Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez admits climate change is not “top of mind” for most of his constituents in northeast Ohio, even as, he says, rising water levels in Lake Erie have led to increased floods.
But Gonzalez is betting he can sell his district on the economic opportunities in developing and manufacturing clean energy technologies and promoting them around the world as a tool to reduce global emissions.
“Whether you think climate is a real issue or a complete hoax, the world is moving in this direction,” Gonzalez told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview. “For Ohio, I want to make sure we are creating the jobs, we are the ones building on the set of technologies we can export around the world.”
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House Republican leaders have selected Gonzalez as one of two new GOP members of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
The new perch to work on climate change policy provides a chance for Gonzalez to distinguish himself, as he looks to hold on to his seat after being one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Trump, a vocal climate change skeptic, is raising money for an ex-aide who has launched a primary challenge against Gonzalez.
“I don’t think about the former president much at all,” Gonzalez said.
After playing football for the Ohio State Buckeyes, Gonzalez, 36, played five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts before attending Stanford Business School and starting a second career in the technology industry. He was elected to Congress in 2018 to represent Ohio’s 16th District and was reelected last year.
Gonzalez describes his preferred policies as very much in the mold of the agenda promoted by House Republican leaders since last year, focused on spurring innovation in clean energy technologies, such as carbon capture and smaller nuclear reactors, through government funding and tax credits.
He opposes more aggressive policies, such as pricing carbon or mandating zero-carbon electricity use, that Democrats and some Republicans say are needed to accelerate faster progress of clean energy technologies to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
“If we do the Green New Deal-style tax and regulatory route, all we do is hurt people, in particular my constituents, by raising the cost of their energy,” Gonzalez said.
Ohio is a major fossil fuel-dependent state and one of the worst in the country for renewable electricity generation. In 2019, the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill to weaken, and eventually kill, a renewable electricity mandate program.
But Gonzalez is excited by the job and economic opportunities associated with General Motors’s electric battery manufacturing plant under construction in Lordstown, just outside his district. The plant, slated to employ about 1,100 people, will supply batteries to power GM’s electric vehicles.
“Ohio has an opportunity to really lead in that space,” Gonzalez said, noting batteries can also be used to store excess renewable energy to enable those energy sources to be used when the wind is still and sun isn’t shining.
Gonzalez acknowledged that fossil fuel use must go down over time in order to meet net-zero emissions targets that are increasingly being targeted by companies and governments, including the Biden administration.
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But he argues that goal is unrealistic absent technological breakthroughs, which he hopes to enable through Operation Warp Speed-style government funding into developing clean energy solutions such as direct air capture, long-duration storage, and advanced nuclear.
“Vaccines are different than decarbonization technologies, but appropriate levels of R&D funding properly focused can get us a lot of the way there,” Gonzalez said. “The market is enormous, and I want to make sure when we have the discussion in the U.S., it’s about innovation and how we invent the technologies to meet some of the targets.”
