Three Republican and two Democratic governors gathered on Thursday under the leadership of Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to send what he said was a vital message to the rest of the country.
Elected leaders can tackle some of the biggest problems facing the nation — energy supply in the age of artificial intelligence and affordable health care amid surging prices — despite the partisan dysfunction stalling governance at the federal level.
As chair of the Western Governors’ Association, Cox and governors from Arizona, Idaho, Hawaii and Montana explored solutions to these challenges during energetic discussions with President Donald Trump’s top advisers on health and natural resources.
“One of the best parts of these gatherings is that political labels tend to fade away,” Cox said. “My hope is that over the next few days and weeks that the rest of the country can see that same spirit in action and be reminded that working together actually still works.”
One of the most surprising instances of collaboration happened toward the close of the conference when Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green sought common ground with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and found it.
While not always seeing eye to eye, the panel of governors were able to discuss disagreements on Medicaid funding, vaccine scheduling and institutional trust by attempting to apply Cox’s “Disagree Better” approach, which left Kennedy feeling hopeful despite turmoil in Washington, D.C.
“I’m pessimistic about finding common ground on Capitol Hill because it’s so polarized that nobody’s even talking to each other,” Kennedy said. “With the governors it’s very different. You and I can talk about things we agree on and disagree on without hating on each other.”
The governors were also united in their sense of urgency around energy. There was a shared recognition that innovation, not regulation is the only way to achieve clean and plentiful energy as technological upheavals threaten cost of living and security for Americans.
U.S. Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum said the country’s success in the “AI arms race against China” depends, in large part, on the bipartisan group of governors to create the right policies to allow America’s massive AI companies to invest in data centers and energy production.
“The West is not a monument to the past,” Burgum said. “With the leaders that are up here at this table, they’re building the models for the future.”
The energy crisis is here
A central takeaway from the Western Governors’ Association winter meeting, held in Scottsdale, Arizona, was that the amount of energy required to train, run and store AI programs is like nothing states have ever faced before.
As of 2023, data centers already accounted for nearly 8% of Utah energy consumption, and over 10% in multiple states, including 26% in Virginia. And the energy demand of AI data centers is expected to more than double by 2030.
Predictions vary widely, but by the end of the decade AI data centers could eat up anywhere from 10% to 25% of U.S. electricity. This is because a typical hyperscale data center consumes as much energy as 100,000 households, Pew Research Center found.
Cox moderated a discussion with industry experts to highlight the enormous shifts that this will bring to states. OpenAI’s Stargate data center in Abilene, Texas is expected to require 1.2 Gigawatts to operate — more than the energy consumption of the entire state of Wyoming.
Crusoe Energy president Cully Cavness said his company, which is behind the development of the Texas data center, has plans to expand their AI data centers in Texas and in Wyoming to require up to 10 Gigawatts each — enough energy to power approximately 15 million homes.
In the face of this overwhelming demand, Cox announced in June that his yearlong initiative as WGA chair will be titled “Energy Superabundance,” dovetailing with his “Operation Gigawatt” campaign in Utah, which aims to help the state double energy output by 2035.
But during his opening remarks, Cox said doubling won’t be enough. Utah will need to triple or quadruple its energy production just to keep up. The alternative will be paying higher energy prices in Utah, as demand for energy spikes at home and in neighboring states.
“We knew that the need for electricity was going to increase across our country, but we just didn’t realize the scale, the scope and the speed at which we would need it,” Cox said. “It’s unlike anything we’ve really faced as a country in history since we invented electricity.”
Why Cox believes energy is bipartisan
On Monday, Cox announced one of Operation Gigawatt’s biggest developments so far: the construction of a small modular reactor in Brigham City. But this project could take up to a decade to complete. And the energy shortage is happening now.
In an interview with the Deseret News, Cox said Utah is working with the Trump administration to bring nuclear permitting down to six years. In the meantime, Cox is pushing to boost the production of fossil fuels to increase base-load power.
This will take the form of natural gas expansion as soon as companies can work through “some supply chain constraints,” Cox said. The governor also expects to see more solar and geothermal energy, with a first-of-its-kind project set to bring 400 megawatts to the grid by 2028.
“It’s just a very exciting time right now in our state,” Cox said. “And there’s a lot of hope that we can make that happen with permitting changes.”
One of the things that makes Cox so hopeful about the future of U.S. energy is that he believes the issue is losing its partisan divisiveness because governors in both parties now understand that their states need more energy from all sources.
At the WGA meeting, Cox led discussions on how states can coordinate on energy transmission so that states with excess energy can export to states with shortages, and so that states can pressure the federal government to permit transmission lines across public lands.
Green, who serves as Cox’s vice chair at WGA, agreed that America can only succeed with AI if states are aligned. States need to pursue “regional approaches” to energy production to meet the AI moment, which, according to Green, will include collaboration on policies.
“You can decide you don’t want data centers in your state,” Cox said. “But they are going to be built somewhere. And even if they’re not built in your state, it’s going to have an impact on power prices in your state, because the energy demand is rising, and it’s going to come from somewhere.”
Generational transformation of health care?
The other crisis addressed by governors on Thursday was the price of health care.
Over the past decade, the average employer-sponsored health insurance premium increased from $6,500 to $9,500 for single coverage, while family premiums have spiked from $17,700 to $27,000, according to a KFF analysis.
National health spending is also growing at faster rates, increasing by 7.5% in 2023 to hit $4.9 trillion. Meanwhile, personal health care spending saw the largest annual growth since 1990, with an increase of 9.4% in 2023.
And over the past decade spending on hospital services and physician services increased by an average of 5% every year. But on Thursday, governors from both parties pointed to a Trump administration initiative as a unique opportunity to transform the American healthcare system.
While he expressed concern about lost Medicaid funds, Green, a former family physician and emergency room doctor, touted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Rural Health Transformation Program as a potential pivot point in American health care.
“This is an opportunity to have an enormous change in the health care system, especially for those who lose their health care in rural settings,” Green said. “This is the time for us to fix our health care system.”
The Rural Health Transformation Program created a five-year pilot program, allocating $50 billion to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to distribute $10 billion per year, half to be disbursed equally, and the other half to be awarded as grants based on health care innovation.
All 50 states submitted their applications for the additional funds on Nov. 5. Green, who said he worked with secretaries Kennedy and Dr. Mehmet Oz to craft the provision, said he has not “felt any punitive pressure” from the administration to adopt specific policies.
New approaches are badly needed, Green said, because industry giants, like Intermountain Health, estimate that 30%-40% of health care costs are wasteful. According to Cox, the new funds could be transformative because they will catalyze cost-cutting innovations that have never been subsidized at the federal level.
“We keep funding the same thing and just getting more of it, which is bloat and wasted spending,” Cox told the Deseret News. “The awards haven’t been made yet, but the model that they’re basing this on could really change things in health care for the first time in a long time.”
Can bipartisan solutions end polarization?
The positive tone from Thursday’s meeting did not stop Democratic governors from pressuring the Trump administration officials on reforms they found worrying.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said the changes to Medicaid from the recent congressional budget package would cut $34 billion in coverage for Arizonans — which the state does not have the capacity to backfill.
Kennedy argued that the new Medicaid requirements will eliminate waste, fraud and abuse by removing the estimated 2.2 million people who are registered for the program in multiple states or have qualified for Obamacare more than once.
The changes will also increase health by encouraging Medicaid recipients to work a small number of hours each week to progress toward independence, Kennedy said, similar to the social welfare reforms that took place under President Bill Clinton.
On vaccines, Green and Kennedy acknowledged they did not see eye-to-eye on the science of vaccine safety, but they agreed the federal policy should be to inform citizens and allow them to make their own decisions about whether to vaccinate themselves or their children.
The best way to increase trust is to be transparent and to communicate with civility, Kennedy and Green said.
Cox’s concluding message was that this points to a broader truth: Americans will feel more confidence, and less division, if the nation’s leaders work together to find real solutions.
“We would have more faith and trust in government, and each other, if government could actually do the stuff it’s supposed to do,” Cox said. “By doing the things that are expected of us, we can depolarize our country and get us back to a better place.”