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Episode 13: Adam Browning

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On this podcast, host Jon Powers sits down with Adam Browning, Executive Director of Vote Solar. We explore Vote Solar’s unique role in the marketplace. This conversation is especially timely given the political climate surrounding renewables at the federal level, pending tax reform, and the tariff case before the International Trade Commission.

Adam leads Vote Solar’s team of advocates, experts and staff working to boost solar across the U.S. Adam co-founded the organization in 2002 after he worked on a successful local solar ballot initiative. Prior to Vote Solar, Adam spent eight years with the Environmental Protection Agency where he ran an award-winning pollution prevention program. Adam grew up in Miami and served with the Peace Corps in Guinea-Bissau and West Africa-experiences that taught him about the power of the sun.
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Listen now

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Transcript

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Voiceover:

Welcome to the Experts Only podcast, sponsored by CleanCapital, where we explore the intersection of energy, innovation, and finance. Our host is CleanCapital’s co-founder and former federal chief sustainability officer, Jon Powers. Learn how CleanCapital is revolutionizing clean energy finance, and find more episodes at cleancapital.com, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe and leave us a five-star review.

Jon Powers:

Welcome to CleanCapital’s Experts Only podcast. I’m your host, Jon Powers. We’ve got a great interview today with Vote Solar’s Adam Browning. Adam spent over 15 years leading Vote Solar, earning him the title across the industry as the Michael Jordan of solar policy. You’re in for a really interesting conversation as we explore not only what Vote Solar’s role is in terms of the solar marketplace, but where these fights are today.

Jon Powers:

We’re seeing so much happening at the federal level on pushback around the solar trade case, or Secretary Perry’s space. The real fight that many of us should be focused on is what’s happening at the state level, whether it be net metering in Nevada, fights in Florida, new policies in Pennsylvania and Illinois, stuff that we need to be tracking to move into the next market. Adam and I will be talking a lot about that.

Jon Powers:

I think if there’s any takeaway that I learned from him, it’s important for the states that are leading today just to get bolder and to hit on the targets that they’re achieving. I mean, California’s just announced recently they’re going to hit their targets early. It’s because of the advocacy at those levels. So I think you’ll learn a lot from this conversation. Let’s get started. Adam, thank you so much for joining us on Experts Only podcast.

Adam Browning:

Oh, I am excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jon Powers:

Yeah, of course. I want to start talking a little bit about your personal story in the space. You’ve had such a diverse background. Growing up in Miami. Joining the Peace Corps. Even spend some time in a federal agency. Tell me a little bit about your journey. First of all, how’d you end up joining the Peace Corps?

Adam Browning:

Ah, that’s an easy one. Going through college, I never had a real exact plan for what the next steps were. The idea of spending a bunch of time living in a simpler place and time, in the middle of nowhere, Africa, just seemed like the funnest, most exciting thing that anyone could ever want to do. It turns out I was right.

Jon Powers:

That’s great. What are some of the things you worked on when you were on the ground there?

Adam Browning:

Oh, I was in a little country called Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, just south of Senegal. The first group of volunteers doing some agriculture work. We were focused on rice growing. Tell you what. It was first year. It was really just about figuring out how to live. People were wonderful. The second year was really about trying to get some projects done. It was the most challenging experience that I ever had to that point and probably ever will, being a father notwithstanding. If it’s something that appeals to you, I recommend it to anybody at any point in their lives.

Jon Powers:

What are some of the lessons you took away from working on the ground there?

Adam Browning:

Honestly, a lot of lessons that transfer over to work today. One is take the time to really get to know the world that you’re living in. Do not expect results right away. Change, when it happens, can go quite slow. There are a lot of reasons for the status quo. When we hire somebody, I first sit down and let them know that I really want them to master their area and their subject matter, and not think that they need to blow things up and change things immediately. I think that was one big lesson. Let’s see. The other, really enjoying what you do is critically important. It’s all relationships. The more time you spend getting to know people and building your relationships and having joy in that, the better off you’ll be.

Jon Powers:

Yeah, absolutely. Coming out of that, how did you end up joining the EPA?

Adam Browning:

When I left, that was back in end of ’94. The economy was not good. Actually, I just took to Goodwill the first sports coat that I bought after coming back from Peace Corps, that I went around to local restaurants, trying to find a bus boy job, and couldn’t find work at all. Returning Peace Corps volunteers have special hiring status with the federal government, so I looked into that. EPA was a local agency. I had always been an environmentalist. I really focused on getting a job there, simply because I just looked like I had an easier in with my Peace Corps service. So that was where I ended up.

Jon Powers:

Were you working on energy stuff at EPA? What was your focus there?

Adam Browning:

My first effort with EPA was a lead-based paint program-

Jon Powers:

Oh, interesting.

Adam Browning:

… specifically focused on tribes, which have unique standing vis-à-vis the federal government. This was a grant program with the tribes in region nine, covering Arizona and Nevada, Hawaii and California. That was a really interesting program. I transitioned after a while into the toxics release inventory program. That ended up being fascinating work. I ended up doing a lot of enforcement-related work and then a lot of work with goldmines in Nevada, where I ended up.

Jon Powers:

Were you out in California then?

Adam Browning:

Yeah. Region nine, in the San Francisco office, out in California. Yep.

Jon Powers:

Excellent. What led from playing in the goldmines of Nevada to, in 2002, launching Vote Solar? Before getting into the Vote Solar piece, why did you want to get into the advocacy piece after having been on the service side and then the public service side?

Adam Browning:

Sure. Again, it wasn’t a plan that I had from the start, that I was just following out a path to a goal that I had. It’s more going from one interesting thing to the other. Working for the EPA, for the federal government, great introduction to understanding how environmental protection and our laws that our country have are applied and how it all works. There are some things left to be desired by working for the federal government. It’s a large bureaucracy. Innovation can be a little hard to come by. I’ve always enjoyed being my own boss. It wasn’t necessarily that I had a plan, but what ended up happening was I saw another opportunity and jumped on it. That specifically was an old college roommate, David Hochschild. Not actually a roommate. He was a hall mate. He was working for the mayor, Willie Brown, in San Francisco. He had an idea to try to put solar on city-owned buildings, do energy efficiency. That ended up becoming a ballot initiative.

Adam Browning:

I had never really been involved in a political process before. I found it exhilarating. We had really captured the imagination of a lot of people in the city. We had hundreds, if not thousands, of volunteers that were really excited about this idea of a transition to renewable energy. For me personally, doing a lot of enforcement with the EPA, fining people for what’s coming out of their smokestacks, this whole idea of you don’t even need control equipment. There’s no enforcement necessary. We’re just going to skip the whole smokestack route altogether. Really, it had visceral appeal of going to a cheaper, cleaner, faster, better way of producing energy. Of course, solar, at that point, wasn’t cheaper, but we had a vision for it. Through economies of scale, you could bring down the costs. That was the whole idea behind the San Francisco Solar Bond, Proposition B, in 2001.

Jon Powers:

Interesting. I have a similar path. When I left the military, I had never done anything political in my life. Came home and had a friend who had been working on Kerry’s presidential race. She knew I was an Iraq vet. Had me go out to Iowa to campaign, and for the first time was on the ground, talking to folks about my experiences. It just led me in a completely different path in life.

Jon Powers:

Later on, when I sat in a federal seat and worked across the agencies on their energy footprint, it became really apparent to me how important those voices, the voices of folks that were actually working in these issues, are. And then having them come and advocate for their positions, it’s something that the people sitting in these seats, especially here in Washington, but I’d say equally in Sacramento or in Albany, I’m from New York, originally. They’re experts as far as they can go. But the real voices they need are the ones that are out there doing the work. That kind of advocacy can be game changing. Obviously, it’s probably why you started Vote Solar. Talk a little bit about transitioning from that ballot initiative into co-founding Vote Solar in 2002.

Adam Browning:

Yeah. Well, let me just riff on your story as well. What I have found, and it sounds like you as well, people really want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They genuinely are interested in seeing change. The difficulty is trying to provide the right vessel, the right vehicle, the right space, where you can actually get involved and make something happen. That’s what I feel is where solar and part of the foundational premise of Vote Solar comes in. After we pass that ballot initiative, which is, again, just to do solar and energy efficiency on city-owned buildings, and have the energy savings pay for those capital retrofits, we had calls from cities around the country. We had New York Times calling. It quickly became apparent that there was a hunger for this kind of change out there that led us to decide to quit our jobs and start a new nonprofit focused on replicating those city-led initiatives the best we could.

Adam Browning:

We quickly found out that, while city-led initiatives were good in and of themselves, where the real rules were made was at state-level policies. You had to have the right state-level enabling infrastructure to allow for a city or a person to take advantage of one of the real strengths of solar, which is that you don’t have to wait for your utility to do the right thing. You can take it upon yourself to invest in this, a mission-free technology, and to fundamentally participate in democracy and environmental decision making. But in order to allow that to happen, you have to have the right regulatory infrastructure in order to enable people to choose to make their own power through solar energy, whether you’re a person or whether you’re a city. So we changed the orientation and the focus of the organization to state-level policies.

Jon Powers:

Very focused in California in the beginning, right? I mean, you guys were really laying the groundwork for what ended up rolling across the country throughout the rest of the decade.

Adam Browning:

Exactly. When we got our start, there was a cap on net metering in California at 0.1% of total demand. Everyone at the utility side saying, “To expand that would risk grid failure and a business model collapse.” I didn’t know it at the time, but the next 15 years of my life would really be defined by incrementally expanding that cap to where we don’t have one right now in California at all.

Jon Powers:

It’s funny to hear those are the arguments, the counter arguments. It’s almost the same every time they want to shift. It’s the same argument they’re making today.

Adam Browning:

Exactly. The arguments are different now, only slightly. But yeah, we knocked down some of those impossible barriers a long time ago, or had to knock on them. But yeah, for many years Vote Solar was two people, then three people, then four people. The first big focus was in California, on the California Solar Initiative, a big, market-based incentive program that provided incentives for rooftop solar. Back then, solar was nine, 10 bucks a watt. Doing unincentivized solar wasn’t really possible in that market. So the whole idea was to establish this incentive program that would wean itself, that would lead to an end, at which point, it wasn’t necessary anymore and would go away. I think this is one of these wonderful examples that you don’t see all that often, of policy living up to its premise to a T, to deliver exactly what it’s set out to do, and ride off into the sunset. We hold up that as evidence of a very successful program.

Jon Powers:

It really did lay the foundation. When the next step, you started to look nationally, what are you going to do to drive down the cost of power or cost of these panels? You’ve got efforts like I think President Bush’s Energy Policy Act that set the investment tax credit in place. That was around 2005. Didn’t really get going in the market until 2007, maybe ’08, until we started seeing money really flow there. But all the state-level foundational work that you did, married to the federal stuff, started a pretty critical set of chain reactions, where policy lined up with markets.

Jon Powers:

I was doing some homework before we were doing interviews. I was looking just to even find the amount of installed solar in 2002. It’s really hard data to find because there wasn’t a whole lot out there. You flash forward now, where the end of 2016, the US had 40 gigawatts of installed PV, almost double the capacity from the previous year. In 2016, 39% of all new electricity generation in the country came from solar, ahead of even natural gas. We’re seeing employment numbers of this industry take off, where now we’ve gone from a nascent alternative energy to what’s really mainstream.

Jon Powers:

What I really want to talk about now is looking ahead, we’re at a unique time in the federal space, and then dive into the state conversation more deeply with you. But starting with the federal space, post the Obama administration, if you followed Energy Policy Act into the certain policies that came out of the Obama administration to help drive down the cost, things like SunShot that drive down the cost of the actual equipment. Now we’re at a place where the market is moving. Installations are happening at record numbers. But we’re facing two dramatic federal lines of attack. One is the solar trade case, which I want to talk a little bit about. And, of course, Secretary Perry’s recent push to really subsidize the coal industry. As you’re seeing this happen, how are you viewing those plays and how they’re going to affect us going forward?

Adam Browning:

Sure. Yeah. As an organization, our focus has always been focused on state-level policy. We’ve let the federal policy in the very good hands of SEIA, provided grassroots support for federal initiatives around the tax credit and the like. But our mantra has always been that state-level policy is where the most important rules of the road are set. So done a ton of RPSs and net metering and financing programs and tax policy around the country since then. After Trump was elected, it became really clear that we’re going to make progress in those times, that state-level policy, it was really where it’s at. The big states needed to go bigger. We needed to get good wins in some of the harder states to do, and we needed to play defense everywhere. I have to say, I have been surprised. It came as a surprise, just the magnitude of the federal resistance that we’ve seen so far. Did not anticipate this trade case, which, as you know, could double the price of modules, potentially.

Jon Powers:

Ironically, you’re seeing conservatives like Sean Hannity coming out against it and supporting, I think, the SEIA or the solar position on it, which is interesting.

Adam Browning:

It is quite interesting. Love to see that. At the same time, you look at, coming out of Perry’s DOE, a proposal to fundamentally blow up competitive energy markets to provide subsidies for out of the money coal and nuke plants, to the detriment of renewables and natural gas. This is something that is in direct contradiction with the rhetoric coming out of a party that is nominally used to competitive markets, or professes to be supportive of such. So really did not expect just the radical nature of the proposals to just make everybody pay more, to subsidize polluting coal and, again, destroy competitive markets and the pursuit of such. That is definitely something that we all need to have our eye on and fight as hard as we can for.

Jon Powers:

Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. If you look back when this conversation started, when Perry landed there, there was certain folks within DOE who are politicized and trying to move this base load agenda. This summer, you and I did a joint op-ed pushing back on what’s expected to be the grid report, that I think they were hoping was going to empower them to go and really go after things like state RPSs and net metering. What it came out to show was, oh, no, actually, renewables are doing really well in the grid. As we argued, there’s real resilience in renewables. Then they seem like, “Oh, since that didn’t work like they had it planned, they decided to start going after FERC rules to try to provide subsidies of coal.” Then you’ve got major players like PJM and others coming out saying, “Wait a minute. Don’t distort the market like this.” Which is a really interesting counterattack that I don’t think I even saw coming, where you saw some of the major players who usually are relatively quiet on this stuff, saying, “Whoa, hold your horses. Let’s let the market play here.”

Adam Browning:

100% in agreement. In fact, when it was first floated, it didn’t even seem like something that we would need to provide too much advocacy focus on. It was too crazy, so far out of the mainstream, and so contradictory to things that are delivering great benefits to consumers through competitive markets, that it was just implausible that it would actually go forward. When you see some of the FERC commissioners providing supportive statements to elements of it, you really start to worry. This is something, again, that should be treated as just beyond the pale, and not really potentially being internalized. So there’s a lot more danger there.

Jon Powers:

Making interesting bedfellows with folks like the solar industry and the natural gas industry coming together on pushback. Let’s transition out of the federal space because I think those fights are going to happen, and we’ve got to all play an active role in pushing back on them. But it also really shines a light on the importance of focusing on state-level solutions. There’s been a lot of activity in 2016 and, of course, here in 2017 that are affecting the space. You guys have been very active. Everything from the recent elections here in Virginia and in New Jersey, what those mean for clean energy, but also some of the fights that you’ve been leading in Nevada and Florida, can you talk a little bit about what Vote Solar’s doing there?

Adam Browning:

Sure. Yeah. I do think it’s a case where the big leading states need to get bolder and go farther. Let’s just, again, start with California real quickly. The California Public Utilities Commission just released a report saying that this state could meet its 50% RPS. It’s on track to meet 50% RPS 10 years early, by 2020, so just a few years out, which really sets the bar for what is possible around the country. This past year, I think, has been a really dynamic showcase of what really is possible at the state level. Let’s begin with Nevada, where back almost two years ago now, you had solar’s worst loss ever. Absolutely the crushing of net metering. In the intervening 16 months, you had a ton of advocacy work that went into that state. We had people full time working on bringing back solar to Nevada. We had lawsuits going. We had regulatory strategy, legislative strategy.

Adam Browning:

The sum result of a lot of partners also working on this is that you had the most successful legislative session in, I would say, any state at any time. You had 11 major energy bills pass. Only nine of them were signed. The governor dropped the ball on the 40% RPS and our community solar bill, but you brought back full retail. Net metering, the rooftop solar market is moving forward. I would say that this was a real example of where the enemies of progress had a pretty pyrrhic victory. At the same time, you had a ballot initiative Nevada passed by a record 73% to essentially blow up Nevada energy in the IOUs and have a competitive market. It has to pass twice, so it hasn’t yet happened. Nonetheless, you saw the will of the voters.

Adam Browning:

We’ve got polling to show that after the big solar loss, where solar became a front-page issue for months, it affected electoral politics across the board. You had, in the race to succeed, Senator Harry Reed, one candidate taking a pro-solar position, and one taking an anti-solar position. We have polling to show that people held that solar view against Joe Heck and rewarded Catherine Cortez Masto, now the senator, accordingly. So this is a place where you’ve seen, really, solar flex its electoral muscles. You look across the country, and super majorities want to see this transition to renewable energy. Here is a place where you actually saw that play out at the polls.

Adam Browning:

Florida is another place where we saw some really helpful activity. I grew up in Miami, so I think I’m allowed to say, “Man, nothing good ever comes out of Florida.” That’s hyperbole, of course. But it’s just really hard to get wins in the Sunshine State. You have to go back to 2008 with Governor Crist to see when we had a huge win on net metering. But what we saw this past year, we worked with the Republican-dominated state legislature to put a tax abatement issue on the ballot. The ballot was on the primary last August, and it passed, again, by 73% of the vote. Then the legislature had to vote on it again to implement it. So three times. Twice in the legislature won. The huge majority of the people wanting to see this property tax abatement, which effectively lowers the cost of solar around 20%, in the third largest, most populous state in the country. So it’s really a big deal pass. This is a another example where you’re seeing, really, solar become an electoral issue, something that politicians have to pay attention to.

Adam Browning:

Flip forward to the just a few weeks ago, where you saw both in New Jersey and in Virginia, pro-solar leaders, pro-renewable energy leaders, get elected. The Virginia governor adopted 100% renewable platform, and the New Jersey governor has some really strong, renewable credentials. Those were pretty tightly contested races, but I think this is really the way of the future, where you see, in effect, in the absence of federal government leadership. In fact, when you’re looking at federal government intransigence on this subject, politicians really understanding that that is not where the people are at. The people want to see this transition. This is a vehicle to get elected.

Jon Powers:

These are deeply technical regulatory issues in many cases. I mean, obviously, someone in the industry, we can understand that. But to get people active and to vote on these and to help educate them on, whether it be regulatory issues, you mentioned IOUs earlier. If you went to Buffalo and polled, 99% of the people in Buffalo aren’t going to know an IOU is. So how do you educate voters? What role do folks in the industry have helping to do that? And then for listeners, how can they get up to speed and help advocate and push some of these things locally?

Adam Browning:

Just want to be clear from the outset that Vote Solar is a 501(c)(3) advocacy organization. As an organization, we can’t do electoral work. We can only do regulatory and a limited amount of legislative work.

Jon Powers:

But you can educate.

Adam Browning:

But I can certainly provide my personal opinion, which is that politicians rarely lead. They follow. It’s incumbent upon everyone to let their local leaders know what it is that they want to see in terms of for their future. You can always get involved in your local, state-level, and regulatory work through organizations like Vote Solar, where one of the fundamental premises of what we try to do is to get a decision on an important clean energy issue teed up for a vote at a commission, and then enable Vote Solar members to then be able to voice their opinion and say, “Look, you’re public policymakers. We’re the public. This is what we want to see at the state level.”

Adam Browning:

When it comes to the electoral politics, it’s up to individuals to contact their politicians to let them know that this is the type of policy that they want to see future leaders enact. I think the Sierra Club is doing an awesome job, as well as with Environment America, some of our good friends and partners there, on getting cities to sign up for 100% renewable energy or clean energy standards. Now, they still need state-level policies in order to live up to that goal. But it is a very clear demonstration that that is where the people end up wanting to go.

Jon Powers:

You guys have resources at votesolar.org for folks to get on and learn more?

Adam Browning:

The whole idea, exactly, is please, you become a member. Then we only ask for your zip code. That’s enable, both your name and your zip code. That means that when there is an important solar issue happening, generally at the state level, we plug you in, let you know what our campaigns are, wherever you may be, and keep you involved. Let you know when it is time to call the public utilities commission or call your state senator or representative to say you’re a rate payer. You’re a citizen. You’re a voter. This is the issue that is important to you. A lot of our work, we build these complex, super wonky arguments, do a lot of math to prove that solar alternative is better, and intervene legalistic ways in these important regulatory cases to, again, prove by math that we’re right. But you never win just because you’re right. You also have to align the politics with the outcome that you want to see. That’s where the people writ large come in.

Jon Powers:

I challenge all the listeners to go to votesolar.org, check it out. There’s new battlegrounds in places like Pennsylvania, where we can support the governor’s new initiatives on community solar, or Illinois, or Iowa. So get involved. Learn more from how you can get involved. Adam, I always leave on a final question. You’ve had such an incredible career in this space. If you can sit down with yourself coming out of high school in Miami, or coming out of college and heading to the Peace Corps, what advice would you give yourself?

Adam Browning:

I’m going to answer this two ways. I mean, on a personal level, I would tell everyone to follow their passion. Don’t think in terms of their whole career. Think in terms of what they really want to be working on now. Secondly, as someone who does a lot of hiring, I would tell people the one degree that I look for is a GSD. MAs and PhDs are awesome as far as it goes. But I also want to see that someone’s got a track record of getting stuff done. That is what my interviews are always focused on. Sure, you spent X amount of time at such place, but what did you deliver? What did you get done? Keep that in mind. That is the most valuable thing that you can ever use in any job interview.

Jon Powers:

That’s great. Well, you guys are definitely getting stuff done at Vote Solar. Thanks so much for taking the time today. We look forward to continuing to keep progress. As things are happening, be sure to come back, so we can talk about where folks can get involved in these state fights.

Adam Browning:

Thank you much. You keep up the great work yourself, Jon.

Jon Powers:

Thanks, Adam. Well, a lot to take out of that conversation with Adam Browning today. Go to votesolar.org to learn more about how you can get involved. If you’re not involved at the state level, these are where the fights are happening to really ensure that the marketplace continues to grow, both for solar, but also other clean energy technologies across the board. If I learned anything when I was in the federal government, it’s those folks that are working in the industry are passionate about the industry. That could be some of the most important advocates moving ahead. I just wanted to thank our producers, Lauren Glickman and Emily Connor, for their hard work. As always, if you have thoughts or advice on the show, please provide them at cleancapital.com. You can find our other episodes there. Look forward to continuing the conversation.
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