By Lindsey Baxter Griffith, President & Founder
It’s everyone’s instinct while at Climate Week NYC to search for the spotlight: the flashiest announcements, the brightest stages. But the best opportunities to reduce climate emissions in the short term can be found outside of New York City – in the state capitals.
Over the past two years, the center of gravity around clean energy deployment has moved to the states. In fact, Tomorrow Energy Partners’ research for the Siting Solutions Project revealed that hundreds of clean energy siting and permitting bills were introduced across 40 states in 2026. And thanks to the efforts of advocates across the country, the most restrictive bills that would have established moratoria or de facto bans on wind, solar, and battery technologies failed. The state-level backlash to clean energy is on its heels.
If you’re a climate funder looking for philanthropic leverage, there is immediate opportunity in supporting state-level clean energy deployment policy. Building up grassroots support for a single clean energy project is good, but funding state-level policy wins reveals the bigger picture. State siting rules determine the fate of dozens of projects at once. This leverage is both immediate and durable.
Advocates passed game-changing siting legislation in Virginia, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington over the past year and blocked bad policy in New York, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arizona, and more. And all of this has been happening without broader organized philanthropic infrastructure.
Legislative tracking and new resources are just emerging in this space. While the field is still in development, the opportunity to catalyze real change is enormous. Concentrated, time-bound dollars have the power to be catalytic.
In 2027, every single state will have a legislative session. Siting experts and advocates around the country are utilizing the resources they have to meet this narrow window of opportunity. We can see the preparations in real time: The Siting Solutions Project’s Legislative Tracker updates weekly, and the resource has been viewed more than 900 times since its launch. The research and ideas needed to act fast and act now exist already.
Needless to say, other energy policy issues – like transmission and permitting – are duly important. But success in both issue areas relies on implementation and deployment at the state level. State siting is comparatively neglected and will result in tangible results more quickly.
If, like me, you’re often frustrated by the high-profile conversations at Climate Week NYC and are looking for real leverage, funding state level siting policy and advocacy is the specific action you should consider.
The state siting opportunity is anchored in real-time data. There’s no abstract call to “build a movement” here. Just real, concrete leverage.