Permitting reform has swiftly risen to the forefront in Washington as a pressing national security priority. The United States is grappling with the dual challenges of escalating energy demand and mounting global competition, particularly from China. Despite the critical role of our nation’s energy infrastructure, the U.S. is ensnared in a permitting process that can prolong vital projects by several years—or even decades. SAFE’s Center for Grid Security underscores that overhauling the procedures for approving and constructing energy infrastructure is not just a matter of efficiency—it is a matter of national urgency in the face of escalating global power competition.
Most Department of Defense (DoD) installations rely on the civilian power grid, but the growing strain on our power system is increasingly impacting installations and essential military operations, intensifying the consequences for our national defense. Military installations depend on the grid for command centers, communication networks, and intelligence gathering to maintain operational readiness. The Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (EPRA), currently under consideration in the Senate, would significantly expedite critical upgrades, ultimately ensuring that installations are equipped to handle potential disruptions.
The transition to a GOP-controlled Congress in January will likely challenge the passage of EPRA as Republicans may well decide to wait, with a blank slate in the new Congress. However, given the urgency of the situation, policymakers should move now to begin the essential work of building the grid our military and economy deserve. As SAFE CEO Robbie Diamond has articulated, “America must be prepared for a surge in power demand as the incoming administration accelerates our reindustrialization. Delaying these needed reforms, even by a few months, will hold us back—let’s pass EPRA now to lay the foundation for growth and implement further reforms as needed.” This pragmatic strategy balances the urgency of reform with a phased approach, ensuring progress while laying the groundwork for broader changes.
The vulnerabilities within the power grid extend beyond national security and have significant implications for economic competitiveness. High-tech and defense-critical industries, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor manufacturing, rely on abundant and affordable energy from a secure and resilient grid. Without reform, there is a real risk of losing these vital industries to competitors with more dependable infrastructure. EPRA aims to streamline permitting processes for projects that enhance grid resilience, positioning the U.S. as a leader in technological advancement and promoting the on-shoring of defense-critical supply chains.
Furthermore, the current system incurs hidden costs for the DoD, which is compelled to allocate resources to backup power solutions, such as diesel generators or microgrids, in case of grid failures—resources that could otherwise be directed toward frontline defense efforts. While microgrids have the potential to provide cost savings to the DoD compared to the continued use of diesel generators, they still represent a cost burden on the defense budget.
Severe weather events further underscore the vulnerabilities inherent in the power grid. Protracted outages can disrupt mission-critical operations at military installations and adversely affect the economy, leading to billions of dollars in lost productivity. The National Guard has increasingly been engaged in addressing these grid-related emergencies, stretching its resources and impeding its focus on critical missions such as disaster response and homeland defense. EPRA would prioritize projects designed to establish a more resilient and interconnected grid, thereby mitigating risks and bolstering security for both military and civilian infrastructure.
In comparison to our near-peer competitors, China’s energy policy is characterized by a strong emphasis on national interests and swift action. China views robust energy infrastructure as a critical necessity that demands immediate attention and implementation. So should we!
For the incoming administration, prioritizing permitting reform for both transmission and domestic critical mineral development is essential for safeguarding America’s future. Energy infrastructure reform transcends reducing bureaucratic delays; it is an essential component in reinforcing national security, enhancing economic resilience, and maintaining global leadership. In an era characterized by Great Power Competition, ensuring a secure and resilient grid is fundamental to preserving the U.S.’ status as a global leader.
Admiral Michelle Howard, 38th Vice Chief of Naval Operations; Commander, US Naval Forces Europe, US Naval Forces Africa, and Allied Joint Force Command Naples (Ret.), and Paul Segal, CEO of LS Power, are the co-chairs of the SAFE Center for Grid Security […]
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
