Day: July 8, 2025

After Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., denounced the law once known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” largely over its proposed Medicaid cuts, which he said would threaten insurance coverage for many North Carolinians, he called out the bill’s problematic approach to energy — and one climate crisis denier credited with helping to craft those provisions, in particular.

“It’s another classic example where think tanks and people that haven’t worked a day in business are setting policy in the White House without a clue about what they are potentially doing to our grid,” Tillis said Sunday night, just hours after announcing he would not seek re-election in 2026. “I had an Alex Weinstein, who is a self-described philosopher and expert in this area in my office, talking with three people, practitioners that actually work in it.”

Alex Epstein, author of the pro-fossil fuel books “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” and “Fossil Future,” seems to have recognized himself in that description (despite the senator’s apparent confusion about his name). The following day, Epstein published a Substack presenting his version of events, writing that he had recorded his own comments during a “secret meeting” with the senator.*