- Gov. Spencer Cox leads Western Governors Association's "Energy Superabundance" campaign to overhaul regulations.
- The initiative aims to meet rising energy demands with bipartisan support and innovation.
- Cox's plan includes nuclear collaborations, addressing federal hurdles, and boosting America's energy grid.
SANTA FE, N.M. — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced on Tuesday that his initiative as chairman of the Western Governors Association will be to push to overhaul federal regulations that are obstacles to energy production.
The yearlong "Energy Superabundance" campaign will leverage the influence of the bipartisan gubernatorial organization to explore technological innovations, develop policy proposals and lobby congressional members to meet the immense demands that will be placed on the power grid by artificial intelligence.
"Our new focus on energy is bold — and urgently needed," Cox said. "It's been nearly 50 years since we've had this kind of moment: rising demand, available capital, and the political will to build. And that's exactly what we intend to do."
Cox was the final keynote speaker at the Western Governors Association 2025 conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he joined governors from Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico and Wyoming to discuss immigration reform, public land management and energy production.
On Tuesday, Cox took the reins from New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who focused on how to increase the supply of affordable housing during her tenure as Western Governors Association chairwoman.
Cox now has a larger platform to promote an issue that is already one of his top priorities as governor.
States working together
Over the past year, Cox has built out his "Operation Gigawatt" plan to double Utah's energy production in the next decade. The emphasis has resulted in a collaboration with Idaho and Wyoming on nuclear energy opportunities, a nuclear energy consortium to streamline policy and an $8 million investment in site identification for reactors.
This has been described as the greatest push toward developing nuclear energy capabilities in the country. But the governor's initiative suggests that states can only accomplish so much before they run into a dysfunctional federal permitting process.
To tackle this root problem, Cox told the Deseret News he aims to use his position at the Western Governors Association to rally states to send a message to Washington, D.C., that America needs more energy, and it needs it soon.
"It's the power of states working together regionally that I think makes this really interesting … and that gets us out of this kind of toxic polarization that we're seeing," Cox said. "When you have blue governors working on their delegation and red governors working on their delegation, we could actually get some things accomplished that haven't been accomplished in a long time."
Cox has long pointed the finger at the federal government for hobbling states' ability to develop the energy sources of the future — including nuclear reactors, geothermal plants and other renewables — because of permitting delays, outdated infrastructure and overregulation.
The West's unique role in energy
One focus of the two-day conference was that the West, as Cox said Tuesday, "can lead the United States and really lead the world in something that is so necessary right now; I think it's imperative."
This was also the message of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who highlighted the West's innovation and natural resources, and EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin, who said Cox's initiative aligns with the Trump administration's belief that energy dominance does not have to come at the expense of environmental stewardship.
"We do not believe that we have to choose between the two," Zeldin said in response to a question from the Deseret News.
After attending Cox's closed-door presentation of his initiative to policymakers and industry representatives, South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden said he couldn't think of a better initiative for Western states to unite around.
Rhoden said there was a general feeling from those in the room, whether in the fossil fuels, renewable energy or the public sector, that the imminent energy crisis demands united action from all parties.
"I think it's kind of a perfect scenario to set up a public-private relationship as far as energy users and energy producers in getting past some of the partisan politics, and the national politics will fall in line," Rhoden told the Deseret News.
America's energy future
The changes coming to America's power grid truly are unprecedented. For the first time in decades, the United States is set to experience a dramatic increase in "energy load growth," with annual energy use projected to increase by over 50% before 2035.
Driven by the construction of power-hungry AI data centers, manufacturing growth and electric vehicles, this emerging energy reality has spurred a deep shift in how the country is talking about energy, said Matthew Mailloux, a policy expert at ClearPath, a conservative clean energy advocacy organization.
This is especially true of governors who have the immediate incentive to move projects along to strengthen their states, Mailloux said, but this will require an all-of-the-above approach, relying on new energy innovation, across all sectors of government.
The common hurdle for those attempting to build new energy sources is the challenge of an outdated and inefficient federal bureaucracy that squashes projects with time-consuming regulatory regimes like the National Environmental Policy Act and never-ending legal battles, Mailloux said.
The question, according to Mailloux, is how America can improve environmental outcomes while prioritizing speed and certainty around projects. And it's efforts like Cox's "Energy Superabundance" that will help identify the answers, he said.
"I think Gov. Cox and this initiative can put together the right menu of options for states, for Congress, for the administration, to unlock that abundance agenda, that energy dominance agenda that we hear so much about," Mailloux said. "We need more energy on the grid, and I think that's why we're having the conversation."
Next steps for Cox's initiative include a meeting in September with western governors at the Idaho National Laboratory, the nation's premier nuclear energy research site run by the U.S. Department of Energy.
