Happy Trails, Part 2
Today marks my last day here at American Experiment, as I step into a new role as Energy Policy Analyst with Always On Energy Research. At AOER, I’ll be working alongside Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling, former policy fellows at American Experiment. When I arrived, they threw me in the deep end and promptly left to found AOER — which I don’t intend to let them live down — but I’m excited to be teaming up with them again.
It’s bittersweet to leave American Experiment, too. Some of the work I’m proudest of:
- Producing two major energy and natural resources reports: Shattered Green Dreams, examining the environmental impacts of wind and solar, and Mission Impossible, on the mineral demands of net-zero and the importance of domestic mining in Minnesota, alongside Debra Struhsacker;
- Bringing my data science background to the Health of the ACA Health Insurance Markets, demonstrating the failures of Obamacare along with my colleague Matt Dean;
- Placing op-eds and commentary in The Wall Street Journal, RealClearEnergy, the Duluth News Tribune, Mining Engineering, and more;
- Submitting public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice urging sane energy regulations;
- Speaking across the state about critical minerals and the costs of wind and solar;
- Seeing our work entered into the congressional record and traveling to D.C. to share it with legislators personally;
- Working with our communications team on a short video about wind and solar impacts that has surpassed 5.4 million views — and counting.
I want to thank President John Hinderaker and the rest of the American Experiment team for trusting me with critical work early and often. I’m lucky to have worked alongside people who take ideas, data, and standards seriously.
I leave American Experiment proud of what we built together and confident in what comes next. If you’d like to follow my work going forward, I’ll be writing and publishing through Always On Energy Research as well as continuing my work as senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Center for Energy and Conservation. You can also subscribe to my Substack, Montalbano Mondays, where you will — you may have guessed — get a post every Monday. You can always reach me at my new email address, [email protected].
To our donors, supporters, and readers: thank you for making this work possible. Every email you’ve sent, every comment, and every conversation made my work sharper. And to whoever takes my place: you’ve landed somewhere special.
Onward and upward!
— Sarah