In honor of the mixed assortment of Thanksgiving leftovers in our fridges, today’s episode features a grab bag of hot topics facing energy and climate policy today.

The hosts kick things off with a frank assessment of COP29, which wrapped up in Azerbaijan a few weeks ago. Members agreed to provide $300B  in annual support to developing nations, but the lack of a more comprehensive pledge left many attendees concerned about the waning influence of the conference writ large.

Then, the hosts consider pathways for permitting reform in both the lame duck session and Congress’ upcoming reconciliation package. Later in the show, they unpack a proposal from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to offer a statewide EV tax credit if President-elect Trump kills the existing federal credit. The strange catch? It bars Tesla from participating in the program.

The hosts wrap up the episode with feedback from our listeners, including questions and comments covering everything from right-shoring and agriculture policy to the future of offshore wind.

Political Climate is co-produced by Boundary Stone Partners, a leading bipartisan climate change strategic advisory and government affairs firm. Their mission-driven approach combines innovative solutions with expertise in technology, finance, policy, federal funding, and advocacy. Learn more and get in touch today at BoundaryStone.com.

Concerned about how the 2024 election might impact the programs, policies, and incentives that matter most to you? Let Boundary Stone Partners' Climate24 service help you navigate the political landscape with their policy navigator tool, resources, and bespoke services. Learn more at BoundaryStone.com/Climate24.

Transcript

Julia Pyper: Guys, how was Thanksgiving? Any unexpected energy or climate hot takes at your dinner tables?

Emily Domenech: There are always political hot takes at my dinner table, but that's because I have a special family that likes to argue about politics.

Julia Pyper: You got a couple of famous names at the dinner table I think so I can imagine how those go.

Brandon Hurlbut: We kept it low-key, so no talk of climate or politics.

Julia Pyper: Nice. That's an achievement.

Julia Pyper: Welcome to Political Climate. I'm Julia Pyper. We hope you had a delicious drama-free Thanksgiving. In honor of the mixed assortment of leftovers in our fridges, today's episode will offer a grab bag of hot topics facing energy and climate policy today. We'll take a quick look at COP29, which wrapped up in Azerbaijan a few weeks ago. Members pledged to give 300 billion dollars in annual support to developing nations, but is it enough to offer sufficient mitigation and adaptation resources?

Then, we'll check in on Congress's upcoming reconciliation package and whether there's room for permitting reform, and we'll unpack a proposal from California Governor Gavin Newsom to offer a statewide EV tax credit if President-elect Trump kills the existing federal credit. And we'll wrap up the episode with a few questions and comments from our listeners, from right-shoring and ag policy to the future of offshore wind. That's all coming up on Political Climate.

As always, I'm joined by my wonderful co-hosts, Brandon Hurlbut and Emily Domenech. Brandon served as Chief of Staff in President Obama's Energy Department and went on to found Boundary Stone Partners and Overture VC. Brandon, how you doing? We're in the final drive to the end of the year here. How are you feeling?

Brandon Hurlbut: It's been a tough year.

Julia Pyper: You're going to have people reaching out again asking if you're okay.

Brandon Hurlbut: The elections were pretty brutal. My Chicago Bears keep losing in spectacular fashion.

Emily Domenech: I was going to say, let's just be honest here. You're really down about the Bears.

Brandon Hurlbut: LAFC lost in the playoffs. I can't catch a break.

Julia Pyper: It's only up from here I guess. Emily, she also joins us. She served as Senior Energy Advisor to Speakers of the House Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson, and is now a senior vice president at Boundary Stone. How are you feeling Emily, in this final dash to the end of the year?

Emily Domenech: I'm feeling great. We love a lame-duck session.

Julia Pyper: Love a lame-duck. Yeah. What are you thinking is going to happen here? You got high hopes for anything permitting reform or getting any real activity?

Emily Domenech: I think there's still a shot, but everybody always waits too long to talk to the House and then they have a really short runway. So hopefully we can get something done. But my advice to my Senate friends is, you got to talk to the House sooner.

Julia Pyper: All right, we'll keep an eye on that. Well, I'm coming at you from Austin, Texas where GoodLeap, my company, is having its offsite thinking all things innovation, AI, future of home efficiency and electrification and billions of dollars moving into upgrading our buildings and really feeling more like this wave of technology that's coming into the whole tech energy space and just how much demand there is for power now to power the AI solutions that we and other companies are adopting like chatbots to help contractors work better. So I'm feeling inspired about just what we can do in our businesses kind of regardless of the political landscape and maybe have new opportunities open up in front of us as well. So there's lots to be excited about. But let's turn now to our first segment. It's actually going to go look at the international landscape for a moment.

Let's talk about COP. This is the Conference Of Parties hosted by the United Nations. This year's conference did result in an agreement to give 300 billion in annual global funds to developing nations to fight climate change. Many attendees though, believe an annual amount closer to $1.3 trillion is necessary. The current plan which allocates an annual $100 billion will expire next year. So activists on the ground were disappointed about the conference. Some argue that it was losing relevance. Here's a quote from Karl Mathiesen writing in Politico. For many who've engaged in these talks, COP 29 is the inevitable winding down of years of unwieldy negotiations that are detached from the real world, a world where true power players are Xi Jinping's subsidies, innovating billionaires and America's burning desire to beat China. Interesting framing there. Brandon, I'll go to you first on this one. What do you think about that kind of messaging coming out of COP? Is it relevant anymore, especially when we're looking at the $300 billion allocated, which is well less than what some attendees really think is needed. Are these COPs relevant and then are they having an impact?

Brandon Hurlbut: I think we have a problem. First of all, the whole basis for COP is that climate is a global problem. And there was a line from Axios this week that was a little bit scary. They wrote that emerging research points out to how much scientists have yet to learn about human-caused climate change and raises the possibility that they, along with policymakers are underestimating some of the risks lurking ahead. So, we need to deal with this on a global scale, but when you think about what's happening with the elections that we just had, we're learning that it's very hard to convince a democracy to prioritize the interests of foreigners.

And Matt Yglesias wrote a piece recently called “We Need Reality-Based Energy Policy,” where he wrote that line. And he also wrote, "It would be great if every single American took a totally beneficent attitude toward the world and was happy to make large economic sacrifices on behalf of people in other countries." But they're really not. And so we have a problem we know with Republicans on climate, it's almost like a dirty word. And I think coming out of this election and the discussions that I've had with people that were running these campaigns, we have a democratic problem too. Because outside of our climate orbit, the people that listen to this podcast, the people that donate, work with Clean Energy for America, the big donors to the Democratic Party, the people running Presidential, Senate, House campaigns, I think they are starting to think that climate is a losing issue.

Almost like immigration, you look at the election, the takeaway was immigration is a problem for Democrats. We are losing on that issue, and I think climate has a danger of moving into that turf for the Democratic Party. And there's a difference between climate and energy policy, people talking about energy costs and whatnot, that lands with people. But when we're talking about things that they're talking about at COP, like one and a half degrees and all that, it's just not landing, not only with the voters, but the leadership of the party. And so I think that we have a lot of work to do there. We need to make some changes as we're thinking about climate, the politics of it, the policies of it, and COP is just something that is not top of mind for I think even many Democrats.

Julia Pyper: Well, a lot of it has to do with helping poorer nations and contributing funds to their resilience. And there's just, I think, never been the appetite to fully get our heads around what wealthier countries were willing to do on that front. And I think that's always been a challenge with COP and it's really just coming to a head now as you've got these additional layers of geopolitics on top of it.

I think the context, just as we're recording this week, trying to put a ban on export of critical minerals to the U.S., as trade tensions are increasing there, many of those minerals go into making chips, which are used in clean energy technologies. So you're seeing, interestingly, climate tech still at the center of some of these bigger issues, and I think decarbonization is still out there as potentially really a global competitive advantage, but we're not really talking about decarbonization, and yet it's still in the picture because driving some of the other tensions I think we see play in and around COP, like trade relations. But Emily, what do you make of COP? We're seeing, obviously there's been a long history of UN Summits being considered more or less effective. What does this one chalk up for you?

Emily Domenech: So I want to maybe take a step back here and just talk a little bit about what I think the big problems are with these sort of UN-driven, the developed world comes in with their big ideas about how the world should continue, and we lecture to the developing world and we tell them what they need to do and we tell them what resources they can use and how they can build out their economies and what level of success is available to them, and they have to follow all of our rules in order to succeed and participate in these international dialogues. Personally, that sounds a lot like colonialism to me and I have always felt like COP is one step away from climate colonialism, telling the developing world what is available to them in the future. I don't think that's a recipe for success in any way, shape or form.

I've attended several COPs, they always feel like it is an opportunity for the world's elite to rub elbows and nobody really thinks about real world problems. And I think that if we were serious about helping the developing world, we would be looking at ways to grow their economy and give them access to reliable power. That should be our absolute first top priority. Climate has to come second for those countries, and that's a reality they have to face because these are folks who still have vast parts of their population who don't have reliable power on a daily basis. We take that for granted in the United States, and I think the fact that we kind of come in and preach at folks is really out of touch with where the rest of the world is. I also think to Brandon's point, that people back home don't want to deal with this problem.

They don't like the idea of the United States either funding sort of the world's elite's ideas about what the global economy should look like, and frankly they think we have problems to deal with back home with our own energy prices and our own reliability and our own problems when it comes to building out our grid. So I definitely agree with Brandon that COP is kind of not top of mind for anyone in this space and rightfully so, and I think if we looked at ways to help the developing world grow their economies, we'd have a better chance at reducing emissions and getting cleaner outcomes across the board because we know that the developed world has lower emissions and does better with environmental protections than the developing world does.

Brandon Hurlbut: We have a good story to tell. We know this, our listeners know this, right? There's great excitement about where the technology is going, and the costs are coming down, but the narrative right now, and how we're approaching it, I think we need to do some work on.

Julia Pyper: What do you make of the Mathiesen quote that COP has become detached from the real world? It's not like climate's gone from the broader international dialogue right now, we're just not seeing agreements on it. We're seeing tensions rise around it. Any further thoughts on how that's all playing out today?

Emily Domenech: I mean, we've been doing this for 30 years and we haven't made a lot of progress. Because again, it's just a big conference where a bunch of people go and say their piece and get their sound bite. I think it's always been detached from the real world, and what are real challenges for both the developing world and the developed world when it comes to growing their economy and meeting their energy demand. I think the China move shouldn't surprise anyone, and it's part of why we should be looking for ways to grow our domestic critical mineral supply, to develop those critical minerals here in the United States and then to build allies who can fill in those holes so that we're not entirely reliant on a Chinese critical mineral supply chain. And that's way beyond the processing and manufacturing and it goes all the way back to mining. So I think anyone who wants to have a serious conversation about building not just clean tech but innovative technology in the United States has to be willing to say they support domestic mining at this point. It's getting unserious.

Brandon Hurlbut: Emily, when you hear these reports, they keep getting worse. We never get a report that says, oops, we were a little wrong. It's not as bad as we thought. It's always like, oops, the risk-

Julia Pyper: In terms of carbon emissions?

Brandon Hurlbut: In terms of carbon emissions and the effects. So when you see this, how do you react to it? Because even though the politics, the science doesn't care about the politics.

Emily Domenech: But at the end of the day, our answer on this can't be, "Well, the climate's getting worse so you get less power and it costs you more money and you're going to pay more for everything." That's not a good answer. It's not a winning argument and it's why we see Republicans winning elections. And I always come back to this, it's all about the cost. If you want to see a more diversified energy supply, then the costs have to be lower for innovative technology. That's it. That's the game.

Brandon Hurlbut: But they are.

Emily Domenech: But they're not, because if they were China and India would be switching from coal to clean energy. And they're not. If we were serious about bringing down emissions, we'd be working on exporting more natural gas because that actually has brought-

Brandon Hurlbut: But China is.

Emily Domenech: Not significantly; they're still building a coal plant every five days. Tell me more about that. That's the reality. They are still heavily reliant on coal in most parts of the developing world. And so until we say, "Our option is better, build this instead because it's better and cheaper and more reliable," then we lose. So that's where I approach it, is that this is a technology problem, where if we are really serious about wanting to address this, we have to be able to answer the mail on the cost and reliability.

Julia Pyper: I do think it's an interesting moment when you look back on global agreements though. There was the success of the Montreal Protocol and the globe came together and addressed the ozone layer issue. There is some precedent for global agreements on some universal environmental issues. I think even with bipartisan support around phasing out certain chemicals. So we know it's possible to have global agreements. I think it's just a fascinating moment in time and it speaks to the relevancy of what you're saying now, Emily, this is the world we're living in today where the needs for energy are greater, the energy access is still an issue, and now we've got this layer of trade tensions and geopolitics on top of energy in I think more salient ways that are maybe putting the era of global agreements behind us for now, it's going to be an interesting moment to see if there's still room for common ground on other types of universal issues, maybe related to deforestation or other types of chemicals.

But on climate, to your point, Brandon, I think everyone's lost their way a little bit on how best to come together on that. And maybe the answer is we just aren't for the time being. I think COP put a finer point on tensions that were bubbling up to the surface there, and we're all going to have to grapple with what that means for global agreements going forward.

Brandon Hurlbut: I think that there is a way that we can, there's more agreement here. From what Matt Yglesias is saying, to what Emily is saying, to what I believe, which is we just need to build more cheap clean energy. And because these technologies on solar and wind and batteries and the cost curves have come down so dramatically, we can do that. We can satisfy all of those needs. We can meet people's energy needs at the cost level they need with these clean technologies, but we gotta get the red tape out of the way and I think it's a nice segue. I know we want to talk more about permitting, but that's the kind of stuff that we, I think Democrats have to get their heads around is we need to be pro-building, pro-deployment, pro-lower costs and that's where I think that we can see some agreement.

Julia Pyper: And maybe help other nations do so too.

Brandon Hurlbut: Yeah, exactly.

Julia Pyper: Well, to your point on permitting, let's turn there now. In our last episode, we interviewed Representative Bruce Westerman, Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Westerman told us he believes permitting reform could arrive via a 2025 reconciliation bill, a big package that allows the congressional majority to pass tax spending and debt limit policy. Emily, Chairman Westerman told us he sees reconciliation as a pathway to "some permitting reform." Have you heard any more in the particulars there of how Congress would include permitting in that reconciliation style type of bill?

Emily Domenech: So I think the jury's still out on this a little bit because folks are very focused on trying to see if there's an opportunity for a permitting reform deal before the end of this lame-duck session. So there's been a little bit of a shift in focus from on the particulars here, but I think we heard this from Senator Thune this week that Republicans are considering looking at an energy and investment reconciliation package in addition to a tax-focused reconciliation package.

In that case, I think you'd see a lot of energy policies that are focused on making it easier to do federal leasing. So that's not just oil and gas, but for renewables who are trying to operate on federal land or for mining projects on federal land, there's a revenue component to that federal leasing piece. We've done it before in reconciliation, so there's some history there. On the permitting, the more specific to NEPA or particular permits, there's been some discussion about ways you could do it through reconciliation that include a fee to speed up the permitting process, because you have to have that revenue component. Otherwise it can't fit in the reconciliation space. But I'll be honest, in the past when we pushed forward NEPA reform bills, for example, CBO has scored that some of these bills could actually produce revenue for the federal government because you could end up speeding projects that could later on pay revenue. So there's plenty of room to work here in this space and I think you'll see some creative solutions that can give us an opportunity to move things forward more quickly.

Julia Pyper: Can you give us a little reset on how the reconciliation process works? They have a couple bites of the apple. They've had the majority for two years now, so there's somewhat of a clock running, but how can they package different types of policies? Can there be multiple reconciliation bills? How does that process go?

Emily Domenech: Yeah, so you get a reconciliation process for every budget resolution that you have in the tank. Republicans could have anywhere from two to three budget resolutions to work with in this cycle because there was never a budget resolution that was passed for this fiscal year. So they kind of get a bonus bite of the apple. Democrats had a similar situation when they had united government, not typically folks focus on one big reconciliation package and that's where they put all their juice, but it doesn't mean you can't use those other budget resolutions if you're organized enough and have the sort of political will to do so.

Brandon Hurlbut: Emily, we now have finality on the House, right? As of last night, the last California district was called, and it's now 220 to 215 with two members being appointed to the cabinet. So we're going to be at 218, 215 and an empty Gaetz seat. Is that right?

Emily Domenech: Yes. It's essentially a two vote majority. It's a two-working-vote majority. I will say, I think a credit to Speaker Johnson hanging onto that majority was a really uphill battle.

Brandon Hurlbut: So do you think with that two working vote majority, when do you think a reconciliation bill can pass? Some people say they'll jam it superfast. Do you think it plays out over many months? What is your guess for when it gets completed?

Emily Domenech: Again, it depends a little bit on how they decide to move with these budget resolutions because they need to do that process. You have to vote on a budget in order to give instructions to get to reconciliation. I suspect they'll want to try to move quickly, but it's really difficult to do that in Washington and it's harder to do it with a small majority, so we could see it stretch out over the next year. Jury's out on that a little bit.

Julia Pyper: Brandon, what else are you hearing on reconciliation related to permitting or otherwise? Any intel you've got?

Brandon Hurlbut: On permitting I think it's a silver lining for those of us that were disappointed about the election because again, when we think of climate policy and when we think about it in the terms of we equate it with the big green groups, the big environmental groups, there's a split there with the industry which is much larger and growing and needs to exert that influence. And I think where democratic policymaking needs to come from. And so that part, the industry, they are excited about permitting reform because it will help them deploy.

As far as reconciliation goes, there is so much at stake, especially with early stage companies that really rely on a lot of these tax credits. So it's going to be an active period in D.C. I mean our phones are ringing off the hook, especially Emily's. And so there's going to be a lot of lobbying that takes place, and for our listeners that are wondering what they can do, you need to engage. There is a path to protecting some of these provisions that the industry is dependent on. But to Emily's point, you got to go do the work. You got to go talk to your members of Congress and explain how you're benefiting their district. And so it's going to be a really active period and I think people are starting to get their head around like, oh, I need to go to D.C. and I need to start talking to these policymakers.

Emily Domenech: Yeah, and one last note on that too, I mean I think we do still have a few weeks left of this lame-duck session and the permitting discussion is still very live. And frankly the biggest hurdle has been sort of folks on the environmental left who are hesitant to move forward on permitting reform. So I'll echo what Brandon said. I think if you're a clean tech developer and you are running into the kinds of permitting hurdles that we hear about every single day, this is your opportunity to engage with your friends in the NGO space and on the left to say, "Hey, let's cut a deal and get something done." I know Bruce Westerman is ready to do it.

Julia Pyper: Let's move on to a new and controversial proposal from California Governor Gavin Newsom. On November 23rd, Newsom announced that if Congress repeals the $7,500 EV tax credit that's currently included in the IRA, he will relaunch California's own Clean Vehicle Rebate program, which sunsetted in 2023. According to Newsom, the program funded nearly 600,000 cars, and saved 456 million gallons of fuel. It would not, however, if revitalized, apply to Teslas, the number one selling EV in both California and across the country. Newsom's decision has been panned by public figures including San Jose mayor Matt Mahan, and Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. As Mayor Mahan wrote on X, "Trying to punish Tesla CEO Elon Musk by excluding the number one bestselling EV, Tesla, from a program designed to support EV adoption has no economic rationale." All right, Brandon, let's go to you first. Given California, a state that we both live in currently has a $2 billion budget deficit right now, would you first even support Newsom revamping this rebate program?

Brandon Hurlbut: As we've talked about on this show, I'm fearful that we're going to lose the EV battle to China, which is going to severely harm our auto industry. I don't think it's a good idea to get rid of this EV tax credit. It appears they're going to do that, and I think that hurts us in winning this battle against China for the future of the auto industry. So I like the fact that Governor Newsom is stepping up, and I think lots of states are going to step up to fill the gaps here. Particularly I'm excited that he's doing this about EVs. The carve out for Tesla, I do not support that. I think that I agree with Ro Khanna and these others. It's the same way that we criticized DeSantis for what he was doing with Disney. This reeks of that to me, I don't think singling out companies like this is a good, I think that's a bad use of government power.

Julia Pyper: Do you have any familiarity with the rationale for excluding Tesla? Are they making the case that this is a higher end vehicle or is it purely just targeting that company?

Brandon Hurlbut: I mean, the public rationale was to increase competition. They see Tesla as the market leader, and I think they were going to cap it by market caps. They're saying, "Okay, you don't really need it. You're doing well. We want more competition." But I think that's punishing the winners. Yeah, I don't agree with that.

Julia Pyper: Emily, what do you make of this move?

Emily Domenech: So I'm actually very supportive of it because I think it's a great example of how we should let states have the freedom to set the policies they want to set. If Gavin Newsom wants to subsidize EVs and raise the deficit in California, he should be free to do that. I don't think the federal government should force the rest of the country to follow along. It is exactly how Republicans think about energy policy, which is I don't want to limit California from doing what it wants to do, but I don't want California to make me do it. I don't have to live there.

Julia Pyper: Do we think that state by state programs, not just in California but maybe other states that decide to take policy actions would be sufficient replacements if there are changes to IRA? Do you think states have the ability and the budgets frankly to step up and replace some of that and keep the momentum going? Or does that just result in too much of a patchwork situation for clean energy companies and investors? To what extent do we think states can have an impact on markets writ large if they do decide to make some changes on their own?

Brandon Hurlbut: Massive, a massive impact. And I think that they will step up. If you look at, what is it, the 17 reliably blue states, it's two-thirds to three-fourths of the economy. So if they group together and create a uniform policy, it's almost a national policy because it's so much of the economy.

Emily Domenech: As long as it's not in the regulatory space where a state is kind of imposing their own regulations on the rest of the market, if it's in a subsidy space, I think it's a perfectly good use of the individuality of the United States. It's a good thing.

Julia Pyper: So before we wrap up, we'll respond to a few comments from you, our wonderful listeners. We really do appreciate the feedback, so keep it coming. You can reach out to us at politicalclimatepodcast@gmail.com. In our inbox, we get a message from Alex who writes, "I'd love to hear an episode about agriculture and the role policy plays at the interaction of sustainability, feeding the country, well-being of the American farmer, carbon sequestration, et cetera." So it's a big topic, we don't have time to do a whole episode on it obviously, but I wanted to do a little check-in on ag policy, not something we talk about very often. So Emily, maybe to you first, what is an ag policy that you think lends itself to good sustainability and pro-climate goals, and one that you would maybe like to see change or think is overdue? How do you think about the ag and climate intersection?

Emily Domenech: So I used to do ag policy for the speaker. It's something I don't get to do quite as much in this new job, but it's near and dear to my heart. I love the ag community. I obviously worked for someone from Central Valley, California, so it's a lot of ag-heavy districts. I would say, I think the mistake we make in the ag space is that there is always some sort of catchphrase, Washington-based policy that is the thing of the moment in ag. We did a webinar at BSP where we talked about this issue, where we had no-till and we had crop rotation, and now we have climate smart and it's just sort of a place where we throw money and we say, let's see what USDA can do in this farm bill cycle. The problem is that for most farmers, they look at these sort of constantly changing "climate programs" and say, "Well, do I even want to participate in this? Because it's going to cost me a lot of money to be a part of it."

And then oftentimes there's some sort of third party person involved in validating and they end up getting the grant and I don't see a benefit. So there's often I think a disconnect between the climate policies that we put forward in the ag space in Washington, and the farmers on the ground. And if we want to see farmers move to more sustainable ag practices that benefit them not just for reducing emissions, but also for saving money and saving time and all of these other good things for our agricultural space, then we need to be a little bit more farm-focused and a little bit less like Washington think tank focused.

Julia Pyper: What are some examples of those policies that exist that would help a farmer become more sustainable or what have you? What kinds of solutions are out there?

Emily Domenech: I mean, for example, there's existing programs. There was a bill that passed while I was in the speaker's office called the Growing Climate Solutions Bill that established voluntary emissions trading programs essentially where USDA says, "Hey, if farmers do these certain policies that we can verify are going to reduce emissions, they can participate in voluntary carbon markets" and things like that. I think again, there's opportunity there, but the actual farmer participation in those programs is pretty low. And it's because they worry about one, participating in something that could cost them money that won't necessarily give them benefit. And two, they're a little bit wary about participating in a program that collects a lot of data about the emissions of their farm because they're worried that USDA is going to turn around and use it to regulate them, and that'll put them out of business.

So I think there's a lot, and this is really common in the ag space, there's a lot of distrust between regular farmers and the federal government, and it's because they often feel like the federal government makes it harder for them to do business. Not that different than our clean energy folks.

Julia Pyper: Well, there's also the intersection of clean energy and ag where you see some farmers leasing out land to have clean energy projects built there, which is probably good for the clean energy space. I know it does create some questions about where the future of farming in America is going and revenue sources and making sure those businesses are healthy and clean energy can certainly be an input there. It's also an evolution I know there's some divergent opinions on. Any final thoughts on ag, Brandon, from your perspective?

Brandon Hurlbut: I'm really interested in that intersection because I think there are ways that farmers can benefit, whether it is leasing their land for renewable energy or capturing carbon and monetizing those credits. On the democratic side, I'm really interested in who's going to be the leader on this policy. I mean, we have been getting creamed in rural areas for the last several cycles, and Tom Vilsack has been the ag secretary for 12 years. What's behind that? Who is going to be the face of this? Who is going to be the leader in helping us develop these policies? Because we have a lot of work to do to bring back voters in rural areas who are primarily farmers.

Emily Domenech: And how do we do it in ways that don't raise prices?

Brandon Hurlbut: Yeah, I'm interested in who's going to step up because there's a huge vacuum there. Vilsack is, I can't imagine him being ag secretary again.

Emily Domenech: I sure hope not.

Julia Pyper: All right, let's move on to Matt, who writes, "I would love to hear you talk more about the conflict between the current desire to onshore friendshore compared with policies over the last many decades that promoted offshoring and globalization to lower costs. Seems to me disingenuous to both blame progressives now for slowing the permitting of mines and other industry in the U.S. while not acknowledging the history of a lack of industrial policy that allowed China to dominate solar PV, battery and EV manufacturing, much of which stemmed from Reaganomics in the 80s, promoting less government intervention into corporations." I love this sort of historical perspective here. Brandon, let's have you go first on this one.

Brandon Hurlbut: I think our listener's hitting at a very important problem. I mean there is a conflict between, we were talking about earlier, there's this global problem on climate that we have to address, and one path to addressing that is deploying as much of these cheap technologies as possible, and China manufactures them at a lower cost. And so if you want to address climate change, you'd want to import the cheapest technologies possible. And that was our policy for a long time, was globalization, for both parties. And so now, if we want to manufacture this stuff here, which we do, it's going to take us, that's not a switch that you turn on and off. It's going to take us a while to develop that supply chain, rebuild that, and the costs might be more, which could limit the deployment of some of these clean energy technologies. So hitting on a really important point, and I'm curious with Emily, I mean on our last episode she called it China light, but I do think that we do need industrial policy in this country. We started it, and we need to continue it.

And it doesn't mean being China light, it means saying there's a market, we know it's going to be the winning market and we want to be the winner. There's no question that with these technologies, this is the market that we should want to own. They are better technologies. And they also happen to be cleaner, and we should be supporting in whatever way we can American businesses to win this market, to deploy here, to manufacture these products, to innovate on them, to deploy them across the world. And that requires some government intervention because it always has. That is how we built out railroads. That is how we owned the semiconductor industry. It's how we owned the aerospace industry through Boeing in its early days. We had government intervention to support some of that, to catalyze it.

Julia Pyper: Emily, how do you put this together? Thinking back to the, I think bipartisan perspectives on globalization and opening up economies is now a very different perspective. I think again, both parties actually share on how sound that was and how well it served the country. What do you make of it?

Emily Domenech: So I think I'll start with the mining piece first because I think that's an easy start. From my perspective, if you are serious about on-shoring or reshoring a supply chain, you can't just do the end of it and pretend you won. That doesn't work. So that means you need to be looking at the critical mineral development. You need to be looking at American resources. You need to be looking at American manufacturing.

And I think my perspective on how we do that, this "industrial policy" is we can't subsidize our way out of it, because China is going to subsidize it more. So that means we need to be thinking about what are the other hurdles to building in the United States? And oftentimes that is regulatory policy. It's regulatory policy, it's labor policy, it's access to capital, it's things like that. So let's talk about the whole picture. I think we should talk about the whole picture on the supply chain. I think we should talk about the whole picture on what makes it hard to build in America, and slapping a tax credit at the end of the supply chain is not going to solve this problem. We're not going to beat China that way.

Julia Pyper: I'm coming off of this Innovation Summit that my company hosted and we had experts on AI come in and just the sheer energy demand they're talking about, to have America lead and they're viewing it and many business leaders as an existential crisis for leading on AI because it's going to be infused in so much of how business operates going forward in so many different ways. And China wins on that race. That'll have massive geopolitical implications. But how you power AI is the first step. How are we going to build the gigawatts and gigawatts we need?

So this is becoming this pretty existential, I think, issue going into the geopolitics that are kind of ruling news cycles and politics today. We got to figure out how to build more of that stuff, and our globalization strategy will be part of it, but probably the French showing is going to be the key piece. Where in the Middle East are we maybe generating some of this power? Friends like the UAE, places like that. Canada becoming strategically located. You're talking about people trying to look to nuclear fission now, saying that's the only way we can maybe find the power we need, but we got to build all this stuff.

Brandon Hurlbut: To bring it home from what we were talking about earlier in the episode, when we were talking about climate and 1.5 degrees and those threats, there's certain people that are thinking about that and caring about that, but it's not necessarily the people running these campaigns and the voters. What everybody cares about is energy, because they pay an energy bill every single month, an electricity bill, and all of these businesses pay bills. And especially as we're industrializing again and manufacturing, the electricity costs are a big part of your business. And as we move into AI and build these data centers, which are, to your point Emily, that is a foundational issue for these hyperscalers and AI companies. So energy policy and electricity costs are something that people think about every day.

Julia Pyper: All right, with that, let's turn to our final question here. We had a listener who recently wrote us about offshore wind. "In 2024," they said, "We've seen major state and federal policy advances that have made it much more likely for offshore wind to be developed off the California coast." But I'm actually hearing, and maybe you guys are too, that offshore wind and wind in general is looking at a tough outlook here when it comes to federal tax credits. We've heard, I think JD Vance and Elon Musk speak negatively of wind. We seem to be at this moment of maybe offshore wind really expanding. But are we going to see that come to fruition? Emily, what do you think?

Emily Domenech: Yeah, I mean, I think offshore wind has problems on both sides of the aisle. They have problems with environmentalists, and they have problems with folks who just care about it from a NIMBY perspective. They have problems with Republicans who think it's too expensive. So I think it's a challenging space for sure. And I think of all of the clean energy technologies, offshore wind has the biggest, most uphill battle in the next administration. And that's again, a bipartisan problem.

Julia Pyper: Brandon?

Brandon Hurlbut: Yeah, we haven't made any investments in offshore wind so far, and the costs are higher. And I think to Emily's point, this new administration is not friendly to it. So I think there's definitely going to be some challenges.

Julia Pyper: Meanwhile, we do see states like California trying to make some big plans for it when I feel like I've been discouraged at how little they've been supporting other technologies that are ready to go, speeding up permitting and making interconnection faster. And it seems like we're trying to pick winners and losers when I wish we would focus on what's available today and deploy it faster. Because I'm seeing a focus on offshore wind that maybe will come one day, but it's clearly not here today. And I hope states can start to balance their outlooks and not just put all their eggs in the offshore wind basket, which I think to your point is a little TBD.

Brandon Hurlbut: It has worked in other countries.

Emily Domenech: I was going to say it's a very mature technology. I don't think this is a technology challenge, it's just that it's not cheaper. And a lot of the energy affordability is kind of the name of the game right now.

Julia Pyper: Well, we'll leave it there. That's it for the show. Thanks everyone for listening. Political Climate is a co-production of Latitude Media and Boundary Stone Partners. Max Savage Levenson is our producer. Sean Marquand is our technical director. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. You can get all of our show notes and transcripts at latitudemedia.com, and if you want us to talk about a specific topic, please email us at politicalclimatepodcast@gmail.com. Please feel free to help spread the word about Political Climate on LinkedIn, X and beyond. I'm Julia Pyper. See you again in two weeks.