Big Green? The Clean Energy Leader Enraging Environmentalists

January 10, 2024

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by Timothy Cama (E&E News Greenwire) ... “We are moving from kind of a clean-versus-dirty, renewables-versus-fossil imagination of this kind of bifurcated energy industry to the reality that these are big companies with both renewable and fossil assets,” (Jason) Grumet, a self-styled centrist and CEO of the American Clean Power Association, explained in a recent interview. “And doing things really, really big and really, really fast.”

“We are a clean energy business association,” he added, putting a slight but perceptible emphasis on “business.”

In the last year, Grumet has hired dozens of staffers to juggle the group’s more than 800 member companies, which include renewable developers like Ørsted, Invenergy and Avangrid; utilities like AES and NextEra; and others like Shell and BP. The organization will be moving to a bigger office to accommodate that growth.

There’s Big Pharma, Big Tech and Big Oil. Now, with Grumet — pronounced groo-MAY — at the helm, the American Clean Power Association is positioning itself as Big Green.

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But Grumet also represents a different approach. He’s more outspoken and forceful than the group’s previous president, Heather Zichal.

In 2008 he was called a “prick” by none other than the current Veterans Affairs secretary. He’s a zealous proponent for harnessing passion into compromise and has shown little reluctance to anger those who would seem natural allies.

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Greens have long been the most powerful voices in favor of replacing fossil fuels with renewables. But from Grumet’s perspective, they’ve got it all wrong and are holding back the sector, particularly with their anti-corporate messaging.

“The only way we’ll solve the climate challenge doesn’t exactly resonate with some of the kind of core values in classic environmental community,” he said, pointing to a German-born economist who was critical of industrial capitalism.

“E.F. Schumacher, ‘small is beautiful,’ community-based decisionmaking, while that’s not the dominant view across the entire environmental community … there’s some anti-corporate energy,” Grumet said.

He noted the Inflation Reduction Act, which is “providing significant tax credits to very big companies to do big things very fast. And we are now confronting a lot of the challenges that the rest of the very big energy industry faces. And that’s where I think there’s some tension.”

It’s a reflection, in part, of the industry’s new priorities. While Grumet still wants to protect the renewable energy subsidies from Republicans, he no longer sees that as the top threat. Instead, he’s zeroed in on permitting changes for energy projects, an issue greens mostly object to.

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The renewable sector has an uneasy relationship with the left on permitting. Energy advocates say current laws often stand in the way of new solar farms, high-voltage transmission, manufacturing facilities and more — especially when local officials can derail projects.

Democrats in particular have long seen laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act as sacrosanct, and argued that many permitting tweaks would be fatal blows to them.

Since taking over at ACP, Grumet hasn’t shied away from pointing fingers and arguing that his opponents are relying on outdated ideas.

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“The sense was that the clean energy industry was somehow kind of a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party and the environmental movement,” he said. “And that is both not true, but also not in the interests of an industry that is trying to create long, durable national policy.”

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“Those policies are a net decrease in global emissions,” Grumet said, arguing that U.S. oil is produced with lower emissions than in other countries, and that natural gas exports replace coal for electricity production around the world.

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Grumet has not only clashed with environmentalists, he’s also split with some of his group’s own members. Twice this year, renewable energy companies have released public letters taking positions on the IRA’s green hydrogen tax credit that differ from ACP’s.

The association itself took a middle ground approach on issues including the degree to which renewable power used for “green” hydrogen production must be new to the electric grid and how closely the electricity production and hydrogen production must coincide in order to count for the credits.

One letter from environmentalists and companies including EDP Renewables and Intersect Power, published in February, advocated a more stringent approach, while one in April from companies including NextEra Energy and National Grid pushed for more flexibility.

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Most of the association’s member companies have fossil fuel assets, as do companies building most of the new renewable energy projects in the country.

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From 2001 to 2007 he was executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan nonprofit he founded.

That group released a series of major energy policy recommendations, some of which aligned with provisions enacted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, including on auto efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards, expanding electricity transmission infrastructure, and growing advanced nuclear energy technology.

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With the lessons from that project, Grumet launched the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2007, alongside former Senate leaders from both parties: Tom Daschle, Bob Dole, George Mitchell and Howard Baker. It sought to expand principles of bipartisanship and durable policy to areas like health care and transportation, and incorporated the National Commission on Energy Policy into its structure.

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Grumet in 2008 became an energy adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He promoted Obama in public appearances as someone who took seriously challenges like energy independence and climate change.

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(John) Podesta was also surprised when Grumet said Obama would classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant that could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

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Grumet was floated to potentially become Obama’s EPA administrator, but the job ended up going to Lisa Jackson.

“It’s not surprising that there’s quite a bit of competition for those jobs,” he said, theorizing that when he rails against tribalism, “the tribes don’t love that.”

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The group wants to improve permitting for major electric transmission lines, change the judicial appeal process for environmental reviews, limit the authority of states to veto Clean Water Act permits and permit more domestic mining. READ MORE

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