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Clean Energy is the New Dirty Word Between GOP and Democrats

It's hard to imagine a greater contrast on any issue – including immigration –between the current GOP and the Democratic Party.

Drew Clark

Aug 2, 2024 — 5 min read

File Photo of Elon Musk and Donald Trump in February 2017 by Evan Vucci of AP

Elon Musk used to be known as a climate change innovator, the man who seemingly single-handedly changed the trajectory of automobiles from gas-guzzlers to powerful electric vehicles from Tesla.

Now, he's increasingly known as a anti-woke crank, pillaging the goodwill that existed from his purchase of Twitter and squandering it on the endorsement of a man like Donald Trump, who is running for president on a specifically anti-immigration and anti-clean energy campaign.

Indeed, the very first recommendation in the Republican Party platform, endorsed last month at its nomination convention in Milwaukee, touted the party's commitment to "became the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American energy production and terminating the socialist green new deal."

Elsewhere in the platform, the party specifically touts that it will "cancel" what it called "Biden's electric vehicle and other mandates."

The document says that America will "drill, baby, drill," and that under a new administration, the country "will increase energy production across the board, streamline permitting, and end market-distorting restrictions on oil, natural gas and coal. The Republican Party will once again make America energy independent, and then energy dominant, lowering energy prices even below the record lows achieved during President Trump’s first term."

It's hard to imagine a greater contrast on any issue – including immigration –between the current GOP and the Democratic Party.

Will those commitments to turn the Republican Party sharply away from a decade-old trend toward advanced and green energy, and to an unashamedly pro-fossil-fuel stance, cause any second guessing by the Silicon Valley "bros" currently touting Trump and crypto? We'll see.

Advanced and green energy is booming

When in the thrall of the histrionics in Milwaukee, however, it's easy to forget just how much the American energy marketplace has changed. And, yes – much of this was helped along by the green energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of August 2022.

It has spurred private investment in clean energy, bipartisan support for clean energy solutions, and broadband solutions to energy efficiency, panelists said at Broadband Breakfast's Made in America Summit in June 2023.

The IRA, which invested $400 billion in federal funding to clean energy, is a central part of the White House’s initiative to revitalize the American industry. The majority of the law’s investment comes in the form of tax credits. Corporations will receive an estimated $216 billion in tax credits, which are structured to accelerate private investment in clean energy, transport and manufacturing.

Fatima Maria Ahmad, vice president for Clean Energy at climate change firm Boundary Stone, said that the IRA was designed to “unleash private capital in line with U.S. climate goals.”

Indeed, said panelists at that event, private investment and innovation in green energy technology is booming, reported the senior vice president of strategy and operations at Powerhouse, the climate tech innovation firm, Chris Perrault. He attributed the ever-increasing push of climate investments to policy and investments outlined in the IRA.

Furthermore, the IRA provides a runway of long-term investments and tax credits that will help businesses feel confident in pushing forward with private investments, added Harrison Godfrey, director of the Advanced Energy United’s Federal Investment and Manufacturing Working Group.

Many factories and plants are being built in conservative states, added Ahmad. Residents will benefit from the investments, which will “help ensure the resilience of the transition to a clean energy economy,” she said.

As funding shifts to conservative states, it will give more continuity of support and will develop communities and ecosystems that can provide support for future climate provisions, added Ed Rightor, former director at the Center for Clean Energy Innovation at the Information and Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The broadband-green energy connection

There's a important and growing connection between advanced energy infrastructure and advanced broadband infrastructure – and it's not just the fact that artificial intelligence is driving up demand for energy-powered data centers, or the apparently-high energy consumption to power cryptocurrency.

It's really about infrastructure improvements, and the way that internet infrastructure paves the way for and underscores the underscores benefits of smart grid infrastructure.

The one small degree of overlap between the parties may be on permitting reform. You can't build a broadband network, or power cleaner energy, without also laying some fiber and electric lines that currently aren't there.

At Broadband Breakfast Live Online from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (the event runs from August 19-22), we'll consider how the Democratic Party is leading in championing green energy as a cornerstone of its environmental and economic policies.

This commitment has intensified in recent years, with the Biden-Harris administration launching ambitious initiatives to accelerate America's transition to clean energy. How have these efforts fared in practice? How are Democrats balancing the urgent call for climate action with economic and political realities?