Congress is divided over climate policy. Sean Casten thinks he can build a bridge between them.
Casten is a 46-year-old clean-energy businessman and scientist who defeated Rep. Peter Roskam, the six-term Republican incumbent of Illinois’s 6th Congressional District, covering the well-educated, affluent suburbs west of Chicago that Hillary Clinton won by seven points in 2016.
He succeeded in one of the most closely watched midterm races by insisting that it’s possible to combat climate change while also benefiting the economy.
“The No. 1 thing people don’t understand about climate change is lowering C02 emissions will make our economy more productive — period,” Casten told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “There is no conflict. We talk about climate the wrong way. Our whole business approach was, let’s go in and help companies save money in the course of making a difference on climate change. l hope we can have that same conversation nationally.”
Casten holds an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry and master’s degrees in engineering management and biochemical engineering.
In his work life, he led companies that he says improved the fuel efficiency of the power grid by helping manufacturers cut their greenhouse-gas emissions from capturing industrial waste and recycling it on-site, or turning it into electricity.
He says his business and science background helped him win a district that has constituents employed by two different national laboratories, Fermilab and Argonne National Lab.
“I built a business and created a lot of jobs,” Casten said. “I did things from the context of someone who was trained in the sciences, worked as an engineer, and then became an entrepreneur. That resonated pretty well with a district that is scientifically minded, and that is generally pro-business. That is who I am.”
Casten describes climate change as an “existential threat,” while criticizing both progressives and Republicans for how they approach the problem.
He said an emerging new liberal wing of House Democrats is “naive” for urging a complete elimination of fossil fuels used in electricity generation — a so-called “Green New Deal.”
Casten favors an approach that would encourage the use of noncarbon “clean” energy sources other than solar or wind. These include advanced nuclear reactors, or carbon, capture, and storage technologies that can collect carbon emissions from coal or natural-gas plants and store it underground.
“In terms of the urgency of the problem, we can’t be too aggressive,” Casten said. “In terms of how we do that, setting out goals of being 100 percent renewable energy is a little bit naive. We should set as a goal that we need to get carbon down as quickly and cheaply as possible, and look at every place we can do that.”
Casten also criticized Republicans on the Climate Solutions Caucus whose voting records, he said, show their purported concern for the environment is mostly a show for their voters.
“If we want to get things done on climate, I do not want to be window dressing,” Casten said.
The 90-member climate caucus, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, suffered huge losses of GOP members during the midterm elections, leading some progressives who never bought into the premise of the group to predict its demise.
An increasingly vocal collection of center-right advocacy groups, however, consider Republican support essential to achieving durable, economically sound solutions on climate change, such as imposing a revenue-neutral carbon tax and dividend, rather than excessive regulation.
Casten argues that Republicans, as a whole, have shown little interest in cooperation.
“If you are not persuaded climate is an issue you should get behind, I’m not sure what I am going to do to persuade you of that,” Casten said. “I might as well try to persuade you that the earth isn’t flat. The science is completely proven. It’s willful ignorance.”
But he views climate change from a market-based perspective, and proposes ideas that veer from traditional progressive orthodoxy. For example, he favors reforms to the tax code that would remove “preferential treatment” for certain energy technologies. And he wants Congress to reform the Clean Air Act to allow industrial and power plants to more easily make energy-efficiency upgrades, without triggering additional permitting reviews.
Casten contends lawmakers could rally the public around the need for climate change action if they put aside the ideologically charged buzzwords.
“What I have found in my professional life and now political life is once you explain you can solve climate change, people get pretty excited about playing a role in solving it,” Casten said. “People can be led to care about this if you frame it in terms that matter to them. You could frame this as a jobs story. You could frame this as a minimize your exposure to volatile energy prices story. Or you can frame it as an environmental story.”
