Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., pressed the Secret Service on unanswered questions regarding the cocaine discovered in the White House and whether any arrests will be made. 

A powdery substance was found inside the West Wing of the White House by a member of the Secret Service, prompting an evacuation of the building.

The Secret Service confirmed with Fox News Wednesday that the mysterious white powder tested positive for cocaine. Now, Sen. Cotton is demanding answers.

‘According to public records, the Secret Service has not yet confirmed where in the West Wing the cocaine was found. I urge you to release that information quickly, as the American people deserve to know whether illicit drugs were found in an area where confidential information is exchanged,’ Cotton wrote in a letter to the Secret Service Wednesday.

‘If the White House complex is not secure, Congress needs to know the details, as well as your plan to correct any flaws,’ the Republican senator said, demanding a list be provided of every individual who has access to the White House without passing through a security screening.

Cotton also asked how often the Secret Service encounters illegal drugs at the White House, and if they were ever found during security screenings or in the exterior of the building.

The Senator also cited Section 3056A of Title 18, U.S. Code, that allows Secret Services members to make arrests, and asked if any will be made in the event they find out who brought the illegal drug into the White House. 

Cotton, member of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism, gave a deadline of Friday, July 14 for the Secret Service to respond.

President Biden and his son Hunter, a recovering crack cocaine addict, were at Camp David when the drugs were found.

‘On Sunday evening, the White House complex went into a precautionary closure as officers from the Secret Service Uniformed Division investigated an unknown item found inside a work area,’ the U.S. Secret Service told Fox News Digital. ‘The DC Fire Department was called to evaluate and quickly determined the item to be non-hazardous.’

Fox News Patrick Hauf and Mark Meredith contributed to this report.

Former Republican Senate candidate and Afghanistan war veteran Sam Brown is considering a second bid for the U.S. Senate, this time to unseat Nevada’s other vulnerable Democratic senator, Jacky Rosen, a source close to Brown confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday.

Fox also obtained an email invitation Brown sent earlier in the day for a July 10 event in Reno, Nevada, where he will make a ‘special announcement.’

‘These last two years I’ve had the honor of traveling around our state and listening to Nevadans one-on-one. Whether at homes, schools, or businesses, they tell me they are deeply concerned with the direction our country is headed,’ Brown wrote in the invitation.

‘While everyday families are struggling with inflation, failing schools, and public safety concerns, D.C. politicians are completely disconnected from the reality that families live every day. Something has to change!’ he wrote. 

‘Nevadans see the damage caused by failed politicians, who serve special interests instead of listening to you and me. Their message to me has been loud and clear: they want someone to stand up for them and lead,’ he added.

Brown is a retired Army captain and a Purple Heart recipient who sustained serious injuries from an IED explosion during a 2008 deployment in Afghanistan, which left his face severely burned. 

As a first time Senate candidate in 2022, he came in second to former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt in the Republican primary, losing 56% to 34%. Laxalt went on to lose narrowly to incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

Laxalt, a longtime ally of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s steering the Never Back Down super PAC that’s backing the governor’s 2024 presidential bid, has indicated he won’t make another Senate run next year.

Should Brown enter the race, he will be the fourth candidate to enter the Republican field, which includes former state assemblyman Jim Marchant.

The Nevada Senate seat currently held by Rosen is considered a top target for Republicans in 2024, similar to 2022, as the party looks to capitalize on President Biden’s unpopularity across the country. Cortez Masto won re-election with just 49% of the vote and by a margin of less than 8,000 votes.

05 July 2023 – President Biden can’t choose his direct opponent next year. But Mr. Biden and Democrats can certainly manufacture one. 

The Supreme Court is on the ballot in 2024.

Liberals are incensed at the latest spate of Supreme Court opinions. Several of the decisions went against causes important to the left.

The High Court undid the President’s plan to cancel $400 billion in student loans. LBGTQ groups are infuriated that the Court ruled that a Colorado web designer doesn’t have to make sites for same-sex weddings. Finally, the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action requirements in higher education.

Expect Democrats to resort to a page in their playbook which likely helped the party gain a seat in the Senate and nearly cling to control in the House in 2022. The Dobbs opinion on abortion last year emerged as a game changer. It energized progressives and pro-choice Democrats and independents. The ruling infused the polls with a stream of voters, serving as a political life preserver to the party. 

Democrats have a lot more to campaign on in 2024 when it comes to the Supreme Court. Questions about the ethics of Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas abound. U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts declined to take part in a hearing called in the spring by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., about the conduct of the justices. The panel is prepping another clash with the Court as Senate Democrats write a bill about the ethics of justices.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told CNN the justices are ‘destroying the legitimacy of the Court.’ She endorses issuing subpoenas for justices.

‘They are expanding their role into acting as though they are Congress itself. And that, I believe, is an expansion of power that we really must be focusing on the danger of this court and the abuse of power in this Court, particularly as it is related to the entanglements around conflicts of interest as well,’ said Ocasio-Cortez.

This is why left-wing Members hope to expand and potentially ‘pack’ the Court with jurists who may do the bidding of progressives.

‘Expanding the court is constitutional. Congress has done it before and Congress must do it again,’ said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

Markey is right. The composition of the Supreme Court has bounced around for decades. The size of the Court is not established by the Constitution. Congress set the makeup of the Court via statute. Congress would periodically increase or decrease the number of seats on the Court for political reasons.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 created a Supreme Court comprised of six justices. But in 1801, Congress reduced the size of the Court to five justices. That was an effort to undercut President Thomas Jefferson from filling the Supreme Court with one of his nominees. Don’t forget that the House of Representatives elected Jefferson as president in what is known as a ‘contingent election’ following a dispute over the Electoral College. 

Because of the burgeoning size of the federal judiciary, Congress added a seventh justice to help oversee lower courts in 1807. The Court grew to nine justices in 1837.

In 1863, Congress added a 10th seat to the Supreme Court for President Lincoln. This came right after the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision in the late 1850s. There was hope that Lincoln could retool the Court following the Dred Scott case by appointing a jurist aligned with the Union who opposed slavery. However, Lincoln never filled that seat. But after Lincoln’s assassination, there was fear that President Andrew Johnson may alter the court. So in 1866, Congress shrunk the size of the Supreme Court to seven justices. That prevented Johnson from nominating anyone to the Supreme Court as the nation was in the midst of Reconstruction.

Once Johnson was out of office Congress switched the number back to nine for President Ulysses S. Grant. It’s remained at nine ever since. 

But there have been efforts to change the Court’s composition since then.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to ‘pack’ the Court in 1937. He hoped to add justices for every member of the Supreme Court who was over the age of 70.

In a radio ‘Fireside Chat’ on March 9, 1937, FDR squarely challenged the High Court.

‘The Courts, however, have cast doubts on the ability of the elected Congress to protect us against catastrophe by meeting squarely our modern social and economic conditions,’ said Roosevelt.

FDR accused the Supreme Court of an ‘arbitrary exercise of judicial power’ when it came to opinions about banks and railroads. So the president hoped to change the Court by adding more youthful members who might align more closely with his political agenda.

‘There is nothing novel or radical about this idea,’ said FDR, noting that Congress also changed the Court’s membership in 1869. ‘It seeks to restore the Court to its rightful and historic place in our Constitutional government.’

But FDR failed to marshal enough support for the plan with his Fireside Chats. The public opposed the idea and the Senate Judiciary Committee emphatically torpedoed the plan.

It’s doubtful that the Democrats efforts to increase the size of the Supreme Court will go anywhere. It’s unclear that the proposal has anywhere close to 51 votes to pass in the Senate. Commandeering 60 votes to overcome a filibuster is even more daunting.

However, this gives liberals another chance to rail against Senate procedures and call for an end to the filibuster. It energizes the base and helps Democratic candidates raise money. 

That’s why this effort is more about the ballot box in 2024.

‘If you want to motivate American voters, you need to scare them,’ said Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer. 

Bitzer says that Democrats used last year’s abortion opinion ‘as a weapon in the campaign.’ It helped Democrats mitigate losses in the midterms.

Bitzer believes Democrats now have the opportunity to lean on three key voting blocs to help them in 2024. Democrats will lean on younger voters upset about student loans. There are minority voters upset about the Affirmative Action decision. Finally, Democrats will rely on the LBGTQ+ community. 

However, the closing argument could be the composition of the Supreme Court itself. 

‘Democrats will look at the Court and argue there are individuals that should not be on the Court and that they are on the Court and we have to play hardball,’ said Bitzer.

Dial back to February 2016. 

Late Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly. Former President Obama nominated current Attorney General Merrick Garland to fill his seat. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is the Majority Leader at the time. He refuses to grant Garland a hearing. McConnell says the next president should fill that seat. 

So former President Trump prevails in the 2016 presidential election and nominates Justice Neil Gorsuch. McConnell then shepherds Gorsuch’s nomination to confirmation after Democrats threatened a filibuster.

Upset by filibusters, Senate Democrats established a new precedent in the Senate in 2013 to short-circuit most filibusters of executive branch nominees, known as the ‘nuclear option.’ But they left in place the potential to filibuster a Supreme Court Justice. The Senate had never filibustered a Supreme Court nomination. However, the Senate did filibuster the promotion of late Justice Abe Fortas from Associate Justice to U.S. Chief Justice in the late 1960s. 

Facing a filibuster, McConnell deployed the nuclear option to confirm Gorsuch. McConnell again relied on the nuclear option to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the fall of 2018. 

After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell ignored what he said in 2016 about confirming justices in a presidential election year. The GOP-controlled Senate rammed through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett days before the 2020 presidential election. 

This is why liberals are apoplectic about the Supreme Court.

‘Republicans have been very willing to change the rules of the game,’ said Bitzer. ‘Democrats are slowly coming to the realization that if (Republicans) are going to play that game by their rules, then (they) need to be playing that game by (their) own set of rules.’

You can’t always pick your opponent in politics. 

NBA teams often pine to secure a certain matchup in the playoffs. Team A pairs up really well against Team B. Then team A is often disappointed it didn’t get the opponent it ‘wanted.’

You can’t manufacture a potential adversary in sports. But you can in politics. 

President Biden can’t choose his direct opponent in 2024. But Mr. Biden and Democrats can certainly aim to put the Supreme Court on the ballot in 2024.

Alex Soros, the 37-year-old son of George Soros who recently took control of the mammoth multi-billion dollar Open Society Foundations (OSF), has now visited President Biden’s White House at least 20 times, records show. 

In late March, Alex attended three meetings with Nina Srivastava, who previously served as an advisor for Biden’s former chief of staff, Ron Klain; Amanda Sloat, the National Security Council’s senior director for Europe; and Jon Finer, the principal deputy national security adviser, according to recently released visitor logs.

The meetings follow the 17 former visits Alex had with Biden personnel since the administration took power. The objective of the discussions remains unclear. The White House did not answer Fox News Digital’s email on the matter.

OSF, which George Soros helmed, announced on June 11 that Alex would take over the network from his father. Since then, he’s been jet-setting around and meeting with top Democratic officials, former President Bill Clinton and even attending meetings with Pope Francis. 

Shortly after the announcement, Alex hosted an event featuring House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top New York Democrats, including Reps. Jerry Nadler and Gregory Meeks, according to an Instagram post. 

‘Back in a New York minute to host distinct members of the New York for hmp with [Rep. Hakeem Jeffries] and members of the New York house delegation, [Rep. Pat Ryan, Rep. Jerry Nadler, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. Ritchie Torres] on their quest to take the back [sic] the 2024 majority! And always supporting the sneaker caucus!’ Alex wrote June 17.

Alex, meanwhile, spent the 4th of July in Albania with former President Bill Clinton, he said on Twitter.

‘What a treat to be with President Clinton in Albania,’ Alex wrote on Tuesday. ‘One of the most pro-American countries in the world & a stalwart ally thanks in part to its prime minister [Edi Rama] who is coincidently born on July 4th. Great to spend today with an [American] hero and one of the US’s best friends.’

The younger Soros and Clinton were also part of a ‘private audience’ at Pope Francis’ residence on Wednesday, which the Vatican and press did not announce, reporter Edward Pentin announced.

Additionally, Alex has remained cozy with top Democrats and posted dozens of photos of him and leading House and Senate Democrats since 2018. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California appear the most often on his social media feeds.

He also posted a photo weeks ago with Vice President Kamala Harris, writing, ‘Great to recently catch up with Madame Vice President, [Kamala Harris]!’ 

OSF is getting a massive overhaul under his leadership. After Alex took the network’s reins, they announced they planned to slash 40 percent of their global workforce as part of restructuring efforts.

The Biden administration is green-lighting a massive offshore wind farm off the coast of southern New Jersey despite calls for a pause on such development amid a spate of marine mammal deaths along the Atlantic Coast.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced Wednesday that it is approving the construction and operations plan for Ocean Wind 1, a 1,100-megawatt project that will be located 15 miles off the New Jersey coast, power 380,000 homes and enter commercial operations in 2025. The project will be made up of 98 wind turbines spread across a 68,450-acre lease area.

‘Since Day One, the Biden-Harris administration has worked to jump-start the offshore wind industry across the country – and today’s approval for the Ocean Wind 1 project is another milestone in our efforts to create good-paying union jobs while combatting climate change and powering our nation,’ Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

‘Ocean Wind 1 represents another significant step forward for the offshore wind industry in the United States,’ BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein added. ‘The project’s approval demonstrates the federal government’s commitment to developing clean energy and fighting climate change.’

White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said the project, which was first proposed in 2019, is ‘Bidenomics in action’ and not an accident. 

As part of its climate agenda, the Biden administration has aggressively moved forward with rapid offshore wind development across millions of acres of federal waters, primarily along the East Coast. Shortly after taking office, President Biden outlined goals to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, the most ambitious goal of its kind worldwide.

In May 2021, BOEM approved the 800 megawatt Vineyard Wind project 12 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, marking the first-ever large-scale offshore wind approval. Then, in November 2021, the agency approved the 130-megawatt Southfork Wind project off the coast of Long Island, New York, the second commercial-scale offshore project.

The Ocean Wind 1 project is the third-ever and largest-ever approved offshore wind development.

‘Ocean Wind 1 is on the cusp of making history as construction on New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm is set to begin in a few short months, delivering on the promise of good-paying jobs, local investment and clean energy,’ said David Hardy, the top U.S. executive for Orsted, the Danish energy firm developing the project.

In addition, Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Reps. Donald Norcross and Bill Pascrell both cheered the action Wednesday along with various environmental groups and labor unions.

However, lawmakers, local officials, fishing industry associations and wildlife groups along the Atlantic Coast have called for an offshore wind development moratorium amid an uptick in marine mammal deaths. Since December, at least 39 whales and 37 dolphins have been found stranded on East Coast beaches near where energy developers have been conducting offshore wind surveys, according to local officials. 

And the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan federal agency tasked with conducting oversight of government operations, announced last month it would investigate the potential impact offshore wind development has on wildlife, military operations and commercial fisheries.

‘Despite the GAO beginning to investigate potential harmful impacts of offshore wind development on our national defense, fishing industry, and environment, BOEM has chosen to move full steam ahead ignoring these warning signs,’ Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., told Fox News Digital in a statement. ‘We are still also seeing an unprecedented number of marine mammals washing ashore, yet offshore wind in New Jersey has cleared one of the last hurdles before full on construction can begin.’ 

‘It is disappointing to see these federal agencies force these projects on Americans in order to meet President Biden’s aggressive Green New Deal agenda rather than doing what is right for our coastal communities, industries, and environment,’ he continued. ‘This fight is still not over and I will continue to use every means possible to halt this industrialization of our ocean. It is truly a fight between right and wrong and I will not give up. God help our coastal communities and our oceans.’

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who like Van Drew represents a district along the New Jersey coastline, similarly blasted the Biden administration’s approval Wednesday.

‘Just days after New Jersey Democrats approved massive, taxpayer-funded subsidies for foreign wind developer Orsted, the Biden Administration is once again recklessly greenlighting the unprecedented offshore wind industrialization of our shore before we know all of the potentially catastrophic impacts of these projects,’ Smith told Fox News Digital.

‘These offshore wind projects must — at a minimum — be paused until the Government Accountability Office concludes its ongoing independent investigation,’ he continued. ‘New Jersey residents deserve to have their concerns addressed and questions answered before it is too late.’

The possibility that an artificial intelligence system might launch a nuclear attack on its own has prompted House lawmakers to propose legislative language that would ensure America’s nuclear arsenal remains under human control.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., has proposed a bipartisan amendment to the 2024 defense policy bill that requires the Pentagon to put in place a system that ensures ‘meaningful human control is required to launch any nuclear weapon.’ It defines human control by saying people must have the final say in selecting and engaging targets, including when, where and how they are hit with a nuclear weapon.

It is a concept that senior military leaders say they are already following. In April, top AI advisers at U.S. Central Command told Fox News Digital that their goal is to use AI to more rapidly assess data and provide options for military leaders, but to let humans have the final say in tactical military decisions.

However, the bipartisan support for Lieu’s amendment shows lawmakers are increasingly worried about the idea that AI itself might act on decisions as quickly as it can assess the situation. Lieu’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is supported by GOP lawmakers Juan Ciscomani of Arizona and Zachary Nunn of Iowa, along with Democrats Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Don Beyer of Virginia.

House Republicans, as early as next week, are expected to start the work of deciding which of the more than 1,300 proposed amendments to the NDAA will get a vote on the House floor. Lieu’s proposal is not the only AI-related amendment to the bill – another sign that while Congress has yet to pass anything close to a broad bill regulating this emerging technology, it seems likely to approach the issue in a piecemeal fashion.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass, proposed a similar amendment to the NDAA that would require the Defense Department to adhere to the Biden administration’s February guidance on AI on the ‘Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy.’

Among other things, that non-binding guidance says nations should ‘maintain human control and involvement for all actions critical to informing and executing sovereign decisions concerning nuclear weapons employment.

‘States should design and engineer military AI capabilities so that they possess the ability to detect and avoid unintended consequences and the ability to disengage or deactivate deployed systems that demonstrate unintended behavior,’ it added. ‘States should also implement other appropriate safeguards to mitigate risks of serious failures.’

However, not all the amendments are aimed at putting the brakes on AI. One proposal from Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., would set up a U.S.-Israel Artificial Intelligence Center aimed at jointly researching AI and machine learning that has military applications.

‘The Secretary of State and the heads of other relevant Federal agencies, subject to the availability of appropriations, may enter into cooperative agreements supporting and enhancing dialogue and planning involving international partnerships between the Department of State or such agencies and the Government of Israel and its ministries, offices, and institutions,’ the amendment stated.

Another, from Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., would require the Pentagon to set up a process for testing and evaluating large language models like ChatGPT on subjects like how factual they are and the extent to which they are biased or promote disinformation.

The bill as passed by the House Armed Services Committee last month already includes language that would require the Pentagon to set up a process ensuring the ‘responsible development and use’ of AI, and to study the possible use of autonomous systems to make the military’s work more efficient.

A Biden administration proposal that would lock up federal land and block traditional uses of public land like energy development is facing stiff opposition from a wide range of stakeholders.

In March, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) unveiled federal regulations that would allow environmental organizations that are opposed to fossil fuel drilling and mining projects to lease land for conservation uses, thereby blocking resource development. The agency extended its public comment period for the rule until Wednesday and has received more than 170,000 comments.

‘What you’ve got now is BLM trying to shove through another overarching, sweeping rule that’s not supported by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act,’ Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘They’re trying to argue that conservation now somehow fits within the definition of uses under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and trying to do it by rule.’ 

‘It’s just flagrantly in violation of federal law. But they’re trying to do it on the sly,’ he continued. ‘They can’t get done what they want done in Congress and through the Senate, so they try to do it via rule.’

Knudsen added that the proposal represents a broad policy change that should come through legislation, not BLM regulations. He suggested the proposal is also in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, a 1946 law that requires federal agencies to provide sufficient reasoning for regulations they implement.

Knudsen joined letters led by other state attorneys general in opposition to the proposal. The comment letters from him and the other top law enforcement officials stated the BLM action would substantially harm the energy, mining, agriculture and cattle industries while violating the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976.

Under FLPMA, Congress established BLM’s so-called ‘multiple-use’ and sustained yield mandate. The statute requires the BLM to open the lands it manages to various uses including energy development, grazing, recreation and mining.

The BLM action seeks to put conservation ‘on equal footing’ with other uses, and the agency said it would improve the climate change resilience of public lands, conserve wildlife habitats and landscapes and preserve cultural and natural resources on public lands. Under the rule, organizations would be allowed to bid on land to conduct specific restoration or mitigation activities on.

‘Uses are all defined in FLPMA. Nowhere in there does the term conservation — conservation is basically non-use,’ Knudsen said. ‘So what this would amount to is locking up swaths of federal land for ‘conservation.’ That’s not an approved use under the law. If you want to do that, fine. Go to Congress, pass the bill, get the president to sign it. But they know they don’t have the juice to do that.’

In addition to Knudsen and several other attorneys general, various industry groups have also weighed in and opposed the proposal during its comment period.

For example, mining groups National Mining Association (NMA) and American Exploration & Mining Association (AEMA), local cattlemen’s associations, farmers’ groups and oil industry organizations submitted comments expressing concern about the rule.

‘In our view, the proposal represents a fundamental shift in the way BLM currently manages federal lands under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act’s (FLPMA) multiple use mandate,’ NMA counsel Katie Mills wrote to the BLM. ‘The potential impacts on NMA’s members that conduct mining operations or other activities on federal lands are significant.’

‘The Proposed Rule is illegal and should be withdrawn immediately. While the Proposed Rule pays lip service to [FLPMA] as amended, it fundamentally violates FLPMA in multiple ways, including illegally adding ‘conservation’ as a ‘use’ when Congress did not include it in FLPMA’s specific list of uses,’ AEMA Executive Director Mark Compton wrote in a separate letter.

The Nevada Farm Bureau Federation said the rule should be withdrawn and expressed concern about its potential impact on small businesses including ranchers who depend on public lands.

The South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association similarly wrote that BLM’s proposal was ‘developed with no stakeholder involvement or awareness.’ It argued BLM should rescind the rule until it consults producers — it noted farmers and ranchers are the original conservationists — who will be impacted by it.

‘In light of the numerous legal infirmities and substantial policy concerns for implementation, IPANM respectfully requests that BLM withdraw and reconsider the proposed Planning Rule,’ Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico (IPANM) Executive Director Jim Winchester wrote in a comment letter.

‘BLM should refocus its efforts on facilitating multiple use of the public lands within the confines of its Congressionally delegated FLPMA planning authority, ACEC designation, and wilderness withdrawals,’ he continued. ‘To the extent BLM proceeds with the rulemaking, it must remove any allowance for conservation leasing.’

In another letter, the Montana Electric Cooperatives’ Association, which represents large electricity providers in the state, said the rule could ultimately prevent electricity infrastructure development, potentially hurting renewable energy sources.