In 2026 the coin of the realm is affordability. This at a time when most of us are feeling, in varying degrees, the pinch at the pump, receipt-rise shock at food markets, wallet-eating energy bills, voracious pharmaceutical costs, and sickeningly high healthcare insurance.
All of the above have one thing in common: dependence on transportation, which in turn is now dependent on a dangerously unstable commodity. Fossil fuels. Thanks to the feckless war with Iran, Iran has a strategic grip on the oil transport hub, and it could demand tolls on oil cargo.
Known sources of environmental pollution (which leads to costly health and safety problems, not to mention increasingly severe and expensive natural disasters), fossil fuels are slowly being replaced by sustainable energy sources. Solar, wind, and geothermal are becoming the energy of choice in not only Europe but also Asia, including China, which in 2025 had three times as much wind power capacity as other countries combined.
A smart plan for the U.S. would be to transition away from fossil fuels with their volatile price tags, no? Add to that the rewards of clean air, water, and land.
Tragically, the federal government is paying almost $2 billion taxpayer dollars to wind power companies to forgo installing turbines on both coasts and has illegally stopped turbine projects on private land on the grounds that they’d pose a national security problem, even though the courts ruled against the regime’s doing this because its argument wasn’t empirically accurate.
I’m hoping that those with thinning wallets will urge our U.S. Congresspeople and the White House (1-202-456-1111) to opt for sustainable energy, so we can breathe clean air again when we sigh with relief that affordability is being addressed. And I’m compelled to mention that our Town Hall has started to address the lack of affordable homes in town, but that’s another LTE.
— Sharon Wirt,
President, Southbury Affordable Housing Alliance
The Southbury Record 