Mark Fleming has a prediction for those terrified about the impact of a second Trump administration on the clean energy transition: “It’s going to work out better than folks think.”
Fleming is head of Conservatives for Clean Energy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit that brings together lobbyists, consultants, and politicians on the right who support clean energy. The group formed a decade ago, not long before Trump’s first term began, and is now active in six Southeast states. On Tuesday, together with the Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy, it held its biennial luncheon in downtown Raleigh.
Coming just two weeks after an election most advocates see as a major setback for federal clean energy policy, the Raleigh event was not unlike past affairs, with congenial vibes, a half dozen awards to politicians and businesses, and presentation from leading Republican consultants assessing the political salience of clean energy.
“It was an election about the economy and immigration,” explained Paul Shumaker, one such pollster and a fixture at these gatherings. “Clean energy is never going to be the issue.”
Trump and his hostile, mostly fact-free rants on the campaign trail about wind energy and the climate crisis got little mention during the formal presentations. Side conversations showed conservatives seemed relatively unconcerned about the future president’s tirades and threats.
“Governing is different than campaigning,” Fleming said.
He and others believe much of Trump’s rhetoric was tossed as red meat to his base of supporters and won’t get meaningful follow-through. On technologies such as offshore wind — which the incoming president frequently lambasts — perhaps the administration and even the man himself can be convinced of its economic benefits, attendees suggested.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who supports offshore wind in the commonwealth, “will be at the top of the list of conservative policy makers in terms of encouraging the Trump administration to look at the positives on offshore wind,” Fleming said. “It makes long term economic sense, but there’s going to be some education there.”
Indeed, to help his re-election chances, Trump did flip his stance on offshore drilling four years ago — at least for the Southern Atlantic — after input from Republicans in Southeast states who oppose the practice.
Despite Trump’s vague promise to curtail the Inflation Reduction Act, Fleming believes congressional Republicans will preserve most of Biden’s signature climate law because of its benefits in rural areas.
Nine new projects announced in North Carolina the year after the measure’s passage, from lithium processing to vehicle-charging equipment plants, will spur tens of thousands of jobs and add $10 billion to the state’s GDP, the clean economy group E2 found.
Such data should be fodder for members of Congress like Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina’s senior U.S. senator and a Republican, to fight to keep most of the Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions.
“He has been such a thoughtful leader on energy issues,” Fleming said of Tillis. “He’s going to be a key decision maker in the U.S. Senate on these clean energy issues moving forward.”
‘We won’t agree on everything’
Jason Saine, a Lincoln County Republican who served more than a dozen years in the North Carolina House and now works as a lobbyist, was among the luncheon’s awardees. He says Trump’s rhetoric is just part of politics.
“Good science and good facts will rule the day, but in the meantime, we’ll suffer through a lot of rhetoric,” he said.
Like some of his conservative colleagues who focus on federal policy, Fleming hopes the closely divided Congress will have new reason to enact reforms to the permitting process that will speed approval of clean energy as well as fossil fuel projects.
And though he’s confident that much of the Inflation Reduction Act will survive, Fleming believes Congress will trim it — a “scalpel rather than a sledgehammer” approach.
Saine agrees. “It can always be recreated in a different format and voted on again,” he said. “What’s dead today is never dead tomorrow.”
One item in the climate law that’s ripe for repeal is the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, Fleming said. That incentive is spurring plenty of economic development in rural areas in the form of EV and battery factories, but it’s perceived as benefiting only urban folk.
“The administration will want wins,” Fleming insisted. “We won’t agree on everything. But I think we’ll have opportunities to work together to move the economy forward and move the clean energy cause forward in D.C.”
No matter what, most of the luncheon attendees remained focused on incremental reforms in North Carolina — where the power dynamics are largely unchanged after Nov. 5. Trump won the state, but Democrat Josh Stein trounced a scandal-plagued Republican to win the governor’s race. The GOP continues to control a heavily gerrymandered legislature and is just one vote shy of a veto-proof majority in the House.
Still, as “Trump II” approaches, Fleming acknowledged Conservatives for Clean Energy has an important role to play.
“It’s going to be better than folks think,” he repeated. “But the onus will be on all of us to make it happen. Now, groups like ours are more needed than ever. That thought leadership on these issues will be on the right. It’s not going to be from our friends on the left.”
