A Young Conservative’s Case for Environmental Activism
At 27, Benji Backer is rallying people across the political spectrum around a market-driven climate philosophy and a desire to ‘Make America Beautiful Again.’
The words “conservative” and “environmentalist” don’t typically go together. Yet that’s how Benji Backer describes himself — and it’s beginning to win him allies in Washington.
Mr. Backer, who is 27, helped craft President Trump’s “Make America Beautiful Again” executive order, which in July established a council to preserve public lands, wildlife populations, and clean drinking water. He co-founded the center-right group American Conservation Coalition and spearheads the movement “Nature is Nonpartisan.” Now, he is working with members of Congress to push bipartisan bills that balance conservation with economic growth.
Mr. Backer’s pitch? “Let’s have sensible solutions that don’t harm people’s livelihoods, and don’t tell them what energy they can and can’t use and raise their energy bills,” he tells the Sun. The climate solutions proposed by the Left are “net negative,” he says, demanding sacrifice in the form of government mandates, higher costs and daily inefficiencies. His alternative: protect the environment and protect the people.
Mr. Backer joins a growing cohort of environmental-minded voices within the GOP who are reframing climate discussions around conservation efforts, free-market principles, and innovative approaches to energy production. Their aim is not just to counter progressive climate rhetoric, but to reclaim the Republican Party’s legacy as a party of stewardship rather than extraction.
That mission scored a victory in the “Make America Beautiful Again” order. Mr. Backer explains that when he sat down with administration officials, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lee Zeldin, he framed conservation in terms of American interests: neglecting the outdoor recreation industry hurts the economy; polluted air and water damage the health of American communities; and wildfires cost the country tens of billions of dollars annually.
It was a rare instance of the MAGA coalition spotlighting the environment. Yet it’s come alongside an expansion of fossil fuel projects and new proposals to expand coal, oil, gas, mining, and logging on federal land — drawing criticism from both environmental groups on the left to advocates for public lands, many of them outdoorsmen, hunters, and farmers at the heart of the GOP base.
On Monday, the Department of the Interior announced the opening of 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal leasing, part of what Mr. Burgum described as a shift from “drill, baby, drill” to “mine, baby, mine.” The Department of Energy, meanwhile, is providing $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants as part of an effort to reverse the years-long decline in the American coal industry.
In response to this announcement, Mr. Backer says: “America cannot afford to solely prioritize energy development at the expense of our natural world.”
Mr. Backer applauds Trump’s support for nuclear power — his organization, the American Conservation Coalition, calls it “our largest source of clean energy.” He argues for accelerating domestic mining of rare earth minerals in order to reclaim this industry from China under America’s higher environmental standards. Yet he also encourages private investment in renewable energy technologies, which Mr. Trump has dismissed as “unreliable” and a “scam.”
“We shouldn’t be shutting down solar and wind because Democrats were for it, and we shouldn’t be shutting down oil and gas because Republicans are for it,” Mr. Backer says. “We should be making the best energy choice based on affordability, reliability, and cleanliness.” He points to the long-term financial benefits of renewable energy adoption, including lower energy bills for both consumers and businesses and new jobs in a growing sector.
It’s an issue that will matter to the future of the GOP. Roughly three in four young Americans say that “harm to people in the U.S. caused by climate change will get a little or a lot worse in their lifetime,” according to Pew Research. Gen Z Trump voters are 20 percentage points more likely than older Republicans to view climate change as very serious, and are also more open to phasing out fossil fuels.
“If the younger Republicans are the future of the party, then perhaps this will be a bigger issue as they grow up and enter the public sphere,” Mr. Backer says.
Mr. Backer, for his part, is harnessing this generational shift. The American Conservation Coalition, which he founded in 2017 as a college student, has become the largest right-of-center environmental organization in the country, mobilizing its more than 85,000 members through grassroots campaigns.
Left-wing critics of the ACC frame it as part of a conservative strand whose incrementalist approach slows down necessary, bold climate actions. Critics on the right accuse the group of advocating progressive environmentalist policies while presenting a conservative public face. The ACC has gotten at least some of its funding from philanthropic sources that give money to liberal groups, like the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the U.S. Energy Foundation.
What is clear is that the organization has laid the groundwork for youth engagement with climate causes, working closely with Young Republicans groups ahead of the 2024 presidential election. “It’s hard for me to imagine a group that’s better positioned than they are,” a University of Wyoming professor, Matthew Burgess, who studies climate change and economic growth told Politico. “They have legitimacy, they have credibility.”
Next up, Mr. Backer is working with lawmakers to launch a bipartisan Senate caucus focused on conservation, called the American Nature and Stewardship Caucus, which will be led by Senator Sheehee, a staunch critic of what he calls “climate cult agenda,” and Senator Heinrich, who has made conservation a central focus of his work.
For Mr. Backer, this movement is about reclaiming a legacy. Republicans once led on conservation, from President Roosevelt’s national parks, to President Nixon’s EPA, to George H. W. Bush’s Clean Air Act. That heritage, he argues, has been obscured by decades of fossil fuel politics and culture wars over the climate. But he’s betting that divisive rhetoric will lose out to what he calls “pragmatic optimism.”
“Climate anxiety has really been a disservice to this generation,” Mr. Backer says. He insists that the apocalyptic framing of environmental issues only paralyzes people, while optimism, by contrast, is contagious. “If you tell people that they can solve something and that their contribution will help make their lives better, they’re going to buy in.”
That philosophy drives Mr. Backer’s ultimate mission to restore common ground on the environment. After founding Nature Is Nonpartisan earlier this year, he is currently preparing a national campaign, “United by Nature,” to rebrand conservation as apolitical — something closer to a “Got Milk?” ad than a policy fight. Next up, Mr. Backer is working with lawmakers to launch a bipartisan Senate caucus on conservation, called the American Nature and Stewardship Caucus, which will be led by Senator Sheehee, a staunch critic of what he calls “climate cult agenda,” and Senator Heinrich, who has made conservation a central focus of his work.
“We’re just trying to make the most progress,” Mr. Backer says, “no matter which ‘side’ wins.”
