Powering the Future: Navigating Clean Energy Development Under Trump & the 119th Congress

  • February 4, 2025
  • /
  • CleanCapital

As the nation prepares for the new Trump administration, solar developers face unknowns about energy policies and their implications. However, one fact remains: U.S. energy demand, driven by AI and data centers, is continuing to rise. Regardless of the political environment, clean energy – especially solar – is still the best way to meet America’s growing energy demand.

Panelists

Jon Powers, President at CleanCapital

A former Federal Chief Sustainability Officer appointed by President Obama, Jon brings a wealth of experience from his military service and roles in clean energy, underscoring the importance of renewable resources for national security.


Scott Elias, Vice President of Policy and Market Development at CleanCapital

A seasoned expert in clean energy policy, formerly leading legislative and regulatory advocacy in the Mid-Atlantic as Director of State Affairs at SEIA. Scott’s work has advanced solar and energy storage policies across states, fostering meaningful progress, and continues to champion impactful clean energy solutions.


Erin Duncan, Vice President of Congressional Affairs at SEIA

Erin is an experienced advocate and strategist in public policy, particularly in the energy and education sectors. As Vice President of Congressional Affairs at SEIA, she leads efforts to influence policies on energy, tax, trade, and appropriations to support the solar industry. With over a decade of experience in lobbying and legislative roles, she is a trusted expert in shaping impactful public policies.


Connor Brace, Senior Vice President at Boundary Stone Partners

A professional policy expert with experience at the U.S. Department of Energy under President Trump, where he advised on significant legislation like the Energy Act of 2020 and National Defense Authorization Act. He has held leadership roles at the Climate Leadership Council and other organizations, advancing energy policy and government relations, and representing major energy producers.


Jessica Lawrence-Vaca, Chief Commercial Officer at ARRAY Technologies

A leader in solar trade and supply chain policy, with extensive experience advocating for transformative legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act. At ARRAY, she drives commercial strategy, focusing on market growth and customer-focused innovation in renewable energy solutions.

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Transcript

Jon Powers (00:12:40):

Good morning, this is Jon Powers from Clean Capital. Welcome to our webinar. We’ll get started in one minute, just letting folks come in.

(00:13:34):

Right. Welcome to Clean Capital’s webinar. My name’s Jon Powers, I’m one of the president and co-founder of Clean Capital. Today we’re have an amazing panel to talk about powering the future, navigating the developments sort of under the Trump administration’s Washington today. And we’re going to get into a pretty lively conversation, which I’m very excited about. But before doing that, just want to make sure to set some administration ground rules around the conversation, the panel’s being recorded. Folks will get a chance to do question and answer throughout the conversation. I’ll be navigating those questions as they come in, so please enter them in the chat if you have specific questions. Today’s conversation is going to dive into a series of topics and we’ve got a wonderful panel which I’ll introduce here momentarily. And we hope this is the beginning of a conversation for many of us in the industry to get more active in this critical time to support the policies we care about. The next slide, Colleen.

(00:14:42):

The idea behind today’s webinar really came from a lot of conversations we were having with development partners and others in the industry about all the various activity and noise we’re hearing out of Washington today. So what should we be listening to? What should we be ignoring? What is the focus areas that we should be focusing our advocacy? And a lot of folks are looking to get involved but may not have the resources of policy shop, et cetera to get involved. So how can we help provide them a path to do that? So we’re going to talk through some of those topics today. The next slide, col, and we’re joined by a really incredible panel, Aaron Duncan, who’s the vice president of Congressional Affairs for the Solar Energy Industry Association, which full disclosure, clean Capital is an active member and on the board of we have Connor Brace is the senior vice president at Boundary Stone who we’ve worked with in the past. Jessica Lawrence Vaca, who is the chief commercial officer of Array Technologies and my colleague Scott Elias, who’s the vice president of Policy to Clean Capital. So we’re going to get into some questions for each of our panelists and we’ll get a chance for them to introduce themselves a little more in depth through those questions. Next slide.

(00:15:53):

So for a second, what is the state of our industry? The reality is it’s never been stronger. Solar capacity surge in 2024 exceeding 219 gigawatts, that’s enough to power almost 38 million homes, 80% of new generation capacity added to the US grid last year was solar or energy or solar or energy storage. Manufacturing here at home, we’re going to get really into this today is really booming. Our supply chain is becoming more and more domestic, creating really good American jobs, many in Republican districts and it’s important for us to tell that story. But a lot of this is driven because the policies like the Inflation Reduction Act put us in a position to scale and there are currently over 270,000 people employed in the solar and storage industry and over 10,000 strong solar and storage businesses in the us. We want to keep the momentum of this industry going forward because the current incentives in place, it really forecasts us nearly doubling over the next decade and growing to almost 500,000 jobs.

(00:16:54):

2033 last year alone, or 2023, sorry, the solar energy industry generated over 60 billion in private investment. This is all great news for us, but it’s only going to help us if we can tell this story in Washington today. A bulk of the clean energy projects really today are actually located in republic districts. A lot of those jobs, the project themselves are in over the 152 Republican held districts across the country. But unfortunately in today’s Washington, the policies that we care about are under attack. While 2024 wasn’t a clear election, wasn’t a clear election on clean energy or climate, it’s not what it was about that actually provides us an opportunity and room for action. So it’s up to each of us to take that action and defend the policies we need and focus on really helping to move the clean energy transition forward. So today we’re going to talk about the current state of play in Washington.

(00:17:58):

It’s moving fast and furious and the next several weeks and the next several months are really critical for us to be out defending the things that we care about. So we’re going to dive into that and dive into what you individually and what your companies can do about it. So I’m going to start off with Aaron Duncan, who’s the vice President of Congressional Affairs, as I mentioned for the Solar Energy Industry Association. Aaron, you have to be incredibly busy today and things in Washington are moving a thousand miles an hour. All you have to do is open the Washington Post or the New York Times or whatever you read to see that. Can you talk for a second about the current state of play and why the next several weeks or months are really critical for the issues we care about?

Erin Duncan (00:18:39):

Yeah, thank you so much for the invitation to join you all today. We are so grateful for Clean Capital’s leadership in this industry and your presence of course at C’S board level, you’re really fantastic partners to us. So we find ourselves in a moment where the Congress is preparing what’s called reconciliation. So essentially when there is a trifecta, meaning the House Senate and the White House are held by the same party, it’s possible to move revenue bills through a parliamentary procedure known as reconciliation. And so I’m getting into the weeds here a little bit, but bear with me because it’s important. So essentially that means that in the Senate ordinarily to advance legislation you need 60 votes To get past cloture reconciliation, you need 51 to pass a piece of legislation. Currently the Republicans have 53 seats in the Senate. And so using reconciliation is a tool that both parties use when they find themselves in a trifecta.

(00:19:48):

It’s how we got the inflation reduction Act. So let’s be clear here, and the Republicans want to use this in order primarily to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which will expire many of those provisions December 31st, 2025. So that’s like job one of this reconciliation bill. But in order to do that, we need to look at some history. So in 2016 when President Trump won his first term in office, it was a big surprise for everyone. I think it was a surprise for the Republicans and they felt like the reconciliation, they were not ready for reconciliation and getting the tax cuts and jobs act across the finish line was a painful process for them. And so this time they started planning probably six months to a year ago, as did we at C and I’ll get into that in a second. But they have been gathering information, talking with their membership about what provisions of tax cuts and jobs act they want to pass and then also trying to be mindful of the politics within the very, very narrow Republican majority.

(00:21:02):

So as you may recall, there is a pretty sizable caucus within the Republican caucus that wants to pay for everything including tax cuts and that’s about 40 people. And then their majority is about five seats on a good day. And I think they’re down to fewer than that right at this moment. But in order to do reconciliation, you have to pass a budget resolution. They’ve all been down in Florida with the president at the Trump Doral Golf Club this week during the house recess to talk about how to move forward on the budget outline. And then once they’re able to pass that budget outline, which they hope to do by the end of February, they’ll get to the real meat and potatoes of drafting the language of the Reconciliation Act. Why does it matter to us? Because remember, a lot of people want to offset the payment or the cost of the tax Cuts and Jobs act as well as some additional tax cuts that the president promised on the campaign trail. That number is about five to $7 trillion depending on the day. And if you look at where the large pots of money are that were passed in a partisan way, the Inflation Reduction Act programs are a very large pot of money. And so our work basically since August of 2022 at CA has been to create a firewall and tell those stories. And I’m happy to talk about that further, about the impact that our industry has had across the country in every congressional district and the jobs and economic development that have been produced.

Jon Powers (00:22:45):

And just a follow up to that, while I’ve got you, you’re right, C has been preparing for this and I think it’s important for folks on the webinar to understand that there’s been a ton of work leading up to the election this year. Our industry was more active than it’s ever been. If you think about the last time a Trump administration came in 2016, we were still a very nascent industry. We are no longer we’re starting to act that way, whether it be with political action committees, with companies really working out and being part of the conversation and Washington and now we have the tools in place to be more productive in this next round of the conversation. Can you talk a little bit about what C has been doing over the course of the last year in preparation of that? And just to advocate for CAIA for a second, there’s no better messenger for us than AbbVie Hopper who’s been out there literally doing local TV interviews every quarter all over the country, telling the story about solar is something that we all as business leaders need to be doing. So we should all be looking to their guidance on how we can get involved. But Aaron, maybe talk about a little bit of the groundwork that’s been laid.

Erin Duncan (00:23:48):

Oh boy. So yes, it has been a holistic effort across the trade association with board members like you and Jessica and Scott. Thank you, Sean. I just saw that, I’ll try to speak louder. So we have been trying to connect the dots, collecting information about major projects, introducing members of Congress to companies that are doing projects in their congressional districts. One of the best calling cards, and I’m sure Jessica will get into this, that has been an absolute game changer for us as advocates on Capitol Hill has been the tremendous growth of domestic manufacturing as a result of the tax policies and the Inflation Reduction Act and the manufacturing community has been building all over the country and having very public groundbreaking ceremonies and ribbon cuttings. We’ve also been involved, frankly at the political level. We showed up at all of the conventions over the summer.

(00:24:48):

We have partnerships with bipartisan action groups. We’ve been building relationships with people on Capitol Hill. I think the important thing to remember too is that the Republican party has changed as well. There is a pretty sizable group of members of Congress on the Republican side of the aisle who understand A, that climate change is an important issue for their constituents, that solar storage and other clean technologies are big business and they want to be part of that and that this is a massive driver of jobs and economic development. And the other piece that we’ve been sharing everywhere that people will take a meeting with us is that this country is going to need every electron possible in order to continue to grow and to compete globally on issues like data centers and artificial intelligence. And so really as a country, we don’t have years to spare and we’re going to need technologies that are really flexible and easy to, not easy but

Jon Powers (00:25:56):

Quick to install, but we can be installed much faster than a huge natural gas plant.

Erin Duncan (00:26:00):

Exactly, exactly. And so we also have a ton of comms work that we’ve been doing. As you mentioned, Abby’s been on the road pretty much every week and it’s just been an all hands on deck. We’re actually next week having an all hands on deck lobby day the largest since I’ve been at CCF for six years and taking that message to the hill. But we are part of that American energy dominance that the president is talking about and we’re a really important part of it.

Jon Powers (00:26:28):

Speaking of the messaging around it, I’m going to introduce Connor Brace, who is the senior vice president of Boundary Seal Partners Connor, just this week I actually had a podcast interview with about some recent polling numbers that came out of the podcast that come out next week about our message in the industry, how we should be talking about it. And actually the numbers are actually really good about how most Americans actually support the things that we care about if we’re able to tell the story in the right way. You were in the last Trump administration sort of went through the experience of what it was like in the inner workings of this. How should we as an industry B, communicating with the administration and the hill and sort of defending the positions that we care about?

Conner Brace (00:27:07):

You bet, Jon, it’s a great question and thanks again for having me. Thanks everybody. Good morning or good afternoon, wherever you are in the world or the country. And as Jon mentioned more specifically, my background was in the office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs under President Trump for about two and a half years. So working as a liaison to the hill between the various programs and of course the two secretaries, Perry and Brit. So a reminder, again, I’m a private citizen now and while I’m a supporter of the president, I’m speaking to my experience and a bit of conjecture, so just don’t want people to conflate that too badly. But Jon, you make a good point. There are right ways and wrong ways to talk about energy issues with this administration and particularly as it pertains to solar and battery storage. If you don’t have a copy of the President’s executive order, unleashing American energy, keep one nearby and familiarize yourself with it.

(00:28:04):

I think there’s a lot of ways to misinterpret it and correct ways to interpret it. While I do understand and acknowledge that solar and storage we’re not specifically enumerated as energy technologies that are to be prioritized by the administration, I think for a lot of technologies other than perhaps wind energy or EVs which have had a bad time of late in the eyes of the president, there’s still kind of this interstitial space that solar and storage occupy, which is not necessarily on the naughty list, but of course not specifically highlighted as a prioritized technology. So there’s opportunity here and there’s a voice needed, there’s a vacuum. So if you’re speaking with Republican members of Congress, if you’re speaking with the administration and you’re trying to make the argument for your installations and facilities purely on climate grounds, on grounds of lowering emissions, you’re going to have a harder time getting traction.

(00:29:10):

But again, if you refer to the executive order, which is pretty consistent with how President Trump has spoken about economic security and energy security for what’s at this point nearly a decade, there’s a lot of areas of overlap. In the eo, he talks about meeting the needs of our citizens, providing choice, making America a global energy leader, strengthening supply chains, reducing malign influence, ensuring an abundant supply of reliable energy. That’s lot of what y’all do, and I think you’ll want to stick to those themes when you’re communicating with the administration and Republican stakeholders. I recall a comment, I think it was still within the last seven days, times become a flat circle with the amount of news we’re experiencing, but I know the president made a remark in a television interview where he had said something about the aesthetics of solar, but I think it’s important to harness in on what he concluded with which he said one of his concerns with solar, perhaps the primary concern was the extent to which those supply chains were kind of beholden to China.

(00:30:22):

So that reminds me, even though there were some tariff policies and trade policies in the first administration that did touch on wind, some little pieces of the turbine that was a little more under the radar, whereas one of the bellwether products that the president and his USCR Bob Lighthizer made an example of, probably second only to steal and aluminum in the first administration was solar for the solar tariffs. So this is definitely something where President Trump has a genealogy, a history, a pride, a desire to defend domestic manufacturers and resource supply chains. I acknowledge there can be some difficulties for our friends who are deployers and are perhaps relying on certain imports from certain countries. But President Trump has a resume and has tattooed himself with a strong posture on solar, at least as it pertains to trade manufacturing and China. So broadly speaking, Jon used the words communicating, how do we communicate?

(00:31:35):

I would not encourage folks to be antagonistic with the administration, but you should be assertive about where you align with goals outlined in the executive order, the administration policies on national security, energy security, energy dominance, consumer choice, lowering rates, abundant, reliable energy. If you stick to that framework, you’re going to be more successful. So use all the different forms you have. We have representatives here from trade associations, hill visits are great op-eds and newspapers working with your local chambers. I assure you, if you call a member of Congress where you have a facility or an installation, they’ll likely want to talk to you. So get good at telling your story as well. Try not to be too abstract. I’ve worked with companies who have large portfolios and have asked my advice and say, how do I communicate this? And they send me an Excel doc with a bunch of numbers and wattage and locations, and I encourage you to find your stories, talk about the economic footprint, the jobs you’re creating, the communities that you’re supporting.

(00:32:53):

I was working with another company who after conversing with them, I realized that they had partnerships with school districts and churches and were providing reliable, affordable power to these entities, these pillars of the community. So in summation, try to stick to the themes of what the president is talking about. This stuff is pretty clearly written out there and use your soapbox as best you can. Don’t be afraid of being a squeaky wheel. You don’t want to be an antagonist, but you want to say, here’s why we think we can be supportive of the president’s goals. I’ll even give a shout out to Aaron was looking through the CI’s top 10 solar priorities for the new administration. The vast majority of those are exactly the right tenor to take with this administration, energy dominance, eliminating dependence on China, American manufacturing, helping with load growth. If you’re ticking those boxes, I think you’re going to have a lot of very interested Republican stakeholders

Jon Powers (00:34:00):

Specifically on the manufacturing. I’m going to get to one second with Jessica, but Connor, one more question for you, for folks that may be anxious about how do I message this, right? And first of all, groups like SIA or Clean Energy for America, there’s a lot of organizations out there that will help you message, so you don’t have to think about this yourselves, you can just help tell your story. But having been in the White House now and also working on the hill, what does it mean when you have not an industry group or a lobbyist, but a company who’s coming in or a business leader who’s coming in and telling that story?

Conner Brace (00:34:30):

That’s a very important distinction, Jon. I’m glad you asked. And for those of y’all who, yes, our business people are less exposed to the Annals of Washington, members of the administration and the Hill, while it could be useful for some of you to have lobbyist help or trade association help, there is no substitute for someone who is boots on the ground shovels in the ground in a district and who can go to a member of Congress and say, we are responsible for X amount of jobs or X amount of energy production. That’s extremely important and it doesn’t have to get a game of telephone with a lobbyist in between. It’s extremely important and particularly for, I’ll just be blunt. I mean there’s red states if you have a footprint, those are going to be important, both red states in the sense that there are Republican representatives, they’re going to have an easier time getting an avenue to communicate with the administration, or at least when you communicate to them and then have them communicate. It’s a more effective use of your time than perhaps maybe a California office. But again, I think six of the top seven solar states are all defacto red states, states that President Trump won in the election. So yes, it is important to, so there are forums like flying days and sign on letters where it’s in your interest to say, I’m here. I’m from your state, I’m from your district. We’re creating jobs, we’re providing reliability and affordable energy for rate payers. That’s really the best message, the best profile that you can take.

Jon Powers (00:36:22):

Yeah, thanks Connor. I appreciate that. And I see the questions coming in. Please keep ’em coming and we’ll get to them once we sort of get through the panelists. I think what you heard from Aaron is there’s a lot moving today. The timing is happening literally as we speak, so we need to not be talking about flying in November, but what actions can we take over the next 60 days? And I think as Connor was saying, all of our voices who are working in the industry can be wildly impactful. I think one of the most exciting, I mean as an investor and owner and operator of assets, we see things a certain way, but one of the most exciting growing spaces for us is domestic manufacturing. And Jessica, who serves as the chief commercial officer for Array Technologies for a second, talk about your background, Jessica, but also what is the state of US manufacturing and then as developers are thinking about how they should be looking at projects later this year or next year, what advice do you have for them as they’re thinking through this complicated sort of array of conversations around tax credits and everything else?

Jessica Lawrence-Vaca (00:37:23):

An array of conversations.

Jon Powers (00:37:23):

Exactly. Intended you like that one? I like

Jessica Lawrence-Vaca (00:37:25):

That. Great.

Jon Powers (00:37:26):

I was practicing that all morning.

Jessica Lawrence-Vaca (00:37:28):

Jon Scott, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it and being part of this discussion, I’ve worked with Aaron and Scott for a long time. I came to array about a year ago in January and started as the chief commercial officer back in August. Prior to that, I spent a number of years lobbying working on Capitol Hill, and I’ve been working on solar tariff and trade policy since 2012, I guess. So my memory is long when it comes to this stuff, but I’ve been sitting here jumping out of my seat, super excited to talk with all this manufacturing talk and I really wanted to start with the good news, and I’m going to use some CS stats here because I think that the manufacturing, the good news of manufacturing is really one of the things that we should be highlighting. The announced investments in solar manufacturing here in the United States now totals 40.4 billion with a B.

(00:38:35):

That’s massive since the American energy tax credits were enacted in 20 22, 7 0.7 billion of those manufacturing investments are now operational. 16.2 billion are under active construction. There’s 70 new solar and storage manufacturing facilities that have come online because of these tax credits. This is going to create nearly 50,000 manufacturing jobs in the very near term of these jobs, 13,000 are in facilities that are operational. 17,000 of these jobs are in manufacturing facilities that are under active construction. Our company is one of those. So I just want to really, I can’t emphasize enough the good news story here that’s in manufacturing, and I want to go back to something that Connor mentioned earlier around solar panels Since 2017 when Trump first came into office, the US was ranked 14th in the world for solar panel manufacturing capacity, and then in 2018 that really started to accelerate and then just lit up in 2022.

(00:39:51):

So today we rank third in manufacturing of solar panels in the world. We have absolutely leapfrogged countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Turkey. We’ve got 12 gigawatts of cell production currently under construction and another 34 gigawatts has been announced. So I can send any of these stats to anybody or you can find ’em on the see website doing a little see a commercial. So I think that all of those are just really, really, really important to be talking about. And 70 to 80% of these investments are being made in Republican states, so let’s just make sure we’re wrapping our heads around that these are jobs that are being created in rural communities, places that lacked jobs. So I think that that’s a critical part of the message going forward. Specifically for array, we’re an OG solar manufacturer. We’ve been around for over 35 years and we did domestic before.

(00:40:56):

Domestic was cool, so we’ve been doing it for a long time and we have supply chain partners across the US that we’ve had for a long time, but I would definitely say that 45 x has really supercharged our business. We were incentivized to invest in building a new $50 million manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico that will come online in Q1 of 26. We did a ribbon cutting or groundbreaking, sorry on it earlier this year that we’re really excited about. It’s going to support around 300 jobs and it’s really helping to strengthen our domestic supply chain. So that really is a direct result of the 45 x manufacturing tax credits. And I would say that it’s really helped us to grow our supply chain here in the us. We often would have domestic suppliers and foreign suppliers depending on what our developer and EPC partners were looking for.

(00:41:58):

This has really allowed us to use more of our domestic supply chain for a number of reasons because oftentimes we’re seeing that with the lower cost of steel, it’s often cheaper to do it here and frankly with freight costs. We’re seeing that using domestic supply chain here now in the US has really kind of accelerated that growth for us in areas where we might have previously used our foreign supply chain. So I would say we’re 45 x and then the new domestic content guidance, I would say combined, we’re really pleased with the new guidance because we really think it’s going to help our customers by clearly laying out a path to meeting that domestic content requirement. And I think between 45 x and domestic content, we really do need both of those pieces to continue to ensure the growth here in the us. Just a couple more things.

(00:43:00):

I think that the growing solar industry is Connor said really is aligned with the administration’s goals. Before I came to renewables, my background was in national security and foreign policy. So for me talking about energy security and economic security as national security is absolutely critical to this conversation and we are providing those with a US supply chain within a homegrown energy here in the us. I think that those are really important. And when I first came to this industry in 2012, we were a net exporter of solar products and then that all shifted around that timeframe. We’re getting back to a place and we should be wanting to get back to a place where not only where we can supply ourselves from an economic perspective, but from an energy dominance perspective, we should want to be a global exporter of that. That should be an end goal for us and through these tax credits we’re growing that industry.

(00:44:07):

We are putting ourselves on that path to support our own energy needs, but also to be able to export. And I think it’s really critical. What I think you mentioned earlier is that to be able to fulfill the needs of AI data centers, all of the manufacturing that’s coming online, not to mention the additional just normal load growth that we’re seeing. There’s been some stuff floating around online the last week or so noting that solar and wind and particularly solar is the fastest and easiest to permit to develop and build to meet that gap that we have between now and 2035 when we might have more nuclear coming online. We might have more gas coming online, but we’ve got this window where we have, I think it’s just an announced data centers and manufacturing facilities. We need to meet like a hundred gigawatts of new electricity coming online.

(00:45:10):

It’s crazy. So we have been in serious discussions with a lot of our customers because, and Aaron I’m sure is tracking us very closely, but there is discussion, a lot of different options on the table of will domestic content be part of the I-T-C-P-T-C based credit. We’re telling our customers that they should be prepared for that. I think the new domestic content guidance helps outline a path for that. We’re ready to support our customers in that and I think it’s something that we should really be thinking about and preparing for. And I think also a tariff environment, I think that there’s definitely discussions around steel and some other products that we’ll continue to keep our finger on the pulse of. But I think in order to support our industry growth, I think the promise of manufacturing and what we’re talking to our customers about and the discussions that we’re having about that shift, I think that there used to be kind of a big delta between foreign and domestic product. And I think with the 45 x benefits we’re really seeing those costs come down and it’s made it really much easier for customers to look that direction. So that’s kind of what we’re really trying to think through with the new administration talking to our customers about

Jon Powers (00:46:49):

What a change in message when we’re talking a couple years ago was we could ramp up and maybe be able to meet our supply here in the us. You’re talking about actually or demand being an exporter in near future, what a great message for us to take to Washington in terms of manufacturing. So I do want to get into what, there’s a lot of great questions and we’ll get to those here momentarily, but one of the key parts of this is what should we be doing about it? And I going to get to my colleague Scott Elias, who’s the vice president of policy here at Clean Capital, had come from the Solar Energy Industry Association. There’s a great picture of Scott at the CA headquarters riding a rollercoaster and the folks that have been in the industry long enough, they call it the solar coaster. It’s important to note every cycle that coaster gets bigger and bigger and the ride can be wild, but this is the time our industry has never been stronger and we need to use that voice in Washington. Scott, do you want to talk for a second about not just the hill, but some of the stuff we’re seeing out of the executive orders and then sort of echoing something you recently wrote. What can people do about it not just next week, literally today, but then in the future?

Scott Elias (00:47:58):

Yeah, thanks Jon. Hi all. Scott Elias. Some of you know me as Scotty Solar. I’m the vice President of policy here at Clean Capital where I direct the company’s federal and state government engagement. It’s been a whirlwind, it’s been a solar coaster to the start of this new administration. I think Jon, you and I like to talk about how the IRA really signified an alignment of policy, technology and finance. And I think the early days of the second Trump administration signal a deliberate effort to undo that alignment. And it doesn’t mean that that alignment will unravel, but it’s going to be incumbent on us to make that not so. And so I’ll talk a little bit about what we’re sort of seeing federally, obviously the Trump administration basically rescinded all of the Biden administration’s approach to climate. So everything from climate planning and the government agencies, ESG pulling out of the us, Paris Climate Accords, quite literally attacking two signature laws, the Inflation reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

(00:48:54):

For the purposes of this conversation, we’re talking primarily about solar and energy storage, but I think it’s worth noting President Trump did issue an executive order halting permits and leases for wind projects. And while the administration hasn’t gone that far for solar, the Department of Interior did issue an order suspending the ability of its staff except for a few senior officials to permit new renewable projects on public lands, which many of us are still trying to process. Does that impact all solar projects know? But I think whether this effort to undo that alignment ultimately is a scalpel or sledgehammer really remains to be seen. And if this administration is serious about unleashing energy production, it’s worth us pointing out that these executive orders will chill investment and create barriers that slow down domestic energy source that is quite literally adding more new capacity to the US electric grid than any other fuel source amidst the largest increase in electricity demand since World War ii.

(00:49:46):

I think obviously what we need to do is a number of things we need to be in the halls of Congress telling our story. Jessica sort of alluded to it, but we’re making, we’re manufacturing the US again that’s solar modules, but it’s also trackers and racking and modules and inverters and soon it’s going to be solar cells and so we can demonstrate that we can put the US in control of the solar supply chain. Now with respect to the orders and sort of the overall outlook and what we should do, I do want to be clear because some folks have asked none of the executive orders to date those freezes on disbursements, they cannot affect tax credits under the Inflation reduction Act. It does not do that legally, it can’t. I know there’s been some media reporting that says that so, but the investment tax credit is established by law and cannot be revoked or withheld through an executive order.

(00:50:32):

And so any rollback would require action by Congress. What has happened is that has been complicated by some of these executive orders that were signed, which were then followed up by confusing vague memos from the office of management budget, which has really thrown into question, not just will sort of IRA funds and disbursements be held and 93% of those funds were reportedly spent before Trump came to the office. But now there’s questions about whether that’s going to be clawed back and whether that’s legal and whether or not that’s going to expose questions and constitutional questions around whether or not things that are obligated really can be clawed back. And the broad scope of that has created confusion. So much so that I think really everyone working on these issues is a little bit confused by it. You even have Republican members of Congress saying, hold on a minute, you can’t really put a freeze on this money that’s already been obligated.

(00:51:25):

But nevertheless, what we are seeing is the targeting of the so-called Green New Deal, which leaves a lot of questions on the table of what should we be doing. And so to the question of what you should be doing if you have not signed on to C’S letter defending American energy incentives, you absolutely should do that. Sign on letter goes out until tomorrow. You should be coming to DC and joining the C all hands lobby day. If you can’t be joining the C all hands lobby day, reach out to cia. Have them help you set up meetings in your district, tell your story even if you’re not talking directly to a member of Congress, just talking to the staffers and communicating your investment and how you are either bringing jobs to district or helping businesses or homeowners save money on their electric bills. Those types of stories add up and they resonate. And that’s going to be really what tips the balance and whether or not we’re able to preserve the things that we care about because as Aaron alluded to, targeting the inflation reduction Act, including potentially the investment tax credit is a starting point in house GOP efforts and it’s going to be incumbent on us, the business leaders across the solar and energy storage industry to get active, get engaged and communicate what’s at stake for our businesses, our jobs, our investments, and ultimately American energy dominance.

Jon Powers (00:52:36):

Thanks, Scott. So in the chat we posted a link to a blog that Scott recently wrote that actually has links to a lot of this information. We’re going to be sharing the slides out after the webinar, but before lunch today, sign that letter. We should all be taking that action as soon as we can so we can take this message to Washington. The reason the timing is so important is next week there is a fly-in. A lot of us are going to be in Washington. It’s the first of a series of conversations that are going to be happening that we all need to be part of. A fly-in is not, if you’ve ever been part of it, it’s not scary. You’re a part of a conversation that C is going to help shepherd with other folks, set up meetings locally with your local folks and delegations.

(00:53:24):

All those meetings are being as we speak. So the more you can have local voices in those rooms, as Connor mentioned, the better. But it doesn’t mean it has to end that that’s just the beginning. So meeting people in your districts, they are quarterbacks are going to help you with all of this In this current fight that we’re in. I just want to take a couple of the questions and as I’ve got the mic, I’ll just sort of take ’em on first since we don’t have anyone specifically focused on hydrogen here. I’ll just suggest Todd that look at the EO or maybe there are folks of boundaries shown other places that might be able to answer hydrogen better. It’s just not something we focus on day to day at the clean capital side and investment. I know C is not a hydrogen focused organization as well regarding sort of the voices in the tax credit question or investor in tax credit.

(00:54:08):

I sort answer these together first. The tax credits, as you’ve heard, they are at risk. They’re at risk at a very critical time. But the way to hold a line on that is being the fight. There’s only a handful of members. As Scott mentioned, this isn’t something that we can just overturn with the executive order. This is legislative. So there’s only a handful of folks that we have to hold a line with and a lot of republicans have already shown their support. So we need to support them. We need to support them by meeting with them, writing up as locally to support them. If you’re politically active, donate or get a PAC involved to help support certain members. If you have targets, we want to not just ask for their help but also defend the votes that they’re going to take on our behalf. And that’s sort of phase two after the next couple of weeks of all of this.

(00:54:56):

As an investor at Clean Capital, we do look at this and any level of uncertainty is challenging in terms of how you’re putting your money forward. But we also think the investors have a very important voice in this. You have your manufacturers, you got developers. There’s billions of dollars being pushed into this industry today by folks like Manulife who back us and a lot of other investors out there, and we coordinate with our partners on the investment side to make sure our message is heard there. I think they have oftentimes a big investor like a BlackRock or Manulife or others may have a variety of things that they’re looking at in those tax credits, not just from Clean energy but other infrastructure investments or other investments they have. But we talk to them and let them know what our concerns are so they can also be an advocate for us.

(00:55:41):

I’m less concerned about the anxiety about the ESG wokeness of it and more about how people are talking about this as an infrastructure play, and as long as the messaging fits what we’ve been talking about today, I think we’ll have a very strong message in Washington. By the way, I think that investing community also can fit very well into the current conversation in Washington. So we’ll be sharing the deck out. We’re going to repost that blog for folks and have access to it. But I think we hope that this is the first in a series of conversations that we have over the next several weeks. This is not several months, this is several weeks to take action to help support and defend the things that we care about in the IRA. If you are looking at what you can do, maybe you live in a Republican district, but maybe you have assets that are maybe there or a supplier or a developer that you work with. So being able to reach out, help them figure out what to do. It could be as simple as writing a letter to the editor, which is not very complicated and people can help you with it. So our call to action today is to take action, and this is going to be a critical time for all of us to be in the fight. So without, first of all, this is the panel. Any specific closing comments folks may have?

(00:57:05):

Oh, Erin, you might be on mute.

Erin Duncan (00:57:07):

Oh no, can you hear me now?

(00:57:09):

There you go. Yep. Okay. I just want to underscore how critically important making these credits real to members of congresses is making it personal. Give them think of it as what reason can I give them from their voters or from their congressional district to give a yes or at least to not be a problem. And the best way to do that is to talk about the economic growth and jobs in a congressional district. So I just want to plus one what you said because that is really the magic piece there. And so I know you’ve got a lot of folks on

Colleen Young (00:57:43):

This,

Erin Duncan (00:57:44):

A lot of investments.

Scott Elias (00:57:46):

Yeah,

(00:57:47):

Go ahead. I’ll add to that, Jon, just quickly that I think it’s also helping communicate the story of it doesn’t matter what the technology is. I think when you’re talking about investments and you’re talking about the need to have certainty in making those investments and making sure that you don’t have retroactive impacts on those investments regardless of what that investment is, that message resonates and I think when you tell the story of how you’re investing in this project and in this district and that it takes time and it’s not going to happen overnight, but you’re committing that capital and it’s going to take time to be able to build that project, but that project is going to employ people and you’re bringing in tax revenue benefits to the community. That story overall is really a resonating story, and I think we need to be able to tell that story more powerfully and more clearly and more often in the halls of Congress.

Jon Powers (00:58:37):

Excellent.

Jessica Lawrence-Vaca (00:58:37):

I would just close by saying piling on similarly, again, this isn’t just about the individual jobs and the investment in the communities, but we’re supporting rural tax base as investors through manufacturing facilities, through these large solar sites. We’re supporting the tax base that funds the schools. We’re supporting the tax base that funds EMT and Fire and first responders. We’re supporting the tax base that funds all of the different things that help these local governments run roads and all sorts of different things. So we need to really focus on sharing the hyperlocal aspects of it, as Aaron said, and I think again, highlighting that economic security and energy security is national security, and we should want to be so amazingly badass in this space that we are net exporters, that we are like the world global leader and we’re on track to do that. Why would we want to take that away?

Jon Powers (00:59:45):

I love that. Jessica,

Conner Brace (00:59:47):

Connor, perhaps I’ll add two things that might sound contradictory, but I’ll try to split ’em apart. I mean, there’s a short-term call to action I would say to anybody that has any interest in preserving any IRA credit or policy from the Biden administration. The time to act is now. There’s a 30 day period outlined in the executive order for OMB and the National Economic Council to consider feedback from agencies about what programs and actions align with the president’s policies or not. So that clock began on January 20th, early March is the State of the Union, a period in which the president is going to want to be able to say, I’ve done this and I’m going to do this. Similarly, while there are still debates and dialogues occurring between chambers, senate and House and within the Republicans in Congress, they want to act quickly. They want to get results, and they want to run on those results.

(01:00:45):

So there have been timelines that I wouldn’t be surprised if they scooch a little down the line, but Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he wanted to have reconciliation. Again, as Aaron said, the package that would revise or revoke all the various tax credits, he wants to have that done by Easter. So now is the time to act, to get on the hill, to do the op-ed. The thing I’m going to say that might sound kind of contradictory is there’s still a long game here too, which is while I can see that Republicans haven’t been leaders on climate or clean energy, they are coming around and seeing that there are types of good industrial policy types of good trade policy, types of good economic and national security policy that intertwines and intersects with the clean energy economy. You’re hopefully going to be in this field a long time and Republicans will be in this a long time. DC moves back and forth White House majorities. So building this muscle memory, learning how to communicate effectively to Republicans will not just serve you in the next three months, the next four years, it’ll likely serve you for a long time to come. So I encourage you to build those muscles. Don’t ignore them because lasting policy usually requires bipartisan support. So any lasting policy in the climate, solar storage realm is going to require some Republican. So those are my two pieces of parting advice.

Jon Powers (01:02:20):

Thanks Connor. I appreciate it. When I go through the panelists, or not the panelists, the folks that have joined in, just quick scan, we have EPCs in Michigan, we have accountants in Ohio. We have developers in a whole bunch of different states. We all can take action today and make it very important to send our message so that we can be loud in Washington using the messages that will make a difference. So we’re going to post the blog that Scott put up that has a lot of the links to it. Again, we will share the slides out and we’ll also share a link to the webinar for folks that have part of it, and we’re happy to help engage further. But please take action today. We need to all be in this fight over the next 60 days. And thank you to the panelists for a really great conversation and really look forward to continuing this. And you are going to hear a lot from Clean Capital over the next several weeks on what you can do. So thank you so much. You can go to clean capital.com to get access to all this. Thanks everybody.

Jessica Lawrence-Vaca (01:03:20):

Thank you.

Jon Powers (01:03:22):

See you in DC next week.