Climate watch: ‘Green’ projects growing fastest in ‘red’ states
Energy projects to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels are sprouting across America. And where are they sprouting most? In the “red” states.
A $4 billion electric vehicle battery plant is going up in Ohio. It will employ 2,000 people. BMW is putting $1.7 billion into an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in South Carolina. A pair of energy companies are planning a $4 billion renewable hydrogen project in Texas. The Department of Energy is issuing $2.5 billion in loans to start lithium battery manufacturing plants in Ohio and Tennessee.
There are green energy projects in “blue” states too, but they are outnumbered by those in states whose legislators did not support the passage of the law that is spurring much of the innovation: the Inflation Reduction Act.
This is a good thing for the nation, argues Liz Featherstone in an article in The New Republic.
“By creating economic incentives for all Americans to install heat pumps, drive electric vehicles, and put solar panels on their roofs, the federal bill points us to a future where environmentally friendlier behavior is not a matter of virtue signaling or cultural identity but of rational economic choices,” she says.
Jonathon Marshall, a research coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, observed that “The Inflation Reduction Act squeaked through Congress last summer on a strictly partisan vote, clearing the Senate with a bare one-vote majority. Yet one of its most profound long-term impacts may be bringing more Republicans around to supporting clean technology.”
Bloomberg News reports that 16 of the top 21 Congressional districts where new major battery, wind and solar projects are planned are represented by Republicans.
California’s 23rd Congressional District, represented by Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, ranks number one in the nation for grid battery projects and utility-scale solar capacity. “That’s one green deep-red district,” the Bloomberg story says.
An article in Politico details how Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp is working to make his state “the electric mobility capital of America,” as he put it in his recent inauguration address.
Politico points to large investments in Georgia “linked to the electric-vehicle supply chain from companies like Hyundai, Rivian and SK Battery.” Indeed, Kemp went to the Davos conference in Switzerland to tout his state and to lure electric vehicle projects there.
He does this while soft-pedaling talk about benefits to the climate that a move to electric vehicles will bring. It’s simply a matter of letting the market work, he declares.
Speaking about the electric Ford F-150 Lightning, Kemp says, “You’re going to have a lot of Republicans driving that truck.”
Liz Featherstone notes, “…there’s no doubt that people will take advantage of the IRA, and many of them will be Republicans who voted for candidates who opposed the new law. That’s the best way to scale responsible environmental behavior: make it work even for people who don’t feel the cause ideologically.”