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After Democrats’ victories in this week’s elections, Washington is debating whether to pass an energy deal now or wait for the new Congress. Both parties should understand something as they weigh that choice: many of us in the Make America Healthy Again movement want President Trump to stop funding polluters and blocking renewable energy.
The administration’s push to expand coal while holding up cleaner power calls for soul-searching within MAHA. We asked for a government that would take children’s health seriously. We have a responsibility to speak up when its policies undermine that promise.
For more than a decade, Moms Across America has challenged pesticides, heavy metals, and other contaminants in food. Increasingly, that work has brought us to the energy industry as a source of the contamination. Burning coal releases mercury that can accumulate in fish and harm a child’s developing brain. Fine-particle pollution aggravates asthma and contributes to heart and lung disease. Coal ash can contain arsenic, mercury and cadmium that contaminate groundwater when disposal sites leak.
It is no surprise that what comes out of a power plant can end up in the water that irrigates a farm, the fish on a dinner plate, and the air a child breathes. What most do not know is that the USDA allows “fly ash” (coal ash) as a fertilizer additive, permitting high levels of heavy metals to be absorbed by our food crops and in our food. Following our mission means following those connections, from industry waste to our dinner plate.
A family can read every ingredient label and still have little control over pollution from a nearby power plant.
In August, nearly 200 MAHA activists and leaders joined a letter asking President Trump to reconsider using heavy-polluting coal to power artificial intelligence. American leadership in technology shouldn’t require our children to carry a greater burden of pollution.
Yet the administration has refused to classify coal ash as a hazardous waste (and require proper storage and clean up) or even as waste. Coal ash is considered a product to sell and use in our homes as drywall, our schools in cinder blocks, and as an amendment to fertilizer in our food crops. Trump has further ordered coal plants to stay available past planned retirement dates and rolled back tighter mercury and air-toxics standards, while putting new obstacles in the way of wind and solar. Blocking cleaner alternatives prolongs our dependence on coal.
Sunlight is God’s most abundant gift. We can use it to generate electricity without burning fuel or leaving coal ash behind. Batteries and geothermal offer further possibilities. Every project deserves scrutiny, and farmers and their neighbors deserve a real say in what gets built.
There’s serious support for these options on the right. A survey released in February by Kellyanne Conway’s firm found that three in four Trump voters across five red states agreed solar should strengthen America’s energy supply. Conservative energy coalitions are also calling for reforms that let new projects get built.
Federal projections released in February put solar, wind and batteries at 93% of the new utility-scale power capacity planned for 2026. Those projects need grid connections and transmission lines to serve families. Upgrading existing lines can also carry more power with less additional land disturbance.
For me, this is about children's health impacts. A 2024 Energy Department study estimated that expanded transmission could avoid 4,500 to 6,800 premature deaths through 2050 by reducing air pollution. That’s a powerful reason to get cleaner electricity moving.
These priorities are part of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which senators are considering in the days ahead. It would help build transmission, connect new power sources and speed geothermal development while limiting Trump’s political interference with clean energy projects. The bill also would require large data centers to pay the full transmission costs of serving them, including the network expansion they require. I agree that families shouldn’t have to subsidize the infrastructure of the world’s wealthiest technology companies. I do agree that families should have access to a local clean source of energy.
This bill isn’t perfect. I have concerns about provisions related to clean water and public lands. However, I want to see an end to political obstruction of renewable energy, build needed transmission lines and bring cleaner, (not polluting) power to American families.
If it does pass, my allies and I will work in the new Congress and NGOS to strengthen the Clean Water Act provisions and restore states’ authority to address runoff, erosion and threats to drinking water. The conventional wisdom that right-of-center voters don’t care about clean air and clean water overlooks the families who’ve built MAHA. Republican lawmakers need our support, and they should earn it by delivering on the promise of healthier children. We’ll be asking them to help lead this work.
We hope Democrats will recognize the opportunity to work with us. MAHA includes people ready to cross party lines for children’s health. Caring for God’s creation means caring for the water our children drink and the land that grows their food.
Congress should act quickly, and the administration should release stalled projects now. Families are already paying for delay through high bills and continued exposure to pollution.
Poison is not partisan. The work of getting it out of our children’s lives should bring us together.
Zen Honeycutt is the founding executive director of Moms Across America.