices fell by approximately 0.4% on average. The result is interpreted thus: from 2019 to 2024 the average residential customer lived in a state where data center capacity grew 160%, which caused their rates to fall by 6%."
From 2019 to 2024, average annual residential electricity rates in Minnesota inflated by 3.1%, whilst data center capacity only grew by 13% from 38 to 43 MW. It has since jumped up 616% to 308 MW in 2026.
"A natural concern is that data centers, classified as either industrial or commercial customers depending on the jurisdiction, might lower overall system costs while shifting costs to residential ratepayers. Industrial and commercial customers typically see lower rates compared to residential households, so it is plausible that residential customers are subsidizing the incremental fixed costs of these lower-rate customers. The estimate can be interpreted thus: a doubling of data center capacity causes residential retail prices to fall by 3.5% for a fixed level of residential demand. These results suggest that data centers did not increase residential rates on average."
In contrast, Minnesota commercial and industrial electricity rates increased 2.9% and 3.6% per annum respectively from 2019 to 2024, compared to 3.1% for residential.
Conclusion
"This study estimates a modest causal impact of data center load growth on decreasing residential prices. This is supported by descriptive statistics and a theoretic model that indicate economies of scale of power systems. Our findings are not without caveats, which we place into three categories: (1) supply constraints, (2) durability of demand growth, and (3) fuel costs."
This EPRI study is a very important contribution to debunking the myth that data centers are the drivers of higher electricity prices. In addition, data centers are providing a public service by both exposing real causes, like renewables, and promoting real solutions, like nukes.
* * *
Darren Nelson is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment.
darren.nelson@americanexperiment.org
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/data-centers-lowered-electricity-inflation-landmark-new-study-finds/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Large Load Reform - How Prepared Are U.S. Grid Operators for the AI Era?
WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by Director Joseph Majkut and research interns Alexander Garcia, Chelsey Gilchrist and Malik Jaffal, all of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program:
* * *
Large Load Reform: How Prepared Are U.S. Grid Operators for the AI Era?
On October 23, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reform and hasten the interconnection of large loads. Defined as ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by Director Joseph Majkut and research interns Alexander Garcia, Chelsey Gilchrist and Malik Jaffal, all of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program: * * * Large Load Reform: How Prepared Are U.S. Grid Operators for the AI Era? On October 23, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reform and hasten the interconnection of large loads. Defined assources of electricity demand exceeding 20 megawatts (MW), large loads are an increasingly urgent policy concern as developers race to construct data centers across the United States.
In recent years, large load interconnection requests have exploded, leading to stalled projects and compounding delays. Developers in some regions must now wait as long as seven years to bring new data centers and other facilities online. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has linked rapid data center construction to future economic prosperity and maintaining a technological competitive edge, emphasizing the need to improve speed to power.
Last month, FERC announced orders responding to the ANOPR. Through six show-cause orders, FERC directed grid operators to prove that existing electricity tariffs address five criteria for speed to power and consumer protection within 60 days. The six operators, a mix of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs), serve nearly two-thirds of the U.S. electricity load.
Speeding up large load interconnection is the core intent, but FERC's orders require the operators to address the separate, but intimately related, issues of cost-shifting, generation capacity shortfalls, and transmission infrastructure deficiencies. They require operators to demonstrate that their policies protect ratepayers from elevated costs stemming from increased electricity demand; operate distinct studies and maintain clear rules for co-located and behind-the-meter (BTM) generation; and provide transmission services for flexible loads.
Aware of the challenges of interconnecting large loads, as well as mounting public opposition to data centers, RTOs and ISOs have already created initiatives to address many of FERC's criteria. The matrix below evaluates existing RTO and ISO policies against FERC's new show-cause orders. Initial findings reveal a fragmented policy landscape and indicate that operators may need significant adjustments to meet FERC's criteria. The severity of these adjustments varies among grid operators.
* * *
Table: Large Load Interconnection Policy and Tariff Matrix
* * *
Review of Reform Criteria
Faster Studies and Alternative Transmission Technologies
The first of FERC's reform objectives would improve how grid operators evaluate requests from large electricity customers. Existing study processes were largely designed around traditional generator interconnections and gradual, more diffuse increases in electricity demand. Today's large load customers often require hundreds of megawatts, or even gigawatts, of capacity, creating planning challenges that differ substantially from those of previous decades.
Accordingly, FERC is encouraging operators to develop more efficient study processes, while requiring them to consider alternative transmission technologies that may provide service more quickly or at lower cost than conventional network upgrades.
Some progress has been made, but disparities remain. SPP's HILL and HILLGA frameworks show that dedicated study pathways for large loads are both technically and administratively feasible. Elsewhere, however, at least two of the six operators continue relying on generic study procedures that cannot handle today's scale of demand growth. The disparity between operators demonstrates that FERC's expectations are achievable but far from universally implemented.
Cost-Shift Prevention and Transparency
FERC's second reform objective responds to perhaps the most contentious element of the ongoing data center buildout: cost-shifting.
As data centers proliferate and their electricity demand grows, retail power prices have climbed nationwide. Wholesale electricity prices have risen as much as 267 percent in areas surrounding data centers. The costs of interconnecting large loads are even more significant for ratepayers. Data centers' demand for power requires significant investment in new infrastructure, including power plants, transmission lines, substations, and distribution lines. Utilities socialize these costs among ratepayers even if ratepayers do not use the new infrastructure themselves, raising their bills further.
FERC's six orders consequently direct operators to demonstrate how these costs are identified and allocated and to establish tariffs to prevent their shift to ratepayers.
Cost-shifting and transparency are the criterion where operators fall furthest short. Only PJM, whose cost-causation rules were already targeted by FERC, and SPP, which allocates costs more transparently, might meet FERC's standards. In all other markets, consumers see varying degrees of electricity rate transparency, but none of those markets have established tariffs designed to prevent cost-shifting.
Co-location and Behind-the-Meter Generation
FERC's third reform objective addresses one of the fastest-evolving aspects of large-load development: co-location and behind-the-meter generation.
Developers increasingly pair data centers with dedicated on-site or proximately located generation resources to improve reliability, shorten development timelines, and reduce project dependence on congested transmission systems. Semi Analysis recently forecasted that more than 40 gigawatts (GW) of data centers would be built to use behind-the-meter power generation. Much of that is likely to be gas-powered. Power sector research firm Halcyon has identified 28 GW of natural gas plants under development behind the meter for powering data centers. While many of these plants may not reach final stages, or will seek grid integration over time, they show the power sector should be prepared for diverse arrangements for powering data centers.
FERC is therefore seeking clearer tariff provisions governing these arrangements before they become commonplace. Tariff readiness varies substantially. PJM and SPP have already begun implementing tariff pathways addressing co-located resources, while all other operators continue to rely on ad hoc approaches or lack comprehensive frameworks altogether. As investment in dedicated power supplies for data centers accelerates, regulatory clarity in this area will become increasingly important.
New Services for Flexible Loads
The fourth reform category reflects changes in how regulators view electricity demand itself.
Historically, grid operators have assumed that customers will consume power and rely on transmission infrastructure as needed. Many modern facilities and data centers, however, can modulate their load at will, temporarily reducing consumption, shifting computational workloads, or responding to grid conditions when incentivized.
FERC seeks greater use of transmission service technologies that recognize this flexibility. Rather than treating all large loads identically, approaches such as conditional firm service and interruptible load arrangements allow customers willing to accept operational constraints to connect sooner or at lower cost. Only a handful of operators have meaningfully integrated these technologies. SPP's CHILLS framework and PJM's developing non-firm service offerings provide a model that other operators may soon emulate, but comparable offerings currently remain limited elsewhere.
Studying Generation to Serve Proximate Large Loads and Large, Co-located Loads
FERC's last priority is ensuring that RTOs and ISOs conduct expedited study processes, identifying whether co-located or proximate generation could serve large loads.
These studies let operators evaluate co-located or proximate generation quickly and reliably as a route to interconnecting large loads. Using existing electricity infrastructure would avoid the otherwise long timelines for interconnection and potentially unnecessary infrastructure buildout.
Through this criterion, FERC sets the expectation that proximate and co-located generation for large loads has a specialized, short-circuited study process. SPP fulfills this aim through HILLGA, which studies proximate and co-located generation for large load interconnection. PJM, MISO, and CAISO all share incomplete or inconsistent study pathways for co-located and proximate generation. ISO-NE and NYISO do not yet have specific generation study procedures that fulfill this requirement.
General Analysis
Discrepancies among grid operators' tariffs indicate significant readiness gaps. Based on precedent, such as FERC's December 2025 order to PJM (the results of which are visible in the matrix above), the commission is likely to act where it believes operators currently fall short of its guidelines. On a conservative reading of the status quo, only 20 percent of the criteria meet the guidelines; of 30 matrix boxes, only 6 are plausibly sufficient. Furthermore, none of the six grid operators are likely to receive a clear pass through the five reforms.
Given the spectrum of large load readiness across grid operators and reform areas, significant policy actions are likely to emerge after the initial 60-day period following the show cause orders.
FERC's orders are unlikely to induce a wave of uniform compliance, but rather a multiyear, piecemeal modernization of large load interconnection practices. While the commission's overarching objective is to accelerate and standardize the interconnection of large loads, its orders reflect broader concerns surrounding electricity affordability, transmission planning, and the allocation of infrastructure costs. Cost-shift prevention and transparency are likely to remain salient issues as regulators seek to balance rapid economic development with the protection of existing ratepayers.
Conclusion
FERC's June 2026 show-cause orders represent the commission's most significant effort to modernize large load interconnection policy to date. Importantly, they expose a fragmented regulatory landscape in which grid operators have adopted markedly different approaches to managing large electricity customers. SPP's relative success in meeting FERC's objectives shows they are achievable under the existing regulatory framework; the matrix suggests, however, that most operators will need to implement significant reforms before reaching comparable levels of large load readiness.
Nevertheless, FERC's jurisdiction should not be overstated. Its regional market interventions, particularly those concerning cost-shifting, may not produce the desired results. While top-down reforms may improve rate transparency, FERC is not the final arbiter of retail electricity rates. The commission can require RTOs and ISOs to adopt more transparent tariff provisions and strengthen wholesale market rules governing large load interconnections, but its authority extends no further. Nor do RTOs and ISOs themselves determine how utilities recover the costs of new infrastructure from customers, decisions that remain under the purview of utilities and state public utility commissions.
The significance of these proceedings extends beyond the specific tariff revisions that may emerge over the coming months. The orders acknowledge that the regulatory framework governing large load interconnections has not kept pace with the magnitude of electricity demand driven by AI and other emerging industries. The success of these reforms will depend not only on FERC's ability to modernize wholesale interconnection policy, but also on effective coordination among grid operators, utilities, state regulators, and large load developers to accommodate new demand efficiently, transparently, and sustainably.
* * *
Joseph Majkut is the director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Alexander Garcia, Chelsey Gilchrist, and Malik Jaffal are interns with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at CSIS.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/large-load-reform-how-prepared-are-us-grid-operators-ai-era
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Large Load Reform: How Prepared Are U.S. Grid Operators for the AI Era?
On October 23, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reform and hasten the interconnection of large loads. Defined as ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on July 9, 2026, by Director Joseph Majkut and research interns Alexander Garcia, Chelsey Gilchrist and Malik Jaffal, all of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program: * * * Large Load Reform: How Prepared Are U.S. Grid Operators for the AI Era? On October 23, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reform and hasten the interconnection of large loads. Defined assources of electricity demand exceeding 20 megawatts (MW), large loads are an increasingly urgent policy concern as developers race to construct data centers across the United States.
In recent years, large load interconnection requests have exploded, leading to stalled projects and compounding delays. Developers in some regions must now wait as long as seven years to bring new data centers and other facilities online. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has linked rapid data center construction to future economic prosperity and maintaining a technological competitive edge, emphasizing the need to improve speed to power.
Last month, FERC announced orders responding to the ANOPR. Through six show-cause orders, FERC directed grid operators to prove that existing electricity tariffs address five criteria for speed to power and consumer protection within 60 days. The six operators, a mix of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs), serve nearly two-thirds of the U.S. electricity load.
Speeding up large load interconnection is the core intent, but FERC's orders require the operators to address the separate, but intimately related, issues of cost-shifting, generation capacity shortfalls, and transmission infrastructure deficiencies. They require operators to demonstrate that their policies protect ratepayers from elevated costs stemming from increased electricity demand; operate distinct studies and maintain clear rules for co-located and behind-the-meter (BTM) generation; and provide transmission services for flexible loads.
Aware of the challenges of interconnecting large loads, as well as mounting public opposition to data centers, RTOs and ISOs have already created initiatives to address many of FERC's criteria. The matrix below evaluates existing RTO and ISO policies against FERC's new show-cause orders. Initial findings reveal a fragmented policy landscape and indicate that operators may need significant adjustments to meet FERC's criteria. The severity of these adjustments varies among grid operators.
* * *
Table: Large Load Interconnection Policy and Tariff Matrix
* * *
Review of Reform Criteria
Faster Studies and Alternative Transmission Technologies
The first of FERC's reform objectives would improve how grid operators evaluate requests from large electricity customers. Existing study processes were largely designed around traditional generator interconnections and gradual, more diffuse increases in electricity demand. Today's large load customers often require hundreds of megawatts, or even gigawatts, of capacity, creating planning challenges that differ substantially from those of previous decades.
Accordingly, FERC is encouraging operators to develop more efficient study processes, while requiring them to consider alternative transmission technologies that may provide service more quickly or at lower cost than conventional network upgrades.
Some progress has been made, but disparities remain. SPP's HILL and HILLGA frameworks show that dedicated study pathways for large loads are both technically and administratively feasible. Elsewhere, however, at least two of the six operators continue relying on generic study procedures that cannot handle today's scale of demand growth. The disparity between operators demonstrates that FERC's expectations are achievable but far from universally implemented.
Cost-Shift Prevention and Transparency
FERC's second reform objective responds to perhaps the most contentious element of the ongoing data center buildout: cost-shifting.
As data centers proliferate and their electricity demand grows, retail power prices have climbed nationwide. Wholesale electricity prices have risen as much as 267 percent in areas surrounding data centers. The costs of interconnecting large loads are even more significant for ratepayers. Data centers' demand for power requires significant investment in new infrastructure, including power plants, transmission lines, substations, and distribution lines. Utilities socialize these costs among ratepayers even if ratepayers do not use the new infrastructure themselves, raising their bills further.
FERC's six orders consequently direct operators to demonstrate how these costs are identified and allocated and to establish tariffs to prevent their shift to ratepayers.
Cost-shifting and transparency are the criterion where operators fall furthest short. Only PJM, whose cost-causation rules were already targeted by FERC, and SPP, which allocates costs more transparently, might meet FERC's standards. In all other markets, consumers see varying degrees of electricity rate transparency, but none of those markets have established tariffs designed to prevent cost-shifting.
Co-location and Behind-the-Meter Generation
FERC's third reform objective addresses one of the fastest-evolving aspects of large-load development: co-location and behind-the-meter generation.
Developers increasingly pair data centers with dedicated on-site or proximately located generation resources to improve reliability, shorten development timelines, and reduce project dependence on congested transmission systems. Semi Analysis recently forecasted that more than 40 gigawatts (GW) of data centers would be built to use behind-the-meter power generation. Much of that is likely to be gas-powered. Power sector research firm Halcyon has identified 28 GW of natural gas plants under development behind the meter for powering data centers. While many of these plants may not reach final stages, or will seek grid integration over time, they show the power sector should be prepared for diverse arrangements for powering data centers.
FERC is therefore seeking clearer tariff provisions governing these arrangements before they become commonplace. Tariff readiness varies substantially. PJM and SPP have already begun implementing tariff pathways addressing co-located resources, while all other operators continue to rely on ad hoc approaches or lack comprehensive frameworks altogether. As investment in dedicated power supplies for data centers accelerates, regulatory clarity in this area will become increasingly important.
New Services for Flexible Loads
The fourth reform category reflects changes in how regulators view electricity demand itself.
Historically, grid operators have assumed that customers will consume power and rely on transmission infrastructure as needed. Many modern facilities and data centers, however, can modulate their load at will, temporarily reducing consumption, shifting computational workloads, or responding to grid conditions when incentivized.
FERC seeks greater use of transmission service technologies that recognize this flexibility. Rather than treating all large loads identically, approaches such as conditional firm service and interruptible load arrangements allow customers willing to accept operational constraints to connect sooner or at lower cost. Only a handful of operators have meaningfully integrated these technologies. SPP's CHILLS framework and PJM's developing non-firm service offerings provide a model that other operators may soon emulate, but comparable offerings currently remain limited elsewhere.
Studying Generation to Serve Proximate Large Loads and Large, Co-located Loads
FERC's last priority is ensuring that RTOs and ISOs conduct expedited study processes, identifying whether co-located or proximate generation could serve large loads.
These studies let operators evaluate co-located or proximate generation quickly and reliably as a route to interconnecting large loads. Using existing electricity infrastructure would avoid the otherwise long timelines for interconnection and potentially unnecessary infrastructure buildout.
Through this criterion, FERC sets the expectation that proximate and co-located generation for large loads has a specialized, short-circuited study process. SPP fulfills this aim through HILLGA, which studies proximate and co-located generation for large load interconnection. PJM, MISO, and CAISO all share incomplete or inconsistent study pathways for co-located and proximate generation. ISO-NE and NYISO do not yet have specific generation study procedures that fulfill this requirement.
General Analysis
Discrepancies among grid operators' tariffs indicate significant readiness gaps. Based on precedent, such as FERC's December 2025 order to PJM (the results of which are visible in the matrix above), the commission is likely to act where it believes operators currently fall short of its guidelines. On a conservative reading of the status quo, only 20 percent of the criteria meet the guidelines; of 30 matrix boxes, only 6 are plausibly sufficient. Furthermore, none of the six grid operators are likely to receive a clear pass through the five reforms.
Given the spectrum of large load readiness across grid operators and reform areas, significant policy actions are likely to emerge after the initial 60-day period following the show cause orders.
FERC's orders are unlikely to induce a wave of uniform compliance, but rather a multiyear, piecemeal modernization of large load interconnection practices. While the commission's overarching objective is to accelerate and standardize the interconnection of large loads, its orders reflect broader concerns surrounding electricity affordability, transmission planning, and the allocation of infrastructure costs. Cost-shift prevention and transparency are likely to remain salient issues as regulators seek to balance rapid economic development with the protection of existing ratepayers.
Conclusion
FERC's June 2026 show-cause orders represent the commission's most significant effort to modernize large load interconnection policy to date. Importantly, they expose a fragmented regulatory landscape in which grid operators have adopted markedly different approaches to managing large electricity customers. SPP's relative success in meeting FERC's objectives shows they are achievable under the existing regulatory framework; the matrix suggests, however, that most operators will need to implement significant reforms before reaching comparable levels of large load readiness.
Nevertheless, FERC's jurisdiction should not be overstated. Its regional market interventions, particularly those concerning cost-shifting, may not produce the desired results. While top-down reforms may improve rate transparency, FERC is not the final arbiter of retail electricity rates. The commission can require RTOs and ISOs to adopt more transparent tariff provisions and strengthen wholesale market rules governing large load interconnections, but its authority extends no further. Nor do RTOs and ISOs themselves determine how utilities recover the costs of new infrastructure from customers, decisions that remain under the purview of utilities and state public utility commissions.
The significance of these proceedings extends beyond the specific tariff revisions that may emerge over the coming months. The orders acknowledge that the regulatory framework governing large load interconnections has not kept pace with the magnitude of electricity demand driven by AI and other emerging industries. The success of these reforms will depend not only on FERC's ability to modernize wholesale interconnection policy, but also on effective coordination among grid operators, utilities, state regulators, and large load developers to accommodate new demand efficiently, transparently, and sustainably.
* * *
Joseph Majkut is the director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Alexander Garcia, Chelsey Gilchrist, and Malik Jaffal are interns with the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at CSIS.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/large-load-reform-how-prepared-are-us-grid-operators-ai-era
[Category: ThinkTank]
CRC News: Capital Research Media Appearances for June 2026
WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following news on July 10, 2026:
* * *
CRC News: Capital Research media appearances for June 2026
The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research Center.
-
The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following news on July 10, 2026: * * * CRC News: Capital Research media appearances for June 2026 The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research Center. - The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital ResearchCenter.
* * *
New York Post-- George Soros and son Alex have funneled staggering $103M into midterms so far, on track to shatter spending record
In previous election cycles, the Open Society Action Fund's cash flowed to groups backing lefty stars like "Squad" Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and embattled pal Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), but its tax filings for 2025 aren't yet available.
Control of the dark money Democracy PAC where the bulk of the family's money went changed before the 2024 presidential election, with the elder Soros handing over the reins of his empire to his "more political" son Alex Soros, the fourth of five children.
"He wants to be more political than his dad, this is the first midterm cycle where he is in control," Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told The Post.
"George is not in control, he hasn't been in control in some time."
[. . .]
George Soros, who President Trump singled out in September when he ordered the FBI to crack down on "left-wing terrorism," has been the driving force behind extremist campaigns in the United States and abroad.
He pumped more than $15 million into pro-Hamas organizations behind campus protests, funded groups supplying last month's violent anti-ICE protestors at Delaney Hall with military gear and spent more than $7 million pushing for a litany of soft on crime bills that could spring Gotham's worst killers like notorious "Son of Sam."
"The Soros family is angrier than ever at American politics," said Thayer. "They would prefer to remake America into something entirely different."
* * *
CBS News-- Ohio voting rights group facing criminal fraud investigation, sources say
The Ohio Organizing Collaborative over the years has received donations from progressive groups such as New Venture Fund and the Tides Foundation, according to tax records filed with the IRS. Both of those groups have received scrutiny in the past from Republicans over financial mismanagement allegations.
In 2017, a paid canvasser for Ohio Organizing Collaborative pleaded guilty for involvement in a fraudulent voter registration scheme.
Another donor to the group has been the Voter Registration Project, tax records show. That group was previously accused by the conservative-leaning Capital Research Center of violating its nonprofit status by leading an effort to register millions of voters who helped Joe Biden win in 2020.
* * *
Inside Philanthropy-- A Chat with Joe Sciortino of the Schmidt Family Foundation
[IP:] Some major donors -- such as Bezos, Zuckerberg and Gates, to varying degrees - have backed away from climate. Others have been really quiet. By contrast, Wendy Schmidt's been more vocal. She certainly is still working on climate and DEI (which the foundation calls IDEA). Why has Schmidt been so vocal? And why does the institution, and Wendy, feel able to be vocal?
[Joe Sciortino:] She talks a lot about how important it is to make sure we restore science to its proper place in society and make it a priority. That's a firm conviction, and it informs a lot of what the foundation does. She feels on very solid ground to talk about climate change from a scientific perspective, and that's neither political nor sensational nor radical. These are facts we all need to contend with.
Like I said earlier, we're not switching strategies, we're not retracting grantmaking. We feel like it's very important that we still stay the course on this. I can't really speak to the way other funders or other climate funders aren't doing as much, or if they aren't doing as much. I haven't been in those conversations.
[IP:] Has the foundation faced any blowback, whether from the Trump administration, conservative activists or others?
[JS:] No. We've been, like many, named [by the Capital Research Center]. Other than that, nothing.
* * *
The Federalist-- America250 Run Like A 'Slush Fund' For Democrat Consulting Firms During Biden Years
America250 for a time was a "congressionally controlled group paying large sums to consulting firms that also happen to do work for multiple members of Congress on the Democrat side" and appeared to be "a slush fund for very powerful Democrat consulting firms," Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center, told The Federalist.
"It seems as if they went and found the two communication firms that are best at selling anti-American messages to run the American campaign," he continued, adding it would be like hiring Democrat funding platform ActBlue to do the job. "They can't be faulted for saying that they're not good at doing consulting -- they are -- they have led some very successful left-wing campaigns over the years, but not anything that really screams 'I love America.'"
* * *
Philanthropy Daily--Thy Banners Make Tyranny Tremble: A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration
At Capital Research Center, Ken Braun tracks NGO hatred of nuclear energy. From the report:
In spite of this, and despite years of lavish subsidies for wind and solar electricity, nuclear power remains America's single largest emissions-free electricity source, generating more annual kilowatts than wind and solar combined. If the will were there to increase America's production of CO2-free power generation, then there is no better option than building a lot of nuclear reactors. The United States clearly has the ability and wealth to match and eclipse the Chinese nuclear program. Like the French, we could generate at least 70 percent of our electricity from nuclear power, or even more.
The anti-energy NGOs, all of them gravely concerned about the impact of CO2 emissions, are a major reason this is not happening. They also deserve blame for America's abandonment of its nuclear energy leadership over the last half century. The Sierra Club is "unequivocally opposed" to nuclear power and claims it is "uniquely dangerous." Over the last decade hundreds of other American NGOs have made similar statements, engaged in legal actions opposing nuclear power, or otherwise tried to impede it. The combined annual revenue of this anti-nuclear, anti-energy movement now exceeds $3.4 billion.
That means these enemies of American energy, and nuclear power in particular, are collecting an average of $9.3 million per day.
Their claims do not match reality.
* * *
CBN News (video)--Dark Money Fueling Riots: Treasury Cracks Down on Billionaire Funding
The U.S. Treasury Department is moving aggressively to cut off the flow of funds to ANTIFA and other radical groups behind violent anti-ICE clashes, such as the chaos at Delaney Hall in New Jersey. Who is really bankrolling these violent demonstrations--and what will it take to stop them from undermining American democracy?
Capital Research Center President Scott Walter, author of Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America, calls Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's push for greater transparency in nonprofit grants a strong first step. But Walter warns more is urgently needed--especially full disclosure of foreign money pouring into U.S. nonprofits. "Left, right, or center, Americans agree: we cannot allow foreign interests or shadowy donors to fuel street violence and manipulate our politics."
* * *
The Federalist-- ActBlue Refuses To Answer Congress's Questions About Its Foreign Donation Pipeline: Foreign actors should have no influence on our elections. House officials shouldn't step on the brakes until they get answers. (An opinion essay from Parker Thayer of the Capital Research Center.)
Since its founding in 2004, ActBlue has raised nearly $19 billion for Democrat candidates and left-wing groups. That success has made the organization one of the most influential fundraising platforms in American politics. But with that influence comes an obligation to maintain rigorous safeguards and transparency. Unfortunately, ActBlue falls flat on both of those fronts.
For starters, the organization claims it does not allow donations from undisclosed sources, particularly foreign groups. Yet an internal investigation from The New York Times found that for years, ActBlue failed to adequately vet certain contributions from abroad, even when donor identities could not be fully verified.
* * *
National Legal and Policy Center--Will the $300 Million Soros Pledge Subsidize Terrorism?
A report released last September by the Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center (CRC) concluded that the Open Society Foundations during 2016-23 gave more than $80 million to groups "tied to terrorism or extremist violence." Co-authored by CRC Senior Fellow Ryan Mauro and writer-editor Scott Walter, the study cited seven groups that were awarded a combined more than $23 million "that directly assist domestic terrorism and criminality" in the U.S, including engaging in or providing material support to "violence, property destruction, economic sabotage, harassment" and other crimes meeting the definition of terrorism. Another more than $50 million went to grantees that endorse terrorist organizations or have cultivated links to them. And yet another $9 million-plus went to groups that, though not openly supportive of terrorists, have materially aided allied front groups and individuals.
This includes the Center for Third World Organizing, which the Capital Research Center indicates as having received $400,000 in general support from OSF. The CTWO specializes in "direct action" (i.e., violent confrontation) and boasts, "We trained thousands, supported over 100 organizations," during the "uprisings" of 2020-21. Its "training," conducted with help from anarcho-communist groups such as the Ruckus Society and the BlackOUT Collective, consisted of teaching the finer points of sabotage and vandalism. On a far larger scale, the Soros network provided the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of well over 100 black-led organizations, including Black Lives Matter, with a whopping $18 million in 2021 through a pair of fiscal sponsors, the Common Counsel Foundation ($15 million) and NEO Philanthropy, Inc. ($3 million). Another recipient was a 501(c)(4) group, the Sunrise Movement, which received at least $2 million from the Soros network. Sunrise activists used much of that money to partner with Antifa in the Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest Coalition, a campaign, as the CRC noted, "in which activists currently face over 40 domestic terrorism charges and 60 racketeering indictments." The Sunrise Movement received a combined $750,000 in 2020 from Democracy PAC (at the time headed by George Soros) and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4), Soros-supported dark money group.
* * *
truthout-- Is Affordability a Climate Issue? Philadelphia Hunger Strikers Said Yes: A recent hunger strike in Philadelphia demonstrated the expanding scope of environmental justice organizing.
In New York, Sunrise Movement activists confronted Sen. Chuck Schumer over his links to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "AIPAC has corrupted our democracy and bought off our politicians," the Sunrise Movement wrote in a post, "and working people are paying the price." In Los Angeles, Sunrise Movement members participated in a mass direct action to protest Home Depot's collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of the Boycott Home Depot Coalition. Last year, the group formally expanded its mandate to include combatting authoritarianism. At the same time, Sunrise was labeled a "pro-terror group" by the far right Capital Research Center.
***
The Federalist-- Meet The Left-Wing Organization Influencing Federal Judges On Science Litigation: A Federalist inquiry into the Federal Judicial Center uncovered the influence of a left-wing advocacy group in a manual advising judges.
A new inquiry into the FJC unearthed that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) -- a left-wing advocacy group masquerading as an objective science organization -- influenced the FJC's aforementioned science manual. In line with The Federalist's prior reporting, this investigation also uncovered that several of the AAAS fellows who worked on the manual have a history of supporting left-wing ideology.
[. . .]
According to the Capital Research Center (CRC), the AAAS's origins can be traced back to the mid-19th century, when it was created to "unify all scientific fields across the United States" and "rais[e] further resources for scientific inquiry." The group later shifted its focus in the decades that followed from solely pursuing research funding to "general policy lobbying."
During this step into activism, the AAAS "began to tilt towards socialism and the Soviet Union" in the late 1930s, according to CRC. The nonprofit watchdog noted the left-wing science group's annual president at the time, Walter Bradford Cannon, "expressed his sympathies for socialism as a model of the scientific economy and society of the future, a position many of his fellow 'science-activists' in the AAAS shared."
The AAAS has carried its partisan agenda forward by increasing its involvement in left-wing "'science-activism,' ideological activism performed in the guise of promoting science." The group was notably involved in the 2017 "March for Science" that protested the first Trump administration's pro-energy policies.
* * *
Daily Signal-- Taxpayer Dollars Backed Parts of Coalition Suing Over Trump Immigration Enforcement
The nature of the statute makes it different from many of the politically oriented lawsuits that have amassed from groups on the left since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, said Robert Stilson, senior research analyst at the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank.
"The Federal Tort Claims Act is for individuals wronged by government employees, and it could be legitimate complaints," Stilson told the Daily Signal. "I wouldn't call it lawfare. On the other hand, Unidos is clearly politicized. Democracy Forward is clearly politicized."
UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, has received tens of millions in funding through government grants. The UnidosUS website contends that federal immigration enforcement itself is rooted in structural racism.
"Immigration laws in this country are often designed to keep Latino immigrants out, or when allowed, treated as disposable, marginalized, and often illegal," the website says.
A UnidosUS spokesperson said public funding should not deter litigation.
"Receiving public funding does not limit an organization's ability to support accountability under the law," the UnidosUS spokesperson told the Daily Signal. "Across the ideological spectrum, organizations have long relied on the courts to ensure government actions comply with the law and the Constitution. Congress established the Federal Tort Claims Act to provide a remedy when individuals are harmed by the wrongful acts of federal employees, and ensuring communities can access these legal protections is central to our mission."
In 2023, the group received $11.2 million from taxpayers, or about 20% of its budget, according to the Capital Research Center. From 2008 to 2017, the federal government provided about $38 million to UnidosUS. The group received no grants from 2018 through 2020 during the first Trump administration. But during the Biden administration, the organization received $35.9 million in federal grants from 2021 through 2023.
"Unidos is a good illustration of sending significant federal grant money to recipients with openly political agendas," Stilson said. "It's sending taxpayers' money to groups representing one side of the political spectrum."
* * *
Washington Examiner--Antifa leaders panic after DOJ pursues conspiracy charges against Minnesota operatives
Some extremism researchers expect the conspiracy case to expose antifa as a real and organized threat, debunking the myth that antifa is merely an idea.
Capital Research Center president Scott Walter said the investigation's findings will "blow up the ridiculous lie that antifa doesn't exist."
"Antifa does exist but in a decentralized way," Walter said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "And it works very hard to maintain what its soldiers call 'operational security,' so that their enemies can't figure out what they're doing, who they are, and where they are."
Walter noted that antifa activists are particularly alarmed about the FBI infiltrating the Minneapolis cell's Signal group chats, as many other antifa groups rely on the supposedly secure messaging platform to plan criminal activities.
"The feds have penetrated into the encrypted messaging of these underground networks, and they're terrified because that is where the evidence is of their crimes," Walter said. "To prove a conspiracy, you have to prove these people were planning crimes and then carried out those crimes."
* * *
TownHall--Americans Should Welcome Legitimate Investigations Into Alleged Voter Registration Fraud (Opinion essay from Capital Research Center president Scott Walter.)
Confidence in our elections is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It is an American issue.
That's why Americans should welcome news that the FBI is reportedly investigating allegations of voter registration fraud involving the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. According to multiple reports, federal agents executed search warrants and seized documents and electronic records as part of a fraud-related investigation. Importantly, the existence of an investigation does not establish guilt, and no conclusions should be drawn until all the facts are known and due process has run its course.
* * *
Daily Wire--Fake MAGA? Anti-AI Group's Conservative Branding Crumbles: The populist packaging is familiar. The contents are something else entirely.
Another senior figure heading the group's Left-leaning outreach worked to turn out voters for Kamala Harris' presidential bid. Humans First has acknowledged the mixed composition, describing itself as nonpartisan -- a significant walk-back from its "America First AI policy" positioning.
More telling than its membership, however, is the digital infrastructure undergirding the operation. An oversight on the group's own website -- an uncensored privacy policy -- exposed its use of Action Network, a platform that markets itself explicitly as a tool for building "progressive" political power, as pointed out by Capital Research Center investigator Parker Thayer.
* * *
Santa Inez Valley News--Judge hands Newsom regulators $100M defeat in fintech lending fight | Guest Commentary
Early this year, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a prominent left-of-center consumer advocacy organization, released a 12-page report targeting OppFi by name.
Much of CRL's funding has come from Herb and Marion Sandler, whose lending practices got them labeled among the "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis" by Time magazine. Critics of the group have long alleged its creation was an effort to distract from the Sandlers' role in predatory lending and focus attention on financial services companies that offer competitor services to a credit union, Self-Help, also associated with the group.
But the Capital Research Center (CRC) -- a right-of-center watchdog group -- has called CRL "irresponsible" and "intimately tied to some of the worst actors in the lending business." CRC adds that CRL's "advocacy has too often hurt, not helped, the very people it claims to defend."
* * *
Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/crc-news-capital-research-media-appearances-for-june-2026/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
CRC News: Capital Research media appearances for June 2026
The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research Center.
-
The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following news on July 10, 2026: * * * CRC News: Capital Research media appearances for June 2026 The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital Research Center. - The Soros empire will be spending at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterms. A New York Post report on that development is but one of many news stories in June that cited the work of the Capital ResearchCenter.
* * *
New York Post-- George Soros and son Alex have funneled staggering $103M into midterms so far, on track to shatter spending record
In previous election cycles, the Open Society Action Fund's cash flowed to groups backing lefty stars like "Squad" Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and embattled pal Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), but its tax filings for 2025 aren't yet available.
Control of the dark money Democracy PAC where the bulk of the family's money went changed before the 2024 presidential election, with the elder Soros handing over the reins of his empire to his "more political" son Alex Soros, the fourth of five children.
"He wants to be more political than his dad, this is the first midterm cycle where he is in control," Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, told The Post.
"George is not in control, he hasn't been in control in some time."
[. . .]
George Soros, who President Trump singled out in September when he ordered the FBI to crack down on "left-wing terrorism," has been the driving force behind extremist campaigns in the United States and abroad.
He pumped more than $15 million into pro-Hamas organizations behind campus protests, funded groups supplying last month's violent anti-ICE protestors at Delaney Hall with military gear and spent more than $7 million pushing for a litany of soft on crime bills that could spring Gotham's worst killers like notorious "Son of Sam."
"The Soros family is angrier than ever at American politics," said Thayer. "They would prefer to remake America into something entirely different."
* * *
CBS News-- Ohio voting rights group facing criminal fraud investigation, sources say
The Ohio Organizing Collaborative over the years has received donations from progressive groups such as New Venture Fund and the Tides Foundation, according to tax records filed with the IRS. Both of those groups have received scrutiny in the past from Republicans over financial mismanagement allegations.
In 2017, a paid canvasser for Ohio Organizing Collaborative pleaded guilty for involvement in a fraudulent voter registration scheme.
Another donor to the group has been the Voter Registration Project, tax records show. That group was previously accused by the conservative-leaning Capital Research Center of violating its nonprofit status by leading an effort to register millions of voters who helped Joe Biden win in 2020.
* * *
Inside Philanthropy-- A Chat with Joe Sciortino of the Schmidt Family Foundation
[IP:] Some major donors -- such as Bezos, Zuckerberg and Gates, to varying degrees - have backed away from climate. Others have been really quiet. By contrast, Wendy Schmidt's been more vocal. She certainly is still working on climate and DEI (which the foundation calls IDEA). Why has Schmidt been so vocal? And why does the institution, and Wendy, feel able to be vocal?
[Joe Sciortino:] She talks a lot about how important it is to make sure we restore science to its proper place in society and make it a priority. That's a firm conviction, and it informs a lot of what the foundation does. She feels on very solid ground to talk about climate change from a scientific perspective, and that's neither political nor sensational nor radical. These are facts we all need to contend with.
Like I said earlier, we're not switching strategies, we're not retracting grantmaking. We feel like it's very important that we still stay the course on this. I can't really speak to the way other funders or other climate funders aren't doing as much, or if they aren't doing as much. I haven't been in those conversations.
[IP:] Has the foundation faced any blowback, whether from the Trump administration, conservative activists or others?
[JS:] No. We've been, like many, named [by the Capital Research Center]. Other than that, nothing.
* * *
The Federalist-- America250 Run Like A 'Slush Fund' For Democrat Consulting Firms During Biden Years
America250 for a time was a "congressionally controlled group paying large sums to consulting firms that also happen to do work for multiple members of Congress on the Democrat side" and appeared to be "a slush fund for very powerful Democrat consulting firms," Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center, told The Federalist.
"It seems as if they went and found the two communication firms that are best at selling anti-American messages to run the American campaign," he continued, adding it would be like hiring Democrat funding platform ActBlue to do the job. "They can't be faulted for saying that they're not good at doing consulting -- they are -- they have led some very successful left-wing campaigns over the years, but not anything that really screams 'I love America.'"
* * *
Philanthropy Daily--Thy Banners Make Tyranny Tremble: A Dozen-Plus Stimulants, Gathered for Your Edification and Inspiration
At Capital Research Center, Ken Braun tracks NGO hatred of nuclear energy. From the report:
In spite of this, and despite years of lavish subsidies for wind and solar electricity, nuclear power remains America's single largest emissions-free electricity source, generating more annual kilowatts than wind and solar combined. If the will were there to increase America's production of CO2-free power generation, then there is no better option than building a lot of nuclear reactors. The United States clearly has the ability and wealth to match and eclipse the Chinese nuclear program. Like the French, we could generate at least 70 percent of our electricity from nuclear power, or even more.
The anti-energy NGOs, all of them gravely concerned about the impact of CO2 emissions, are a major reason this is not happening. They also deserve blame for America's abandonment of its nuclear energy leadership over the last half century. The Sierra Club is "unequivocally opposed" to nuclear power and claims it is "uniquely dangerous." Over the last decade hundreds of other American NGOs have made similar statements, engaged in legal actions opposing nuclear power, or otherwise tried to impede it. The combined annual revenue of this anti-nuclear, anti-energy movement now exceeds $3.4 billion.
That means these enemies of American energy, and nuclear power in particular, are collecting an average of $9.3 million per day.
Their claims do not match reality.
* * *
CBN News (video)--Dark Money Fueling Riots: Treasury Cracks Down on Billionaire Funding
The U.S. Treasury Department is moving aggressively to cut off the flow of funds to ANTIFA and other radical groups behind violent anti-ICE clashes, such as the chaos at Delaney Hall in New Jersey. Who is really bankrolling these violent demonstrations--and what will it take to stop them from undermining American democracy?
Capital Research Center President Scott Walter, author of Arabella: The Dark Money Network of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America, calls Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's push for greater transparency in nonprofit grants a strong first step. But Walter warns more is urgently needed--especially full disclosure of foreign money pouring into U.S. nonprofits. "Left, right, or center, Americans agree: we cannot allow foreign interests or shadowy donors to fuel street violence and manipulate our politics."
* * *
The Federalist-- ActBlue Refuses To Answer Congress's Questions About Its Foreign Donation Pipeline: Foreign actors should have no influence on our elections. House officials shouldn't step on the brakes until they get answers. (An opinion essay from Parker Thayer of the Capital Research Center.)
Since its founding in 2004, ActBlue has raised nearly $19 billion for Democrat candidates and left-wing groups. That success has made the organization one of the most influential fundraising platforms in American politics. But with that influence comes an obligation to maintain rigorous safeguards and transparency. Unfortunately, ActBlue falls flat on both of those fronts.
For starters, the organization claims it does not allow donations from undisclosed sources, particularly foreign groups. Yet an internal investigation from The New York Times found that for years, ActBlue failed to adequately vet certain contributions from abroad, even when donor identities could not be fully verified.
* * *
National Legal and Policy Center--Will the $300 Million Soros Pledge Subsidize Terrorism?
A report released last September by the Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center (CRC) concluded that the Open Society Foundations during 2016-23 gave more than $80 million to groups "tied to terrorism or extremist violence." Co-authored by CRC Senior Fellow Ryan Mauro and writer-editor Scott Walter, the study cited seven groups that were awarded a combined more than $23 million "that directly assist domestic terrorism and criminality" in the U.S, including engaging in or providing material support to "violence, property destruction, economic sabotage, harassment" and other crimes meeting the definition of terrorism. Another more than $50 million went to grantees that endorse terrorist organizations or have cultivated links to them. And yet another $9 million-plus went to groups that, though not openly supportive of terrorists, have materially aided allied front groups and individuals.
This includes the Center for Third World Organizing, which the Capital Research Center indicates as having received $400,000 in general support from OSF. The CTWO specializes in "direct action" (i.e., violent confrontation) and boasts, "We trained thousands, supported over 100 organizations," during the "uprisings" of 2020-21. Its "training," conducted with help from anarcho-communist groups such as the Ruckus Society and the BlackOUT Collective, consisted of teaching the finer points of sabotage and vandalism. On a far larger scale, the Soros network provided the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of well over 100 black-led organizations, including Black Lives Matter, with a whopping $18 million in 2021 through a pair of fiscal sponsors, the Common Counsel Foundation ($15 million) and NEO Philanthropy, Inc. ($3 million). Another recipient was a 501(c)(4) group, the Sunrise Movement, which received at least $2 million from the Soros network. Sunrise activists used much of that money to partner with Antifa in the Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest Coalition, a campaign, as the CRC noted, "in which activists currently face over 40 domestic terrorism charges and 60 racketeering indictments." The Sunrise Movement received a combined $750,000 in 2020 from Democracy PAC (at the time headed by George Soros) and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4), Soros-supported dark money group.
* * *
truthout-- Is Affordability a Climate Issue? Philadelphia Hunger Strikers Said Yes: A recent hunger strike in Philadelphia demonstrated the expanding scope of environmental justice organizing.
In New York, Sunrise Movement activists confronted Sen. Chuck Schumer over his links to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "AIPAC has corrupted our democracy and bought off our politicians," the Sunrise Movement wrote in a post, "and working people are paying the price." In Los Angeles, Sunrise Movement members participated in a mass direct action to protest Home Depot's collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of the Boycott Home Depot Coalition. Last year, the group formally expanded its mandate to include combatting authoritarianism. At the same time, Sunrise was labeled a "pro-terror group" by the far right Capital Research Center.
***
The Federalist-- Meet The Left-Wing Organization Influencing Federal Judges On Science Litigation: A Federalist inquiry into the Federal Judicial Center uncovered the influence of a left-wing advocacy group in a manual advising judges.
A new inquiry into the FJC unearthed that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) -- a left-wing advocacy group masquerading as an objective science organization -- influenced the FJC's aforementioned science manual. In line with The Federalist's prior reporting, this investigation also uncovered that several of the AAAS fellows who worked on the manual have a history of supporting left-wing ideology.
[. . .]
According to the Capital Research Center (CRC), the AAAS's origins can be traced back to the mid-19th century, when it was created to "unify all scientific fields across the United States" and "rais[e] further resources for scientific inquiry." The group later shifted its focus in the decades that followed from solely pursuing research funding to "general policy lobbying."
During this step into activism, the AAAS "began to tilt towards socialism and the Soviet Union" in the late 1930s, according to CRC. The nonprofit watchdog noted the left-wing science group's annual president at the time, Walter Bradford Cannon, "expressed his sympathies for socialism as a model of the scientific economy and society of the future, a position many of his fellow 'science-activists' in the AAAS shared."
The AAAS has carried its partisan agenda forward by increasing its involvement in left-wing "'science-activism,' ideological activism performed in the guise of promoting science." The group was notably involved in the 2017 "March for Science" that protested the first Trump administration's pro-energy policies.
* * *
Daily Signal-- Taxpayer Dollars Backed Parts of Coalition Suing Over Trump Immigration Enforcement
The nature of the statute makes it different from many of the politically oriented lawsuits that have amassed from groups on the left since President Donald Trump returned to office last year, said Robert Stilson, senior research analyst at the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank.
"The Federal Tort Claims Act is for individuals wronged by government employees, and it could be legitimate complaints," Stilson told the Daily Signal. "I wouldn't call it lawfare. On the other hand, Unidos is clearly politicized. Democracy Forward is clearly politicized."
UnidosUS, formerly known as the National Council of La Raza, has received tens of millions in funding through government grants. The UnidosUS website contends that federal immigration enforcement itself is rooted in structural racism.
"Immigration laws in this country are often designed to keep Latino immigrants out, or when allowed, treated as disposable, marginalized, and often illegal," the website says.
A UnidosUS spokesperson said public funding should not deter litigation.
"Receiving public funding does not limit an organization's ability to support accountability under the law," the UnidosUS spokesperson told the Daily Signal. "Across the ideological spectrum, organizations have long relied on the courts to ensure government actions comply with the law and the Constitution. Congress established the Federal Tort Claims Act to provide a remedy when individuals are harmed by the wrongful acts of federal employees, and ensuring communities can access these legal protections is central to our mission."
In 2023, the group received $11.2 million from taxpayers, or about 20% of its budget, according to the Capital Research Center. From 2008 to 2017, the federal government provided about $38 million to UnidosUS. The group received no grants from 2018 through 2020 during the first Trump administration. But during the Biden administration, the organization received $35.9 million in federal grants from 2021 through 2023.
"Unidos is a good illustration of sending significant federal grant money to recipients with openly political agendas," Stilson said. "It's sending taxpayers' money to groups representing one side of the political spectrum."
* * *
Washington Examiner--Antifa leaders panic after DOJ pursues conspiracy charges against Minnesota operatives
Some extremism researchers expect the conspiracy case to expose antifa as a real and organized threat, debunking the myth that antifa is merely an idea.
Capital Research Center president Scott Walter said the investigation's findings will "blow up the ridiculous lie that antifa doesn't exist."
"Antifa does exist but in a decentralized way," Walter said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "And it works very hard to maintain what its soldiers call 'operational security,' so that their enemies can't figure out what they're doing, who they are, and where they are."
Walter noted that antifa activists are particularly alarmed about the FBI infiltrating the Minneapolis cell's Signal group chats, as many other antifa groups rely on the supposedly secure messaging platform to plan criminal activities.
"The feds have penetrated into the encrypted messaging of these underground networks, and they're terrified because that is where the evidence is of their crimes," Walter said. "To prove a conspiracy, you have to prove these people were planning crimes and then carried out those crimes."
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TownHall--Americans Should Welcome Legitimate Investigations Into Alleged Voter Registration Fraud (Opinion essay from Capital Research Center president Scott Walter.)
Confidence in our elections is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It is an American issue.
That's why Americans should welcome news that the FBI is reportedly investigating allegations of voter registration fraud involving the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. According to multiple reports, federal agents executed search warrants and seized documents and electronic records as part of a fraud-related investigation. Importantly, the existence of an investigation does not establish guilt, and no conclusions should be drawn until all the facts are known and due process has run its course.
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Daily Wire--Fake MAGA? Anti-AI Group's Conservative Branding Crumbles: The populist packaging is familiar. The contents are something else entirely.
Another senior figure heading the group's Left-leaning outreach worked to turn out voters for Kamala Harris' presidential bid. Humans First has acknowledged the mixed composition, describing itself as nonpartisan -- a significant walk-back from its "America First AI policy" positioning.
More telling than its membership, however, is the digital infrastructure undergirding the operation. An oversight on the group's own website -- an uncensored privacy policy -- exposed its use of Action Network, a platform that markets itself explicitly as a tool for building "progressive" political power, as pointed out by Capital Research Center investigator Parker Thayer.
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Santa Inez Valley News--Judge hands Newsom regulators $100M defeat in fintech lending fight | Guest Commentary
Early this year, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a prominent left-of-center consumer advocacy organization, released a 12-page report targeting OppFi by name.
Much of CRL's funding has come from Herb and Marion Sandler, whose lending practices got them labeled among the "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis" by Time magazine. Critics of the group have long alleged its creation was an effort to distract from the Sandlers' role in predatory lending and focus attention on financial services companies that offer competitor services to a credit union, Self-Help, also associated with the group.
But the Capital Research Center (CRC) -- a right-of-center watchdog group -- has called CRL "irresponsible" and "intimately tied to some of the worst actors in the lending business." CRC adds that CRL's "advocacy has too often hurt, not helped, the very people it claims to defend."
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/crc-news-capital-research-media-appearances-for-june-2026/
[Category: ThinkTank]
AFPI Releases New Report on Protecting Children From AI Chatbots
WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on July 9, 2026:
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AFPI Releases New Report on Protecting Children from AI Chatbots
Today, the America First Policy Institute released a new expert insight, "Child Safety Through Parental Authority: An AI Policy Framework."
Recent reports show that more than 60 percent of children use AI regularly. This increased AI and chatbot usage by minors has exposed major safety concerns, and large AI companies such as Character.AI, Meta, Google, and ChatGPT are facing lawsuits from parents whose children have ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on July 9, 2026: * * * AFPI Releases New Report on Protecting Children from AI Chatbots Today, the America First Policy Institute released a new expert insight, "Child Safety Through Parental Authority: An AI Policy Framework." Recent reports show that more than 60 percent of children use AI regularly. This increased AI and chatbot usage by minors has exposed major safety concerns, and large AI companies such as Character.AI, Meta, Google, and ChatGPT are facing lawsuits from parents whose children havecommitted suicide after interacting with their platforms.
AFPI argues that as artificial intelligence advances, Congress should require that AI companies establish custodial accounts and that they publish recurring child safety disclosures that give parents greater visibility into their children's AI usage.
AFPI's policy recommendations to Congress include:
* Requiring AI companies to publish regular child safety disclosures
* Requiring AI companies to establish custodial accounts for use by minors, tying them into existing age verification infrastructure
* Ensuring parents can access their child's conversation history with chatbots, especially in the event of their death
* Protecting child safety whistleblowers in the AI industry
The evidence presented in AFPI's report proves that voluntary self-regulation by AI companies has not produced adequate child safety protections. Parents must be given the tools to protect their children from exploitation, addiction, and even death. The proposed framework does just that--it puts parents, not companies or bureaucrats, in control of what their children can access while engaging with AI platforms.
Read AFPI's full brief here (https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/child-safety-through-parental-authority-an-ai-policy-framework).
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-releases-new-report-on-protecting-children-from-ai-chatbots
[Category: ThinkTank]
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AFPI Releases New Report on Protecting Children from AI Chatbots
Today, the America First Policy Institute released a new expert insight, "Child Safety Through Parental Authority: An AI Policy Framework."
Recent reports show that more than 60 percent of children use AI regularly. This increased AI and chatbot usage by minors has exposed major safety concerns, and large AI companies such as Character.AI, Meta, Google, and ChatGPT are facing lawsuits from parents whose children have ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on July 9, 2026: * * * AFPI Releases New Report on Protecting Children from AI Chatbots Today, the America First Policy Institute released a new expert insight, "Child Safety Through Parental Authority: An AI Policy Framework." Recent reports show that more than 60 percent of children use AI regularly. This increased AI and chatbot usage by minors has exposed major safety concerns, and large AI companies such as Character.AI, Meta, Google, and ChatGPT are facing lawsuits from parents whose children havecommitted suicide after interacting with their platforms.
AFPI argues that as artificial intelligence advances, Congress should require that AI companies establish custodial accounts and that they publish recurring child safety disclosures that give parents greater visibility into their children's AI usage.
AFPI's policy recommendations to Congress include:
* Requiring AI companies to publish regular child safety disclosures
* Requiring AI companies to establish custodial accounts for use by minors, tying them into existing age verification infrastructure
* Ensuring parents can access their child's conversation history with chatbots, especially in the event of their death
* Protecting child safety whistleblowers in the AI industry
The evidence presented in AFPI's report proves that voluntary self-regulation by AI companies has not produced adequate child safety protections. Parents must be given the tools to protect their children from exploitation, addiction, and even death. The proposed framework does just that--it puts parents, not companies or bureaucrats, in control of what their children can access while engaging with AI platforms.
Read AFPI's full brief here (https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/child-safety-through-parental-authority-an-ai-policy-framework).
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-releases-new-report-on-protecting-children-from-ai-chatbots
[Category: ThinkTank]
AFPI Applauds USDA's New SPUR Program for Ranchers
WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on July 9, 2026:
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AFPI Applauds USDA's New SPUR Program for Ranchers
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's newly announced "Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers (SPUR)" program and increased funding for small and mid-size beef processors.
The SPUR program will establish necessary support to help rebuild American processing capacity, drive food security, and deliver real support for producer families in ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on July 9, 2026: * * * AFPI Applauds USDA's New SPUR Program for Ranchers The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's newly announced "Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers (SPUR)" program and increased funding for small and mid-size beef processors. The SPUR program will establish necessary support to help rebuild American processing capacity, drive food security, and deliver real support for producer families inthe beef industry.
"American ranchers should not have to depend on foreign countries or meat-packing giants to get their products to market," said Christie Mullin, chair of Rural Policy at AFPI. "But because of the large-scale consolidation of the beef processing market over the past few decades, they often don't have other options. The USDA's new program is necessary to promote competition, expand options, provide certainty for producers to build their businesses on, and most importantly, allow families to continue supplying their neighbors with quality, American beef."
With additional financial support, small and mid-sized processors will be able to survive today's historically tight cattle herd numbers and increase competition in the processing market that will benefit the industry as a whole.
This program will produce greater market access for ranchers, stronger American-owned processors, and a more secure U.S. beef supply.
To learn more about AFPI's Farmers First Agenda, click here (https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/agriculture/farmers-first).
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-applauds-usdas-new-spur-program-for-ranchers
[Category: ThinkTank]
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AFPI Applauds USDA's New SPUR Program for Ranchers
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's newly announced "Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers (SPUR)" program and increased funding for small and mid-size beef processors.
The SPUR program will establish necessary support to help rebuild American processing capacity, drive food security, and deliver real support for producer families in ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 11 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following statement on July 9, 2026: * * * AFPI Applauds USDA's New SPUR Program for Ranchers The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's newly announced "Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers (SPUR)" program and increased funding for small and mid-size beef processors. The SPUR program will establish necessary support to help rebuild American processing capacity, drive food security, and deliver real support for producer families inthe beef industry.
"American ranchers should not have to depend on foreign countries or meat-packing giants to get their products to market," said Christie Mullin, chair of Rural Policy at AFPI. "But because of the large-scale consolidation of the beef processing market over the past few decades, they often don't have other options. The USDA's new program is necessary to promote competition, expand options, provide certainty for producers to build their businesses on, and most importantly, allow families to continue supplying their neighbors with quality, American beef."
With additional financial support, small and mid-sized processors will be able to survive today's historically tight cattle herd numbers and increase competition in the processing market that will benefit the industry as a whole.
This program will produce greater market access for ranchers, stronger American-owned processors, and a more secure U.S. beef supply.
To learn more about AFPI's Farmers First Agenda, click here (https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/agriculture/farmers-first).
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-applauds-usdas-new-spur-program-for-ranchers
[Category: ThinkTank]