Jon Powers (00:02):

Welcome Back to Experts Only. I’m your host, Jon Powers. I’m the co-founder of Clean Capital and serve as President Obama’s Chief Sustainability Officer. On this podcast, we explore solutions to climate change by talking to industry leaders about the intersection of energy, innovation and finance. You can get more episodes@cleancapital.com.

(00:29):

Welcome back to Experts Only. We had a little bit of a hiatus in episodes this summer, but we’ve got a whole series of them coming out over the next several weeks. We’re starting today with a conversation with the CEO and President of the Solar Energy Industry Association, Abby Hopper. Abby’s been on the show a series of times, but today we’re going to talk a lot about, here we are, two years into the Inflation Reduction Act. Talk a little bit about the experience of going through seeing that Pass, but what are the opportunities and challenges the last two years and where it’s going? And we’re going to talk about plus the upcoming conference in Anaheim in September. If you haven’t registered, please do. It’s the Go-to place to engage the solar and storage industry. You’re going to get more episodes of Clean Capital’s Experts only over the next couple of weeks, so make sure to follow clean capital.com. We are also going to be out at plus in numbers, so please try to find us. I’d love to meet up with you and talk about ways we can work together. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Abby Hopper, thanks so much for joining us at Experts Only. Again,

Abby Hopper (01:22):

It’s good to see you, Jon. How are you?

Jon Powers (01:24):

I’m doing well. I’m doing well. It’s been a exciting couple of years, and we’re talking ahead of the upcoming re plus and Anaheim in September. There’s a lot of momentum, obviously, around the political campaigns, but I want to spend today talking about a little bit of the celebration, but also what work needs to be done around the Inflation Reduction Act. And two years ago in August, it got signed. So I was hoping maybe you could take us back to what it felt like to be on the White House Lawn when we were all there celebrating with James Taylor. Right? Wasn’t James Taylor there?

Abby Hopper (01:59):

James Taylor, yeah.

Jon Powers (02:01):

Right. And surrounded by friends and colleagues who’ve been working on these issues. We’ll get into the work that’s been done after then, but just for a second, what did that moment mean to you, and then as the head of Solar Energy Industries Association, what has it meant to the industry?

Abby Hopper (02:15):

Sure. Well, it’s funny, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take you back one step farther, which is the moment I heard and the rest of the word heard that the IRA was actually happening, right? We didn’t even know it was called the IRA. I thought it was dead. We all thought it was dead, really was one of the best kept secrets in Washington. But I was here, I’m at the beach right now and I was at the beach two years ago now, and I was sitting on the beach under an umbrella on vacation with my whole family, and I started getting texts and breaking news, and I thought, is this real? Is this really real? And I ran upstairs to my condo and got online and got on the phone and we worked on a statement and did all the things that you do when there’s a big news announcement in your industry.

(03:03):

And I remember going to dinner that night. I was late to family dinner, which is a big deal. And I just remember saying to my family, the world just changed you guys. The world just changed. And that’s how I felt on the White House Lawn as well. It was incredibly exciting and just personally to have played a small part in such a huge piece of legislation and we dreamed about that day happening. Right? Yeah. You’ve been in this work for a long time. I’ve been in this work for a long time. It was such a transformational moment to use an overused word, but there was this excitement and almost disbelief, like happy disbelief that day at the White House. So that’s how I felt. It was also really, really warm. I was really hot. I was so hot, and we were out there when you go to the White House, you can just roll up. You got to get there pretty early. And so where the shade was at the beginning was not where the shade was at the end. So I had a seat in the shade before everything started, and then I had a seat in the sun, but it was just such a great day. And then there are all those parties. Everyone came to town, and so that was awesome. It felt a little like Ari Plus in terms of event after event after event in the evening. It was a really great day.

Jon Powers (04:25):

It was amazing. I did not expect walking in there, just a level of reflection on, a lot of us have been working on this for over a decade, and the amount of effort, advocacy wise, campaign wise that we’ve put in, and like you said, there was, I don’t think any of us expected that summer folks don’t remember the Biden administration. President Biden was really smart and sort of separated out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which they got passed with. There was the build back, better effort around. Yeah, build back better. And the rest of the climate legislation, there was hope it was going to happen. There was constant negotiation, but I think many folks thought maybe not, and there was closed door negotiations that led to this being done with Senator Manchin, et cetera. But what I think also gets mixed is in that 10 years, and more importantly in that last two year push because of the leadership of groups like the Solar Energy Industry Association, we knew what we needed to ask for in legislation. You talk about some of that work leading up to that, educating members, almost putting together the wishlist of what we hoped could end up in a piece of legislation like that.

Abby Hopper (05:37):

Absolutely, and you’re right, it was years of work and years of conversation with the industry. And I think one of the things that really separated it for me was that it was not solely focused on an extension of the ITC. We as an industry we’re pretty familiar with how to advocate for that one isolated piece of legislation, but we were really trying to advocate for an entire revisioning of what our future could look like. I mean, the positioning of the conversation changed. We did not go to the hill and say, we need the extension of the IRA or else we’ll never be able to close another project again. It would certainly have an impact on the pace. What we did was build this coalition that said, we need to change the way we fuel our economy. Bottom line, we need to change the way we fuel our economy, and that means investment tax credits for a variety of different low carbon and no carbon technologies.

(06:39):

And the other piece was the manufacturing piece that is so critical to the success of the advocacy campaign, and we’ll talk about the success of the IRA is that it was, again, a holistic approach to both demand side and supply chain market signals. And then the transferability piece, which kind of was a quiet piece I would say in the advocacy campaign. We certainly talked about it, but it was not a thing. It was solving a challenge that we’ve been having in terms of accessing equity tax equity. That has been, you probably know better than I, that’s pretty transformative in the marketplace. And I think that was what felt really different about this was that it was a holistic legislative package and not merely, I shouldn’t say merely, but not only an extension of one tax credit.

Jon Powers (07:38):

There wasn’t a battle among technologies to try to get the thing done. It was a comprehensive look. And I think one of the most interesting things here now two years later and look back, I think there is an understanding of if you’re not in Washington when legislation gets passed, there’s a ton of work to get done. We’re in maybe the fourth inning of the game, still a lot of work to get done, but there’s so much moving, manufacturing, low and modern income incentives, tax credits, you name it. It’s hard to even keep track of all of it versus how to actually influence on it. But if we sort of look at what are some of the big successes over the last two years, just want to talk through some of them. Let’s start with manufacturing. You said it three years ago. We were never looked for American panels for a specific reason other than what were the cheapest now literally quarterback quarter, there’s facilities popping up everywhere. I think I saw the numbers that by 2033, they expect to have over a hundred thousand manufacturing jobs in the US solar industry. Right?

Abby Hopper (08:36):

Right. I mean, it is one of the early and critically important success stories of the IRA is that this theory that we promulgated, if you have a specific strategy and policy support to develop a domestic manufacturing base, it will. And so better than I, a number of elements, both the tax credits for the investments themselves, the adders for purchasing domestic content, some of the requirements along the way for domestic contents, if you participate in some of the loan guarantees or the grant programs, and we’re seeing it work, right? We’re seeing manufacturers come to the United States, and it’s not just module manufacturers, it is racking manufacturers and tracker manufacturers and inverter manufacturers, the entirety of the solar and storage supply chain. We mapped it, we’ve mapped it, and it is well over half of the states, United States have new manufacturing capacity. We did an event two weeks ago with the Solar Caucus on the Hill.

(09:44):

So the Solar Caucus is led by Raj Krishnamurthy of Chicago of Illinois. He’s also the minority, the ranking member on the special committee against the Chinese Communist Party or whatever the name of that is. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So he is the Solar Caucus co-chair and the ranking member on that. And then Ralph Norman from South Carolina, who is an incredibly conservative member of congress, republican member of congress, but a huge advocate for solar. And so we held a domestic manufacturing expo, and both of them were there. Both of them spoke. There were over a hundred people at the event. We had, I think about eight domestic manufacturers,

Jon Powers (10:29):

Which for the Hill is a ton actually

Abby Hopper (10:31):

For the Hill, if you’re curious. It’s a lot of people. We had at least eight domestic manufacturers there. One of our member companies was joking. He said, I think it’s the first time a tracker has gone through security and this Rayburn office building. And so I was MCing it, and we went around the room and I asked every company to just introduce themselves, identify where they were in the supply chain, because I think that’s one of the really important pieces for folks to remember is that as important as the modules are, if it was only modules, we wouldn’t be able to build a solar project. Totally. So not only talk about where they were in the supply chain, but where they were manufacturing and there wasn’t a single one that was manufacturing in only one state. They all have a multi-state approach because it makes sense given where their customers are and where the investments are. And so we talked that day about even if we’d wanted to have this, of course we would’ve wanted to have it three years ago. We couldn’t have, because who would we have invited? Literally, who would we have invited and what the map would not have looked like anything. So yeah, the manufacturing story is incredibly important and I think a real success lots more to come, certainly, but a really good start in these first two

Jon Powers (11:49):

Years. And we’ll talk for a second about how that map has changed the political too. I think it definitely is. But before doing that, there are other key areas as well. I think deployment of projects, the tax credits. So now that we’re two years in and the rules are finally coming out right after they’re there processes. And for folks who don’t know, there’s a whole rule writing process that’s got to get public feedback and comments and the Solar Energy Industry Association amongst other really quarterback to getting all of our voices in there to affect it. What do you see the next year to 18 months specifically in that space looking like around the tax credit size?

Abby Hopper (12:30):

So you’re right, there has been a long process of implementing the IRA, right? Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. So I think that will continue, but I think the pace at which it continues, the certainty with which it continues, and the priority with which it continues depends a lot on the outcome of the election. We know that this administration is pushing hard to get as much guidance out as possible. We have done an analysis that we shared with our board around what rules are final and are going to be challenging to take back what proposed rules are there and can be withdrawn at a moment’s notice should there be a change in administration. And that what is only guidance, which is easy to take back. So I anticipate over between now and January 20th, a continued push to get finalized rules out the door with an asterisk. They still have some vulnerability because of the Congressional Review Act, but one thing that resonates across party lines is the need for business certainty. And when we talk with lawmakers about the amount of capital that is sitting on the sidelines waiting for guidance, that is a persuasive argument. It’s obviously not as much as it was because there’s more guidance than there had been. But anytime an elected official learns that there is capital that could be deployed but is not because of government inaction or government ambiguity, it doesn’t matter what letter is after your name, that is not a positive story. And that’s something that almost every elected would like to address.

Jon Powers (14:20):

And I feel like the more we get certainty, we’re seeing certainty, right? The more cost effective capital will continue to move forward. I think what we say a lot at the state level from clean capital’s perspective and now at the federal level again, because for a long time federal policy just wasn’t moving. But that certainty allows us to deploy long-term, which is I think important for our industry. And the reality is we have ebbed and flowed over the last 10 years, but the trends continue. They’re so strong. It’s so exciting for what we’re doing. And one of the most critical pieces of the IRA that I think it’s talked about some, but maybe not enough, is what this is doing to address some of the climate injustices have developed over or literally the century. So talk a little bit about what we’re seeing in that space and how we’re bringing both solar but other solutions to communities that for a long time were receiving the brunt of the climate injustices.

Abby Hopper (15:18):

Absolutely. So for me, when I read, I did not read every word of the IRAI will admit, but when I came to understand and learned about the vision of the IRA rather than just the individual provisions, it is a vision based on exactly what you said, addressing some of the historic injustices within our energy system and within our economy in general. And so there are as base level requirements around prevailing wage and apprenticeship that have to be met in order to reach that 30%, which that had not been a part of the ITC before. But there are all these adders adders in particular around energy communities and around low and moderate income households before we even talk about all of the granting programs, which I’m happy to talk about. But the stacking of tax credits and the rewarding of investment in particular areas that have been areas where there has been environmental injustice or communities that have been either left behind in terms of employment or impacted negatively because of air quality issues and health outcomes.

(16:36):

That is changing where developers are choosing to build. I mean, I think I already did a good job of lining up a vision of economic justice and economic prosperity. We can all say we want to do the right thing, but people are much more likely to do the right thing if they’re economically incentivized to do so. And so marrying those elements in the IRA, which had not been done before I think was pretty transformational. We put out one of the earliest maps at the energy communities, and I can’t even tell you how many investors and how many developers have told me, you know what? We were able to move our project a little bit west or a little bit east or rethink how we’re going to deploy capital because it just made more sense for us to be within one of those energy communities once we identified it. So that is a real specific tangible action that’s being taken to put clean energy investment, clean energy benefits, clean energy employment in areas that have historically not had that opportunity.

Jon Powers (17:45):

Yeah, it’s changing where we’re reciting them. It’s changing how we work with Community Solar to use our off takes in those communities. I mean, there’s so much happening, changing the opportunity for folks to end their workforce. They may not have access it before. So looking at the solar decade, which has been an amazing brand effort pushed by the Solar Energy Industry Association, where does, what role does the IRA going to play in really helping push forward over the next six years? We have left in this decade, which is

Abby Hopper (18:15):

Crazy. I know, isn’t that crazy? It’s crazy because I appreciate you saying that about the brand because So if you don’t know me, I love being in the office. Being in the office is one of my favorite things. And so it was not hard for me to go back to the office. I talk about when we came up with this solar decade, we were sitting in our office in 2019, I think it was before our strategy session in May, talking about the agenda and what we were going to do and how we were going to approach this whole conversation. And one of my colleagues came up with it, honestly, I don’t remember who, the Solar decade. And we all thought, oh my gosh, that’s a great brand. But I thought, it’s not quite, I feel like we’re missing something. And I remember standing in Dan Whitten’s office, myself, Colin, and someone else thinking about what do we really wanted to call it? And that’s where we came up with the solar plus decade. Here it is, 2024, right? July of 2024, and that’s still the name we’re using. So anyway, a big plug for that collaboration.

Jon Powers (19:17):

It’s so right on though. I mean, it’s exactly what’s happening this decade. Yeah, I know we’re all going to be together in Anaheim in a couple weeks. And not just celebrating, but talking about it and realizing we’re almost halfway through that push and we’re seeing wild success,

Abby Hopper (19:31):

Bananas challenges,

(19:33):

Definitely challenges, but a lot of our challenges though are the result of our success. I try to remind people of that, right? A hundred percent interconnection queue is going longer, is because we have so many projects. Transmission being too slow is because we actually need it. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t solve those. We absolutely should. But we are not talking about where do we find customers? How do we convince people that solar’s a good idea? We are way past those conversations. So I think you asked me how do I think the IRA is going to further the vision of the solar plus decade, and I think it’s all about pace and speed of this transition, but I also think it’s about normalizing that this transition is happening. There is, at least in my mind, and I spent a lot of time in Republican circles and with lots of different kinds of business leaders, and there is an inevitability.

(20:27):

Nobody doesn’t think this is happening. There is consensus whether or not folks are willing to say it out loud or in press releases, but everyone knows that we are moving towards a clean, sustainable, affordable energy solution. You talk to electric utilities, you talk to co-ops, you talk to Republicans, you talk farmers, right? Everybody knows this. And so I think the IRA has had a huge role to play in that because it lays out a vision that otherwise it might’ve been a little bit harder to articulate. So I think that we shouldn’t underestimate the impact that that has had on the public conversation as

Jon Powers (21:04):

Well. Absolutely. I mean, it’s giving us the tools we need to scale it, and I feel like the scaling was happening and just accelerating. Do you want to talk about for a second, you talking about normalizing? And one of the things you guys have done so well this last year, and I see this pop up all the time on LinkedIn with you, is you personally are out talking to folks all over the country going into local news stations, talking about what’s the latest numbers around solar being here in Buffalo, we actually this week have the first ever western New York Solar Summit happening here in western New York. We have a huge emerging growth industry here that we’re starting to take advantage of, but that’s happening all over the country. And you’re going into their living rooms on the local tv, not just the national news or CNN and talking about it. And I think that’s a really powerful tool, and I think all of us in the industry need to take it amongst ourselves to start telling those success stories locally. They make such a major influence in telling people this is happening and also overcoming the negative campaigns we’re seeing out there by fossil fuel industry, et cetera.

Abby Hopper (22:10):

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. It has been really fun to go into smaller markets and to talk about the news anchors I talked to in those markets. They want to know how it’s impacting the people in their towns and their cities, and we definitely have a story to tell and we are telling it, right? Well, not obviously. I think the way that people receive information is depends a lot on their age and kind of their culture and what they’re accustomed to. But I think we might underestimate how many people are paying attention to their local news.

Jon Powers (22:47):

A hundred percent

Abby Hopper (22:48):

Totally underestimated. And so the amount of impact we’re having, you can imagine there’s a ton of metrics and ways that we track all of those efforts. It is incredible the number of people that we are reaching when we do that. So we’re still in the New York Times, we’re still in the Washington Post, all that stuff. But if you had to ask me, if I had to choose which was more impactful, I’d probably choose the local media. It just has a reach far beyond what the big national headlines can get us.

Jon Powers (23:19):

I couldn’t agree with you more. I think it’s a much more bipartisan reach, right? It’s like people are picking their folks in the write off and aren’t reading the New York Times, but they’re watching. So I do want to speaking, right, let’s talk politics for a second. And there’s been an emergence of our industry growing up in terms of scaling workforce, et cetera, but we’re also growing up politically and we are getting more active and taking part in the creation of PACS and things that the American Petroleum Institute has been doing for decades. We are quickly working to scale and catch up. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing in that space, especially in light of the latest or the middle of a hot presidential election?

Abby Hopper (24:06):

We sure are. Yeah. So I think we talk a lot about using all the tools at our disposal. We know what is in the backpack, the arsenal, whatever word you ought to use. I choose not to use too violet of words, but all the tools at my disposal, and some of them are like political giving, right? Political giving and pacs and fundraisers. We visit with all of those same people on the official side. So we’ll head up to the hill and we’ll head to their districts and invite them to a solar project, but we also want them to know and experience the support on the political side. It’s just the way that it works. Like it or not, my job is to work it. So yeah, we have a pac, solar Pac at C, we give about 50% to Republican, 50% to Democrat. We show up in both of those places and we have a message that is tailored to the audience. They’re not fundamentally different, but they are nuanced differently. So as you know, I just went to the Republican National Convention and it was

Jon Powers (25:18):

So many questions about that, but

Abby Hopper (25:19):

My

Jon Powers (25:20):

Separate interview,

Abby Hopper (25:20):

Yeah, that’s a whole separate podcast. But I will say it was without a doubt, one of the most important things that I’ve done on behalf of our industry in a long time. I bet two things were important. One, we partnered with the right folks. So we partnered with groups that are intensely conservative and believe so strongly in clean energy and protects the environment. And so we were in the right company and we had credibility because of that. And then we talked about exactly what you and I have been talking about. I never use the words IRA by the way, but I talked about the success of the solar and storage industry in districts. How many jobs were being created in your district? I met with a number of Republican members of Congress and governors and senators, and I knew for every one of those meetings exactly what was happening in their home state, in their district that is also bipartisan people. It doesn’t matter what party you’re with, that’s what you care about. You care about what’s happening in your district. And so that was really great. I cannot tell you how many conversations I had or people’s eyes just lit up. Oh my goodness. I don’t know that I fully appreciated. I did not have a single conversation with anyone who said, why are you here? We don’t want to hear from you. Go back to the trees, nothing. It was a very business friendly conversation over and over and over again. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Jon Powers (26:49):

Yeah. So I mean, I can say this and not any capital. I don’t want to say in the podcast, this is a super important election year and we should all engaged, donate, hit the ground, knock on doors. There’s so much to be had, but also just help us tell our story. So as we’ve said a couple times plus is coming at Anaheim, clean Capital’s got a strategy to roll out a series of announcements ahead of time. Most people should, but don’t just target the industry magazines, target your local papers and talk about where you’re doing ribbon cuttings, et cetera. That’s going to be really influential in not just defending the I a, which is something a lot of people in the environmental industry talk about. I think from an industry it’s going in the offensive, which what see and others are doing.

Abby Hopper (27:31):

Absolutely. And I would say for anyone who’s listening see can help you do that, right? You got to come up with the product or the announcement, but if you need help figuring out how to put on an event or how to access local media or how to invite your elected officials to your factory or to your installation or to your headquarters, we can do that. We actually have people on our team whose job that is to do the grassworks. We’ve hired a state and local media person because we agree with you, Jon, that’s so important. And so there’s a lot of work and a lot of opportunity. And so folks should feel free to contact us and we’ll happily help you get

Jon Powers (28:14):

That message out. You have an amazing team working on this. And again, one of the reasons people should be members and full disclosure, clean capitals on the board of CN are super excited to be supporting it. But I think regardless, being active is important. So before we get to wrapping up, I do want to talk about if there is a Trump administration, how does that affect the IRA before doing that? Obviously, the dynamic has changed dramatically just in the line. If we had this interview two weeks ago, it’d be a different conversation than we’re having today. There’s still a hundred days left in this big push. The campaigns will be slogging it out. But to be honest with you, there’s a very stark difference in the visions of the future of the clean energy transition between the presidential candidates. But should we be anxious, should be fearful. How should we be thinking about if there is a Trump administration?

Abby Hopper (29:08):

So you can imagine, I get asked this question a lot. I’ve given it a lot of thought. I don’t think we should be fearful. I don’t ever want anyone to live their life from a perspective of fear, but I do think we should be super cognizant of the stakes, as you said, and that people should leave it all in the field. This is not a time to hold back whatever your political view is, right? This is an incredibly consequential election on a number of issues including clean energy. So get out there and do whatever it is that makes sense to you. But I think that there is a Trump administration. We will see a number of things. I think we will see some of those regulatory processes slow down. I think that the former president has made it very clear that that clean energy is not his priority.

(30:00):

And so I think that’s a likely outcome. I think that there will be efforts in Congress to probably end some elements of the ira, perhaps curtail timelines of other elements of the ira, and I think leave some parts alone own, if you recall other points in history in our recent history where Republicans in particular have had a chance to roll back things. They haven’t always been quite as successful as they may have hoped. And so it does take a lot to get everybody on the same page, which sometimes works to our detriment, sometimes could work to our benefit. But most importantly, I mean, I sort of sound like a broken record, but we sometimes talk about Congress as this monolithic body that moves and mass and it couldn’t be farther from the truth, right? It’s hundreds of individuals, all of whom have their own impressions and ideas and opinions.

(31:03):

And so you and I know that people are moved when they feel things, right? They can learn all the facts in the world, and those are important, but elected officials are included that they are moved when they feel something. And sometimes that happens when it’s a constituent that comes into their office and tells them an impactful story. Sometimes it’s a tour where they see a thing, a manufacturing process, or a worker, and it touches them in a very human way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had conversations with elected officials who share whatever that one story is, could have happened 10 years ago, and that was the moment for them that they got it, or they became an advocate or they became supportive of clean energy. And so that work’s not going to change, and that’s likely going to get more important if there is a Republican, certainly a Republican sweep.

(32:03):

We’re going to have to even raise our game more around telling our story. We haven’t talked about trade much. I think that’s the other area of vulnerability for us in particular, if there is a Trump administration, regardless of what happens in Congress, since that could be a unilateral move, we’re preparing for it. You can imagine thinking through all of the various things that could happen as a result of that at Seal, one of the things we’ve been really working on this year is our international relationships, despite who wins the White House. I think it’s clear to all of us that building stronger relationships with friendly countries and allies and countries that share our values is important. It’s important to securing our supply chain. It’s important to protecting our ip. It’s important to having healthy trading relationships. And so we’re trying to do our part in identifying those countries, building relationships with the solar industries in those countries, having those kinds of resources at our disposal so that our industry can think a little bit differently about how we interact on the international stage than we have in the past.

Jon Powers (33:23):

I love that. I love that the global impact of what we’re doing is profound. So I’m going to change my final question just up a little bit because I’m, instead of going back to school when you’re graduating, I’m going to go back to that White House event. And if you could grab yourself before you went on to the happy hours, which there were lots of them after that, and you could give yourself one piece of advice. Looking out now and having lived these last two years, what would you say to yourself?

Abby Hopper (33:47):

Oh my gosh, that’s an interesting question. I think I might have. I don’t think any of us fully appreciated how long the regulatory process would take. And I think we spent a lot of time being frustrated without much tangible benefit to it. It wasn’t like we pushed harder and everybody moved faster. We were going to push hard no matter what. But we did spend a lot of time angsting about why is it taking so long? So C could have probably done a better job educating our members and our industry about the timelines related to the regulatory process while still pushing really hard. I think that’s one thing I might have done, and I think we have worked so hard to, I worked for a governor earlier on in my career who loved data and loved mapping everything and comparing data, and we have tried really hard to capture all of the data because in addition to what I said about people being moved when they feel something, data really matters. And so I think I would say to myself, let’s be even a little bit more organized about how we’re tracking all of this data, all of these good stories, all of these announcements. We are doing it certainly, but there’s just so many good stories out there to tell. That’s so critically important. How about you? What would you say to yourself?

Jon Powers (35:23):

Oh, that’s a good question. I think I had a sense of how long this is going to take, and I was trying to have conversations about it for sure, because having been inside the administration, understanding the rural banking just takes months. It for each process takes. I think if I had put my hat back on, it’s immediately starting to push the donors, the environmental groups, the advocacy groups to go on the offensive immediately. It needs to be immediate. And I think we sat too long and let it get defined in a way that now we’re fighting against, right? So we should have gone immediately in the offensive, and we’re unfortunately still trying to do that. I think we’re getting better at it as an industry and an advocacy group, but still not aggressive enough. I get very frustrated with the donors in the environmental space because they’re slow to move, and as a result, we’ve forget this stuff for a second. Think about ESG financing, right? They let Alex and another undercut ESG financing without even responding, and then responded to months later. So anyways, that’s my own project, but I get very frustrated their lack of momentum there.

Abby Hopper (36:36):

No, it’s an important thing. We have to tell the story we want to tell, or else someone’s going to tell it for us.

Jon Powers (36:43):

Totally. Well, speaking of telling stories, we’re going to all be together in Anaheim in a couple of weeks. It was super excited to see you out there. If you haven’t registered, please register at RA Plus, and I know you’re going to have a wildly packed agenda out there, but anything people should be looking forward to.

Abby Hopper (37:03):

Yeah, it’s going to be since our 20th anniversary, which Oh, wow. Yeah, so the 20th anniversary of re plus, obviously it started under a different name. It started under a couple of different names. It grew and grew and grew, but that’ll be fun. We’re celebrating that on Monday night with a big party. Nice. I think what folks should be looking forward to, two things. One is are trying to make available a number of ways that people can connect, both connect interpersonally with each other. That show is getting so big that creating the human element really matters, but also connect in terms of storytelling at our booth, having opportunities for folks to really plug in there to do some of the advocacy work. So I think folks should look out for that. But I also think just that breadth and the diversity of our industry and our workforces and our attendees, it’s celebratory. It’s such a celebratory moment, and being able to witness it year after year is such a privilege.

Jon Powers (38:11):

Yeah, I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to it. It’s exhausting, but I

Abby Hopper (38:14):

Can’t wait. So exhausting. I know. I know. Yes, early the next week it says a RH. Awesome. Awesome. Leave me

Jon Powers (38:22):

Alone. Well, Abby, thank you for joining us from your vacation. I know family time is so critical, and I really am honored to have you on as always.

Abby Hopper (38:32):

Oh, it’s such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for all your good work.

Jon Powers (38:35):

Of course. And thank you to Stephanie Bosch. I think I met Stephanie almost a year ago when she was at the first re plus in Las Vegas. Her first, her education in this industry and the way she’s hit the ground sprinting is just phenomenal. So you get a really rockstar team there. Wonderful. I think so too. So please make sure to register at RA Plus, and as always, you can get more episodes of experts only@cleancapital.com. Abby, enjoy the rest of your vacation. We’ll see you in Anaheim. Thank you. See you in Anaheim. Thanks so much. Bye-Bye bye.