By Rich Heidorn Jr.

WASHINGTON — Renewable industry advocates, environmental activists and congressional Democrats said Wednesday that 2021 may provide the best opportunity in a decade for legislative action to address climate change.

But speakers at the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Policy Forum said their messaging should emphasize the economic benefits of clean energy industries to win support from organized labor, minority communities, farmers and Republican lawmakers.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) led off the forum with a speech — part political science lecture, part pep rally — on the strategy and coalition building he said is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Wyden said Republicans can be brought into a climate change coalition because many of them “have skin in the game on renewable technologies.” He named Sens. Jodi Ernst (Iowa), Martha McSally (Ariz.), John Cornyn (Texas), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Susan Collins (Maine).

“I can make the list go on and on,” he said. “Why do I single out those folks? Because they come from places where the wind blows, where the sun shines [and] where they make batteries for energy storage.”

Wyden said renewable vendors and investors need to be in regular contact with their members of Congress to make them aware of the clean energy workers in their constituencies.

“They have to hear from you all the time. … Only those kinds of direct contacts [will] really change people’s mind to the point where they’ll show up and vote … for a package rather than give you a speech.”

Senate Majority Leader “Mitch McConnell [R-Ky.] hears a whole lot more from the oil and gas lobby than he’s hearing from our network as it exists today. If senators go home and they are met by a coalition of 50 businesspeople who say, ‘I want these renewable provisions on storage or wind or wave or solar,’ they come back to Washington. And they say to Mitch McConnell: ‘I gotta have this. I was stunned, Mitch, to see all this support at home for it. I have to have it.’ And then Mitch McConnell finds a vehicle for doing it.”

Aruna Kalyanam, staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, agreed. “The members of the United States Senate are so entirely parochial. They don’t have to give a damn about the overall issue, so long as they care about the people that are employed that work in that issue,” she said. Senators may not want to speak out on climate, she said. “But my God, are they there to defend the linear generator manufacturers in their state.”

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said prospects for climate legislation have improved in the 10 years since the failure of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, because of falling renewable prices, an improved economy and increasing evidence of climate change.

“I think the big factor is the general public. They now see climate change from a different lens. It’s no longer about protecting the polar bears … no longer just about coastal erosion. It’s about backyard situations. Just this week: the tragedy of a tornado in Nashville, Tenn.; the wildfires in the Southwest; the record rising of the Mississippi; the flooding in Nebraska. It is a backyard issue.”

Jobs and Wages

Neera Tanden, CEO of the Center for American Progress (CAP), said, “The issue around climate is much more salient than ever, not just with Democratic voters, but really with independent voters and in important states like Florida.

“All the remaining candidates on the Democratic side have bolder proposals around climate than any previous nominees or candidates on the Democratic side. And I think the really critical issue going forward in the climate space is going to be around how to make climate a win-win on the economy,” she continued. “We see around the world that when climate has become an issue, conservatives have often [described] it as a job-killer idea that will actually hurt economic growth. … And we expect to see that in the general election, no matter who the Democratic nominee is.”

Tanden said the renewable industry should not be so focused on costs that it fails to deliver on promises of “high-wage, high-benefit jobs that are often, or could be, unionized.”

“I appreciate the difficulty because we’re all in a place where we’re trying to make the cost as cheap as possible. But in a political environment, when jobs that are being lost, to have high-benefits jobs [is essential]. These issues are going to get demagogued unless the jobs that replace them are higher-wage jobs. … To get a large-scale investment, or even think of a mandate, the way to do that isn’t through the climate sphere. It’s obviously through the jobs sphere.”

Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), concurred.

“I don’t think politically we will move major carbon or climate legislation without the labor community being — not just OK — but enthusiastic and part of the solution,” he said. “Communities of color need to see themselves in this effort. So … don’t think we’re just going up there and let’s get a $40/ton on carbon and we’re done. … We’ve got to come together there — and that may be new for the industry.”

Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said labor and minority communities are “open minded” but skeptical of climate policy.

“Organized labor is not yet seeing those high-wage jobs coming. They know there’s some anecdotal evidence of it, but they’re not yet seeing it,” Kimmell said. “And the environmental justice community is just starting to see that it’s possible to have climate policy and policies that simultaneously lower local sources of pollution. So, they’re open to it, but they need to be shown that it’s real.”

Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said her organization conducted polling about a year ago to find the message that was most likely to increase support for solar power.

“Is it that we’re competing against another country? Is it that we’re innovative? Is it that we’re low price? Is it that it’s [reducing] carbon?” she asked. “The message that had the most resonance amongst voters was the clean air message, which makes sense when I saw [it], but it’s certainly not what we lead with.”

Kiernan said Republican senators have recently become more receptive to discussing climate issues. “One of them brought up the [importance of] getting the [agricultural] community on board and in sync with us. Yes, they’re well aware of the weather extremes. But if a carbon regime — whether it’s a carbon fee or carbon sequestration — [if] farmers could perhaps get credit for their role in carbon sequestration, [it could] make a big difference.

“The wind industry does that often vis-a-vis wind farms and in the land lease payments,” he continued. “But if we can think [of] a broader regime, that may be a significant tipping point for a fair number of Republican senators.”

Kiernan said the renewable industry also must increase its presence in RTO stakeholder processes, noting that AWEA and SEIA agreed about a year ago to join forces on that front. “We need to redesign a market. That is mostly accomplished at RTOs. And the stakeholders there are not appropriately representative of the future of the grid. We’ve got to be there,” he said.

Carbon Fee? Clean Energy Standard? Cap and Trade?

In addition to plotting strategy, speakers at the daylong forum also discussed individual legislative proposals.

Tonko said he is pursuing a “two-track” approach of preparing major climate legislation that could be passed under a Democratic Congress and administration, while supporting more modest bills in the current term. Tonko said he is encouraged by the bipartisan American Energy Innovation Act (S. 2657), which he said includes important measures on research and development, energy efficiency, workforce development and energy storage. (See Murkowski, Manchin Offer Bipartisan Energy Bill.)

In January, Tonko and other Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee released the discussion draft of the Clean Future Act, which seeks to get the economy to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Tomko said a “full comprehensive climate bill … needs to be part energy bill, part infrastructure bill, part environmental protection statute and part workforce development program.” (See Draft Climate Bill Would Make RTO Membership Mandatory.)

Sen. Wyden is hoping to see extensions of clean energy tax incentives in the current Congress. If Democrats take the Senate and he is chair of the Finance Committee in 2021, he said, he will seek to eliminate 45 current energy tax breaks and replace them with three: one each for clean energy, clean transportation fuel and energy efficiency.

The pros and cons of a carbon fee were discussed at a conference earlier last week sponsored by the New York University School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. (See related story, Carbon Pricing Gains Popularity — and Doubts.)

Kiernan said AWEA supports the “broad brushes” of the Climate Leadership Council’s carbon dividends plan, which claims it will cut U.S. CO2 emissions in half by 2035 with a gradually rising carbon fee, and rebates of $2,000 a year for a family of four.

But, he added, AWEA could support several approaches. “We’ve not ruled out cap and trade or a CES [clean energy standard].

“There are a number of Republicans — unfortunately, more behind closed doors — that are talking about the fee-and-dividend approach and are open to it, if not enthusiastic about it,” Kiernan continued. “They’re not public about it. Obviously, the fee or, quote, ‘tax’ is a challenge politically. But I’ve also talked to some leading Republicans in the Senate that are seeing the opening to potentially moving some type of fee and dividend or at least having a serious discussion about it post-election.”

CAP’s Tanden said beginning with a low carbon fee may be the key to winning congressional approval.

“We all acknowledge that the science requires a relatively large and impactful carbon tax. One way to think about the next 30 years is to have a low carbon tax enacted, which … shows it does not have the dire impact [feared], and they can ratchet up based on targets. … If we’re not meeting targets, it will automatically increase over time so that you are automatically having the impact that you need to have. That’s just one thing to think about because the most important thing is to actually get the carbon tax in law at a time where it’s still going to be heavily demagogued as a middle class tax increase no matter how we structure it.”

Pete Wyckoff, energy and environment policy adviser to Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), touted the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2019, introduced by Smith and Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) last May, which would require electric retailers to sell increasing percentages of carbon-free energy (51% of retail sales in 2021, 77% in 2035 and 96% in 2050).

Resources for the Future said its modeling of the bill indicates that by 2035, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 61%, prevent the retirement of 43 GW of nuclear capacity and increase renewable generation from 30% to 56% of total generation.

Wyckoff said Smith and Luján have had “fruitful” talks with Republicans, although they have no GOP cosponsors yet. “But we have built a coalition,” he said, citing endorsements by Utility Workers Union of America, the United Steelworkers, Xcel Energy, Exelon, UCS, the Clean Air Task Force and former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Wyckoff said Smith is backing the bill in part because similar bills have received Republican backing. “Our bill is also something she’s interested in because it’s what the states are doing. … No one is passing carbon taxes. But a clean energy standard, if well designed, can give you a lot of the same market benefits of a carbon tax and is much more politically palatable.”