For generations, Arizona’s wide-open land has supported ranchers, farmers and the communities that helped build our great state. 

Then, the climate activists came along. 

Armed with nothing more than junk science from climate “experts” like Al Gore and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, they got busy imposing costly green energy mandates on states across the country—and Arizona’s political and corporate elites eagerly fell in line. Our state’s utilities committed themselves to achieving “Net Zero” emissions by 2050, a goal that will cost ratepayers billions of dollars while doing little to meaningfully impact the environment. 

But higher utility bills are only part of the cost. 

Not wanting to disappoint some of her largest campaign contributors, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has been quick to bend the knee to the Green New Scam time and time again. Now, these decisions are not only hitting families in the wallet, but they are transforming our state’s beautiful countryside into an industrial playground for massive, foreign-backed solar and wind developments. 

Under Hobbs, the Arizona State Land Department has increasingly operated like a business partner for the solar industry instead of a steward of Arizona’s public lands. The agency now maintains detailed maps identifying the “best” locations for solar development across the state, effectively helping direct industrial solar companies toward Arizona’s most desirable land. 

But surely, they must be doing the same for other industries? 

Nope. 

The state does not provide similar priority maps for housing, mining, grazing, or other industries. For the Hobbs administration, it appears sprawling solar projects are a much bigger priority over new housing, ranching, and rural economic activity. 

And now Arizona ranchers are beginning to pay the price. 

Just look at Navajo County for example. Thanks to Katie Hobbs’ desire to flood Arizona’s deserts with solar panels, rancher Casey Murph and his family are now fighting to preserve a multi-generational cattle operation that predates Arizona statehood itself! For over a century, their ranch has been part of Arizona’s agricultural backbone—raising cattle, maintaining grazing land, and sustaining a way of life rooted in stewardship of the land rather than industrialization of it. 

Today, that legacy is under direct threat. 

Murph and his family are facing the possibility that their state grazing lease could be altered or eliminated to make way for a large-scale solar development, effectively displacing ranching operations in favor of industrial energy production. 

What was once productive rangeland supporting Arizona’s beef supply is now being evaluated as potential real estate for sprawling solar installations, driven by state-level policies that increasingly prioritize renewable energy expansion over traditional land use. 

For Murph and families like his, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is the very real prospect of losing their livelihood, their land access, and a generational legacy of ranching in Arizona. 

But they’re not the only ones affected. 

While ranching is a part of Arizona’s heritage, it is also a critical part of our food supply chain. As more productive grazing land is converted into utility-scale solar and wind projects, Arizona families will ultimately feel the impact in the grocery aisle through higher beef prices and reduced domestic supply.  

In other words, the Hobbs administration is willing to kill our ranching industry and make beef cost even more, all so we can put up more ugly solar panels and wind projects.  

It’s insane. And it all needs to be shut down.  

Instead of prioritizing sprawling land-intensive energy projects, the state should be focused on expanding proven, reliable generation like natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. These resources save ratepayers money and require a fraction of the land footprint, without the threat of blackout.  

If Katie Hobbs truly cared about affordability, reliability, and policies that serve Arizona families, she’d make this happen. But for the last few years, Hobbs has shown she only cares about the political agendas that serve her interests. We can’t expect that to change now. 

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