Growing the Options: Showing the Clean Economy is Good Politics and Policies

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There are a lot of venues where clean economy players network and do business. Michaelย Liebreichโ€™s excellentย Bloomberg New Energy Finance summitย andย Pennwellโ€™s Solar Power-Genย come immediately to mind. But thereโ€™s nothing for cleantech like the National Rifle Association (NRA) or NAACP conventions โ€“ a place where political candidates and office holders talk to us because itโ€™s a must-attendย event.

The fact is thatย the political aggression aimed at clean economy businessesย demands that we grow our leadershipย options.

Weย piloted an effort to change that recentlyย with a first-of-its-kind roundtable featuring one U.S. Senate candidate (former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine) and some of the sharpest clean economy minds in the mid-Atlantic region. I donโ€™t know that Iโ€™m in the โ€œsharpest clean economy mindsโ€ category, so itโ€™s good that I got to play host. Still, something novel happened during this meeting: Leaders from seven clean economy sectors got together with a political candidate who actually wanted to hear fromย them!

There was a wide spectrum of companies participating, including wind, solar, energy efficiency, advanced battery technology, offshore wind power transmission, financing, concentrating solar power, and clean energy project development. There were Fortune 500 companies with global reach (AES,ย Johnson Controls) all the way down to the four-personย Secure Futuresย of Staunton,ย Virginia.

Participants brought more than 100 years of combined clean economy experience to the room, and the Governor came away clearly impressed by the energy and ideas they offered. I think we successfully made the case that pro-clean economy policies are good politicsย andย policy, despite all theย trash talking about the clean economy.

Thatโ€™s becauseย large majorities of Americansย want clean economy sectors to succeed. They know we enhance our countryโ€™s economy, environment and national security. As one participant noted, if we get people in public life to understand that weโ€™re โ€œnot a sound byte, weโ€™re a successful industry,โ€ then it becomes a lot harder to talk down American jobs. And, working with policymakers and candidates who are willing to listen will grow the leadership options weย have.

The wind industry has done a good job at this, leveraging their job base to get a growing, bipartisan group of elected officials to stand with them on the Production Tax Credit renewal.ย  Thatโ€™s a positive feedback loop โ€“ but it has to be fed with more events like this one, and on a largerย scale.

*Participants in the forum included: Gov. Tim Kaine (now running for U.S. Senate); Ned Hall, The AES Corporation; Tony Clifford, Standard Solar, Inc.; Mark Wagner, Institute for Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls; Markian Melnyk, Atlantic Wind Connection; Ray Henger, Own Energy; Alec Hoppes, AREVA Solar; Mike Healy, Skyline Innovations; Ken Locklin, Impax Asset Management US

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