Build healthier, stronger energy policy on common values

OPINION:

Congress just passed the biggest, boldest climate action and clean energy commitment in history, by any nation. The United States will invest $369 billion to ensure clean air and clean water, create good jobs, and support national energy security. The vote was partisan, but the next steps don’t need to be.

The transition to clean energy shouldn’t be along party lines. Republicans should stand up to the science deniers within their ranks and join Democrats in making progress on clean energy independence. And Democrats should be open to collaboration on the market-based solutions that Republicans tend to favor. There are common values on which to build: members of both parties want to leave a healthier environment to their children while creating a stronger economy that is free from Middle Eastern oil.

There are also common facts, evident across all 435 congressional districts, whether acknowledged by their representatives or not. Fossil fuels pollute our air and our water, leading to higher rates of cancer, heart disease, pediatric asthma, and premature death. The pollution from burning fossil fuels is responsible for an estimated 350,000 deaths annually in the United States alone.

And as Vladimir Putin’s barbaric war has painfully reminded us, fossil fuels tie us to a geopolitical status quo in which toxic regimes in Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela have too much leverage.

There are two issue areas primed for bipartisan progress towards a healthier, stronger energy policy.

First, Republicans and Democrats can legislate more streamlined and predictable rules and partnerships for clean energy entrepreneurs. For example, both large and small-modular nuclear fission plants are too hard to permit in the United States. And fission’s experimental but potentially game changing cousin, fusion, needs a separate, risk-informed regulatory pathway from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Hot rock geothermal, which could retrofit the world’s coal plants with clean energy from the earth’s heat, requires more research funding and an updated approach to siting and issuing injection permits. Offshore wind, which could generate 30 gigawatts by 2030, needs more job-training and shipbuilding support. All four of these industries, which I am working to promote in Congress, benefit districts red and blue.

Second, both parties should agree that U.S. foreign policy should protect our energy security. As we move off fossil fuels, our foreign policy should therefore shift from attending to oil and gas exporters towards more focus on suppliers of raw materials for clean energy. As one step in that direction, I have advocated for U.S. investment in mining in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has vast mineral wealth. Afghan-American mining partnerships, mediated by multilateral development institutions instead of the Taliban, could secure raw materials necessary to boost clean energy production, including copper, lithium and rare-earth elements. It would also promote Afghan-led economic development while boxing out the Chinese Communist Party’s extractionist policies in Central Asia.

Many policymakers in red states see clean energy as a threat to jobs in oil and gas. However, many skills are transferable. For example, hot rock geothermal energy requires deep drilling, too. And offshore wind requires many of the maritime skills and habits cultivated in offshore extraction.

Republicans also blame clean energy aspirations for high prices. What’s really expensive, though, is climate change: in 2021, weather and climate disasters cost the United States $152.6 billion. Fire, floods, heat, drought, and crop failure will immiserate us unless we act boldly. Boldness, though, does not mean thoughtless. The U.S. economy still requires oil and gas, and we must transition with care for working families’ energy bills.

Democrats are not going to budge: we are dedicated to a 100% clean energy future. But we can work with Republicans to get there. My generation, from both sides of the aisle, should come together so that we are the last one for which clean energy independence is a partisan issue.

• U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss, Massachusetts Democrat, serves the Vice-Chair of the Financial Services Committee and a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He represents the state’s Fourth Congressional District and is a Marine who commanded infantry in Afghanistan and special operations in Panama. He’s now a major in the reserves.