Joshua L. Loucks is a policy analyst for Life:Powered, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to raise America’s energy IQ and to promote policies that ensure access to responsible, reliable, and affordable energy. As part of the Life:Powered team, Joshua is responsible for research and policy development on data centers, grid reliability, and energy economics, and for advocating those policies with the Texas Legislature, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and ERCOT.
Joshua has an M.A. in Economics from George Mason University and a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in Legal Studies from Virginia Tech. He most recently served as a political appointee at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he was special assistant to the Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary of Energy. He has also worked for several other organizations in energy and economic policy, including the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and the Heritage Foundation. At Cato, he was a research associate in energy and tax policy where he co-authored reports on the Inflation Reduction Act, federal permitting, and government overreach. He was a Mercatus MA Fellow during his graduate studies, and his thesis examined the economics of nuclear energy.
Joshua was born and raised in upstate New York and is an avid golfer, outdoorsman, and a devoted student of Texas barbecue.