A report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is warning of widespread blackouts this summer. Two-thirds of the country has an elevated risk of potential for insufficient operations.

‘It’s really concerning because electricity is pretty critical to how we operate every minute of every day,’ National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson said. ‘You have to be able to have the lights come on when you’re counting on it. That’s an expectation we have across this country. Unfortunately, certain policies are driving us in the wrong direction.’

The NERC report lists recent efforts by the Biden administration to limit emissions as a grid vulnerability. The environmental rules could disrupt operations at coal-fired generators in 23 states. That includes locations along the Gulf Coast, including Texas, which has a recent history of blackouts from extreme weather. Other locations include desert-hot Nevada.   

‘What’s going on in this country right now is demand for electricity is growing, which is a good thing. The economy is growing, but we’re shutting down power plants, and we’re not replacing it with any capacity. So, at some point, that basic relationship starts to get in trouble,’ Matheson said. 

The report also notes that while stored supplies of natural gas and coal are at high levels, infrastructure is lacking. In the southeastern region of the U.S., coal-fired generators have reported challenges in arranging coal replenishment because of mine closures and transport delays. 

‘When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging,’ Matheson said. ‘We got to take the shovel away from the EPA.’

Matheson served as a Utah representative from 2001 until 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party but warns recent Biden administration policies are adding to a supply and demand problem for U.S. energy. 

‘It’s really hard to build something in this country these days,’ Matheson said. ‘We’re at a point where we are reducing supply, and public policy, in terms of permitting, doesn’t allow us to build new resources.’

Most of today’s power grid was built in the 1960s and 1970s. According to the White House, an estimated 70% of transmission lines are more than 25 years old. Billions of dollars from the recent Infrastructure law were set aside for updates to the grid and upgrades for transmission lines.

‘There is a lot of money for some resilience. Resilience is where you’re hardening the grid to allow it to survive more extreme weather events,’ Matheson said. ‘I hear a lot of conversation on Capitol Hill these days that we need to reform our environmental permitting process in this country. Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act decades ago. They haven’t ever reformed it. It’s a mess today.’

Recent negotiations to raise the debt limit have included permitting reforms for some energy projects. The provisions include efforts to make it easier to build fossil fuel and clean energy projects. It fails to include infrastructure for transmission lines and pipelines to get production to consumers.

‘I’m excited that we may get some pipeline permitting reform in the debt ceiling negotiations,’ Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., said. ‘We’re at a point of criticality in this nation in that we have the resources to produce. We just have nowhere to put it. 

The debt deal also orders a study by NERC to assess how much transfer capacity is needed to strengthen grid reliability.  It’s a project that would likely take 2½ years to get to Congress. Duncan chairs the Energy, Climate and Grid Security Subcommittee. He says adding energy producers to the power grid is already a slow process.

‘These renewable energy projects are facing the same hurdles for regulation,’ Duncan said. ‘They’re realizing that they don’t have the money to pay all the fees necessary to go through this.’

To join the electric grid, generators must first go through the interconnection queue to get their projects approved. The process has created years-long wait times for wind and solar projects. Many have also faced higher costs than anticipated or the projects fail completely. Matheson says queue is a big concern for Electric Co-ops.

‘We serve 42 million people across the country, but we’re consumer owned. Every financial impact on the utility goes straight to the consumer’s electric bill,’ Matheson said. ‘When these decisions come to shut down existing resources that are reliable and replace them with lots of new resources, they’re going to cost more money. Not only are we concerned about reliability, we’re concerned about affordability as well.’

The Energy Department is also expected to publish its own long-term national transmission planning study later this year. It is expected to include potential solutions for a transition to clean energy.

‘They’re going to be a part of the electrical grid for a long time, but we shouldn’t rush to that as the sole source,’ Duncan said. ‘We need to really balance our energy matrix and make sure we have good, reliable, affordable electricity.’

Most lawmakers and experts agree that grid updates and additions are needed not just for the upcoming summer season, but well into the future.

‘I think it’s still pretty good. I think we take it for granted in this country compared to the rest of the world, that the lights come on every time you flip the switch. But we’re seeing signs that it started to fray,’ Matheson said. ‘I don’t want to sound like an alarmist that everything’s going to happen all at once, but the trend continues to move in a direction of greater risk of outages every year.’

Republicans on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce are seeking answers from the Department of Labor (DOL) about what it is doing to crack down on the exploitation of unaccompanied child migrants in the workforce – after reports of an ‘explosive’ growth in the child labor force.

‘The Committee is disturbed by recent reports about cases of illegal child labor in the United States precipitated by the surge in unaccompanied migrant children traveling across the southern border under the Biden administration’s watch,’ Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chair Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to Acting Secretary Julie Su.

‘As it is the federal agency enforcing our nation’s child labor laws, we write to understand better the steps the Department of Labor…has taken to address this issue and to inquire about its ongoing coordination with other federal agencies,’ they wrote.

The number of unaccompanied migrants arriving at the southern border increased dramatically from 33,239 in fiscal year 2020 to more than 146,000 in fiscal year 2021 and 152,000 in fiscal year 2022.

This year, the Biden administration was hit by a number of reports that outlined how officials ignored signs of an ‘explosive’ growth in the child labor force – with minors forced to work in dangerous conditions to pay back smugglers.

Child migrants who are encountered at the border are first dealt with by Border Patrol, who are part of the Department of Homeland Security, before being transferred to Health and Human Services (HHS) care.

Now lawmakers are looking at the DOL due to its connection with the enforcement of child labor laws. The lawmakers note that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) bars minors from working in hazardous occupations but say that many secure employment by presenting false ID to evade E-Verify.

‘The Committee understands that, to date, DOL has done nothing to acknowledge or address this reality,’ Foxx and Kiley wrote. ‘Instead, it has parroted talking points and shifted the blame to Congress and employers, turning a blind eye to solutions that would prevent minors from being exploited in the first place, such as securing the border.’

They also argue that a DOL taskforce set up to tackle child exploitation ‘has been completely silent on the widespread use of fraudulent work documents and how employers are expected to comply with the FLSA amidst these challenges.’

The lawmakers asked if the department plans to issue guidance that addresses the use of false ID when verifying the age of prospective employees, a list of all criminal referrals the agency has made to the Justice Department regarding labor trafficking of children, and meetings between DHS and DOL officials on the matter.

The letter comes ahead of an appearance by Su on Wednesday before the committee, where the issue is expected to be raised. The Labor Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that it has received the letter.

FIRST ON FOX: Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley issued a stark warning after President Biden’s Thursday trip and fall episode, arguing his possible re-election as president could ultimately lead to Vice President Kamala Harris becoming the commander-in-chief.

‘No one should feel good about watching the President fall. While this is hard to see, we have to be honest with the American people,’ Haley told Fox News Digital. ‘Our enemies see the same TV clips and wonder who is in charge.’ 

‘Joe Biden is the oldest president in history, and if he’s reelected, we could end up with a President Harris. This is why I have repeatedly called for mental competency tests and term limits for politicians. It’s time for a new generation of leadership in Washington,’ she added.

According to the White House, Biden tripped over a sandbag while shaking hands after delivering the commencement address at the Air Force Academy, but was not injured by the fall.

Haley’s opponent, former President Donald Trump, also reacted to the fall while campaigning in Iowa, calling it ‘not inspiring.’

‘He actually fell down? Well, I hope he wasn’t hurt,’ Trump said. ‘The whole thing is crazy. You’ve got to be careful about that… even if you have to tiptoe down the ramp.’

‘That’s a bad place to fall… that’s not inspiring,’ he later added.

Biden’s fall Thursday comes about two years after he fell on the steps while boarding the Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews. 

Following the March 2021 fall in which Biden was filmed tripping on multiple steps, the White House said he was ‘doing 100% fine’ and blamed the stumble on the gusty conditions.

Fox News’ Joe Schoffstall and Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.

MANCHESTER, N.H. – EXCLUSIVE – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says voters can judge if President Biden is up for another four years in the White House.

DeSantis, who last week launched a 2024 Republican presidential campaign, spoke Thursday with Fox News Digital in a national exclusive interview a couple of hours after President Biden tripped and fell after delivering a speech and handing out diplomas at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado.

Plenty of Republicans have questioned whether the 80-year-old Biden – the nation’s oldest president – is physically and mentally up to the intense demands of the White House for another four years. 

Asked if he agreed, DeSantis said ‘people can judge that.’

While he emphasized ‘I hope that he didn’t sustain injures and if he did, I hope he has a speedy recovery from those,’ DeSantis added that ‘I’m running for president because I want the U.S. to have a speedy recovery from the injuries that Joe Biden has inflicted on the country and at the end of the day I think that his policies have been wrong.’

‘I do think he lacks energy and all that, but he is pursuing a course that’s not been good for this country and that’s my main concern,’ DeSantis emphasized.

DeSantis repeated those comments minutes later at the top of rally at Manchester Community College, the Florida governor’s fourth and final event of a jam-packed day in New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary and second overall contest in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

One of DeSantis’ rivals for the Republican presidential nomination – former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – made news earlier this year by calling for mental competency tests for all politicians age 75 and older.

Asked if he agreed with such a suggestion, DeSantis answered, ‘I think it’s kind of a gimmick. I think ultimately the voters are able to make those determinations.’

‘Ultimately voters are going to be responsible for their choices and hopefully we’re going to do better in 2024,’ the governor added.

DeSantis, repeating a line he’s used in his stump speeches since launching his campaign, told Fox News that it’s going to take more than one term in the White House in order ‘to slay the deep state, this big unaccountable bureaucracy.’

The comments appear to be a swipe at former President Donald Trump, who’s the commanding front-runner in the GOP nomination polls as he runs a third straight time for the White House. After a term in office, Trump can only serve four more years if elected in 2024.

‘I’ve been watching DeSanctus go out and say ‘I’ve got eight years. It’s going to be eight years,” Trump said Thursday at a campaign event in Iowa. 

And Trump vowed that, ‘It will take me six months to have it totally the way it was.’ 

Asked about the former president’s comments, DeSantis told Fox News ‘if the former president says he can slay the deep state in six months, my question to him would be – well you already had four years, why didn’t you slay it then.’

Since declaring his candidacy for president last week, DeSantis has been stepping up his counterattacks against former President Donald Trump, who’s been blasting his main rival for the GOP nomination for months.

The former president, his political team and allies have amplified their attacks over the past couple of months.

DeSantis had mostly resisted responding to Trump’s attacks until last week. But as he kicked off his first campaign swing as a 2024 candidate on Tuesday in Iowa, DeSantis started aggressively throwing punches at the former president during a question-and-answer session with reporters.

‘So look, I’m going to respond to attacks,’ DeSantis said. ‘I’m gonna counterpunch and I’m gonna fight back on it.’

On Wednesday evening, as DeSantis was taking the stage for his fourth event in Iowa, Trump took aim at him on social media over the governor’s different pronunciations of his name.

‘Have you heard that ‘Rob’ DeSanctimonious wants to change his name, again. He is demanding that people call him DeeeSantis, rather than DaSantis. Actually, I like ‘Da’ better, a nicer flow, so I am happy he is changing it. He gets very upset when people, including reporters, don’t pronounce it correctly. Therefore, he shouldn’t mind, DeSanctimonious?’ Trump said.

Trump took aim after media reports in recent days highlighted how DeSantis has used two different pronunciations of his name in recent weeks, switching between ‘Deh-Santis’ and ‘Dee-Santis.’

‘I think it’s so petty. I think it’s so juvenile,’ DeSantis said Thursday morning in a radio interview in New Hampshire as he responded to Trump.

Getting into a personal slugfest day after day with the former president, who a master of in-your-face politics, may not be a sustainable strategy.

Asked if his pushback against Trump was getting personal, DeSantis disagree, saying ‘I’m not personal at all. Some of the stuff is very juvenile. I don’t think the voters want it. I’m not getting into the gutter.’

And when asked the correct pronunciation of his last name, DeSantis told Fox News ‘it’s ridiculous. These stupid things. Listen, the way to pronounce my last name – winner.’

A federal agency is pondering whether artificial intelligence might someday be used to help the government identify duplicative or overly burdensome federal rules that need to be cut back.

But officials are already hearing from skeptics who doubt AI will ever be powerful enough to wade through and understand the hundreds of thousands of pages of detailed federal rules.

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) is an independent federal agency that works to increase the efficiency and fairness of regulations. In early May, ACUS released a report it commissioned on how AI and other algorithmic tools might be used to conduct retrospective reviews of federal rules to improve them.

That report said AI might already be able to conduct ‘housekeeping’ chores, such as finding typos or incorrect citations but said AI might also be trained to do much more.

‘A tool could identify regulations that are either outdated or redundant with another rule,’ the report said, even as it acknowledged the challenges of this work. ‘Both of these inquiries may not have an objective correct answer: A regulation might be old, but is it obsolete? A rule’s text or regulated activity might overlap with another’s, but is one superfluous?

‘An algorithm performing even more substantive tasks might identify existing regulations it believes could benefit from clarification or are overly burdensome,’ it added. ‘These are both arguably completely subjective inquiries: When is a regulation too complex or burdensome?’

The report quoted several federal staffers, most of whom were open to using AI for retrospective regulatory reviews.

But it also quoted groups affected by federal regulations, and they were much more tentative on how AI might be used. Most said that, at best, AI would be a tool for flagging rules that are ready to be reviewed, after which people would have to do the reviewing.

Two ‘skeptics’ in this group argued that AI would have trouble penetrating the dense language of federal rules to be useful in any way.

‘According to the skeptics, it would be nearly impossible to write an all-encompassing algorithm that would be accurate to flag rules in need of review given that so much of regulatory text is incredibly difficult to unpack and is so context-specific,’ the report said.

‘The concern raised was that so much of the regulatory quality depends on agency expertise and experience. The representatives were skeptical that AI could replace or even channel this.’

The report said another possible hurdle is whether government officials will want to use AI this way. The Trump administration introduced the use of AI in the regulatory process as a deregulatory tool in the Department of Health and Human Services and used AI in the Defense Department to help people understand the Pentagon’s vast network of rules.

The two ‘skeptics’ said the Trump administration’s use of AI may have ‘poisoned the well’ and could make it difficult for agencies to agree to explore AI further.

‘One representative went further to elaborate that it ‘soured the community’s thinking about retrospective review’ given that it used retrospective review ‘as a smokescreen for partisan objectives,’’
the report said.

Several federal agencies are represented in ACUS, and the group’s research director, Jeremy Graboyes, told Fox News Digital there is some hesitancy inside the government on how to use AI.

‘I think you probably see a range of emotions,’ Graboyes said, noting that the positives of cost-effectiveness and accuracy are potentially outweighed by problems like possible bias that can be built into AI systems. ‘All the debates you’re seeing outside the government, you’re seeing inside government as well.’

ACUS is recommending that federal agencies start by using AI to identify redundant federal rules and fixing small errors and by using open-source AI tools for this work. ACUS also said agencies should disclose when they use AI or other algorithmic tools in the process of reviewing regulations.

ACUS is set to meet in mid-June in Washington to decide whether to adopt the report and its recommendations. From there, Graboyes said ACUS would be working with federal agencies on implementing these recommendations, which he said was a start that could lead the agency to recommend more advanced work with AI tools in the years ahead.

‘We’ll be doing more work in the AI space,’ he said.

A trove of photos from Hunter Biden’s laptop has been made available to the public through a new website that launched Thursday.

The website – BidenLaptopMedia.com – houses almost 10,000 photos spanning from 2008 to 2019 and took months to complete, Garrett Ziegler, the founder of nonprofit Marco Polo, told Fox News Digital.

‘It’s taken us a couple of months to, one, go through the photos, about 10,000 of them, and redact the genitalia on the photos,’ Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide, said of the contents found on the laptop once owned by President Biden’s son.

‘The number one thing we’re about … is truth and transparency,’ he said. ‘If the American people want to know what their first family is like, they’re going to get it. And we’re not going to be taking out photos that paint the Bidens in a good light.’

Ziegler also noted that several photos containing private information were redacted – including images containing social security numbers, banking information and credit card numbers. Additionally, multiple nude photos of Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, were redacted.

Of the many photos found on the laptop, Ziegler provided Fox News Digital with two never-before-seen photos from the laptop. One photo showed Hunter Biden cozied up to his then-lover Zoe Kestan in 2018. The other image – featuring an array of drugs and a condom wrapper sitting on a table – was from a text message conversation Hunter had with Hallie Biden – the widow of Beau Biden and former lover of Hunter Biden – the same year.

Providing further insight on the type of content viewers can expect on the website, Ziegler said some content that does not carry ‘news value’ will not be featured.

‘There are, for example, screenshots of Candy Crush games where we are fairly confident in saying there’s absolutely no news value to those,’ he said. ‘So it’s going to be, I would say, 98% of the photos on the device, around 10,000 in total, although it’ll be slightly less than that.’

‘It’s going to be a completely authentic recounting of the photos on the device,’ Ziegler added.

Ziegler promised that there won’t be any genitalia visible on the site and insisted that the photo project – which will display the images chronologically – covers a ‘large swath’ of the first family’s life and includes an array of photos. He also made clear that it is not a ‘hit job’ against the Biden family.

‘There’s a picture of a letter that Hunter’s daughter, Finnegan, wrote to, I assume, troops stationed overseas, like in Iraq and Afghanistan,’ he said. ‘It’s an adorable letter. Finnegan’s around 9 years old at the time, and it definitely paints the Bidens in a good light.’

‘We’re not Republican activists. None of us are registered Republicans,’ he continued. ‘In fact, I loved and still love Trump precisely because he wasn’t a standard Republican. So this is not a hit job. We’re going to keep all the photos that paint the Bidens in a good light and keep all the photos that paint the Bidens in a bad light. The American people can judge for themselves what they think about their first family through this.’

Describing the effort as ‘the most thorough expose of any American first family while they’re in office in the history of America,’ Ziegler said the types of photos that will be shared to the website are photos that typically ‘only become available once the presidential archives are open and those photos only detail his time in the Oval while he was the president.’

Ziegler also said the website will use a ‘photo viewing app that will allow users to view the metadata in the photos.’

‘They’re going to be able to see where the photo was taken, what time it was taken, if it has latitude and longitude coordinates attached to it,’ he said. ‘They’re going to be able to see if it has metadata like aperture, lighting.’

Ziegler also noted that videos from the laptop will be available for public viewing at a later date.

Describing why it will take longer for the videos from the laptop to be uploaded to the site, Ziegler said his team has to use AI tools to assist with censoring portions of the videos because ‘there’s so much pornography.’

Ziegler said there are ‘several’ questionable photos in particular that he believes reporters should take a look at.

The White House and Hunter Biden’s attorney did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

CONCORD, N.H. – EXCLUSIVE – As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. heads out on the campaign trail for the first time since launching his campaign for the Democratic presidential campaign in April, he’s pointing to the latest national polling that indicates he’s grabbing double-digit support as he primary challenges President Biden.

‘The public polls speak for themselves,’ Kennedy said in a national exclusive interview with Fox News Digital ahead of his trip Thursday to the key early voting presidential primary state of New Hampshire.

The environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine critic, who’s a scion of arguably the nation’s most famous family political dynasty, stands at 16% support in the latest Fox News national poll in the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination race, with Biden at 62%. And the 69-year-old Kennedy grabbed 20% support with the 80-year-old president at 60% in a CNN poll released last week.

Both surveys – which indicated Marianne Williamson, the best-selling author and spiritual adviser who in March launched her second straight campaign for the Democratic nomination, at 8% – pointed to potential problems for Biden as he seeks a second term in the White House.

Kennedy noted that his campaign’s private polling numbers ‘are even better’ and emphasized that ‘we feel like we’re going to get a lot of independents and Republican crossovers.’

‘I think we’re doing very well, much better than expected,’ Kennedy Jr. added.

And while he wouldn’t reveal any fundraising figures ahead of his campaign’s end of the second quarter filing in a month, Kennedy indicated that ‘we’re getting a good response’ from donors.

As he’s noted, name recognition may be behind some of Kennedy’s double-digit support in the polls during this early part of the 2024 election cycle. He’s the son of the late senator, attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and the late longtime Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. And part of the support for Kennedy and Williamson may be a type of protest against a president whose approval ratings have remained in negative territory for nearly two years.

Asked if he’s urged Williamson to drop out and support his White House bid, Kennedy answered ‘I wouldn’t ask Marianne to bow out. I think it’s valuable to have as many voices in the race as possible and I think people should have a range of voice.’ 

‘I’m all for having Marianne come in and talk about her issues and have some competition, which is part of democracy. This isn’t the Soviet system where the party picks the nominee,’ he added.

Kennedy heads on Thursday morning to New Hampshire’s State House in Concord, where he’ll address the state Senate. Declared presidential candidates from both parties are being given the opportunity this cycle to speak before the upper chamber of the state legislature. Kennedy is expected to take questions from reporters following his address to state lawmakers and then hold meetings in Manchester.

‘We’re going to New Hampshire as it’s always been treated, like a key primary, a key indicator for the rest of the country, and a state that politicians have to go to do retail politics,’ Kennedy told Fox News.

Kennedy sparked speculation about a potential White House run early this year by visiting New Hampshire, which for a century has held the first primary in the presidential nomination race. He was joined on his trip to the state by his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, best known for portraying the wife of Larry David on the popular HBO comedy series ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’

Kennedy earlier this year took aim at Biden and the Democratic National Committee over their decision to move the New Hampshire presidential primary out of its position as the first in the nation primary. New Hampshire will now vote second in the DNC’s calendar, along with Nevada, three days after South Carolina, under the DNC’s new schedule. 

Ahead of the DNC’s final approval of the schedule in early February, Kennedy wrote an open letter to the committee, urging members to keep New Hampshire in the first spot because of the state’s long history advocating for civil rights and election transparency.

The DNC changed the nominating calendar in an effort to reflect more diversity in the Democratic Party, but Kennedy said that New Hampshire already showcases the diversity in America. As a general election battleground state, he said, New Hampshire’s ‘four electoral votes could decide the 2024 election.’ 

But with New Hampshire likely to move up the date of their primary – due to a state law that mandates that the state holds the first presidential primary – it’s likely the president will stay off the ballot in New Hampshire to avoid an unsanctioned primary.

‘We’re going to New Hampshire as it’s always been treated, like a key primary, a key indicator for the rest of the country, and a state that politicians have to go to do retail politics,’ Kennedy stressed. ‘It’s an important ritual in American democracy.’

Asked about the distinct possibility of Biden skipping the primary in New Hampshire, Kennedy said ‘I just think it’s wrong from the consideration of democracy.’

It’s been over a month since Kennedy launched his presidential campaign. Asked what took him so long to stump in New Hampshire, Kennedy said ‘we have to scale up this campaign … we’ve been hiring people, building our staff, building our organization, and raising money.’

‘I plan to spend a lot of time in New Hampshire this summer,’ he emphasized. ‘I don’t think the people of New Hampshire will feel neglected by me by summer’s end.’

While Kennedy was once known mostly for his environmental efforts, in the past decade and a half he’s emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement – and a host of public experts and even members of his own family have argued his efforts have been misleading and dangerous.

Kennedy defended his work on vaccine skepticism, which could be a major liability among Democratic presidential primary voters.

Asked if his stance could hurt him at the ballot box, Kennedy answered that ‘I’m not leading with that issue. If people want to talk about that issue, of course I’m happy to talk about it. There are other issues that are a lot more important to Americans – the overarching issue of the systematic attack on the middle class and all the things that go with it, the inflation, the war, the destruction of our industrial base in this country, are all things that I’m going to be talking about.’