Conservative activist Jay Faison is asking Republicans to go on the offensive to counter the claims of highly partisan environmental groups that don’t support clean-energy hydropower and nuclear and label GOP lawmakers who do as “dirty.”
Faison’s group, ClearPath, has been looking to create a clean energy vision for the GOP that doesn’t include subsidies for wind and solar, while boosting research into clean coal technology and maintaining nuclear, hydropower and natural gas as the mainstay of the nation’s low-emission energy resources.
Many of those principles were laid out in the Republican Party platform at last week’s national convention in Cleveland.
But Faison wants the GOP to begin defending that clean energy vision by countering the message of the League of Conservation Voters that does not value nuclear power and ignores hydropower as clean energy.
Nuclear power provides about 19 percent of the nation’s electricity, with no greenhouse gas emissions, while hydropower provides more energy than solar and wind combined and is the nation’s largest, commercial renewable energy resource.
The environmental group is waging an aggressive campaign to undercut GOP Senate and House candidates that ClearPath is backing by labeling them as the dirty choice in November, ignoring their support for nuclear and other low-emission energy.
“The course of action is clear,” ClearPath said in a memo sent out late Wednesday and obtained by the Washington Examiner. “If Republicans are going to keep the U.S. House and Senate, our candidates and our party must go on the offense on clean energy to win over swing voters.
“History shows us that smaller government and free-market solutions are far more effective in unleashing the power of American innovation,” said the memo, sent to Capitol Hill staff and others. “Under the Obama administration, Democrats have pursued the complete opposite, and as a result, U.S. innovators and job creators are unable to focus on prioritizing clean energy.”
The memo said the GOP’s “redefined all-of-the-above strategy” will stress energy cleaner and less costly than “the unrealistic approach” of the League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.
“But this needs to be made much clearer. We need to better showcase that we care about clean energy — and have a better plan of our own,” ClearPath said.
It said ClearPath will begin a campaign “to set the record straight” and show the environmentalists’ “agenda is bad for our security, our economy, and our environment.”
“Our clean energy approach will be actually effective, which is what all voters want, and what swing voters particularly are looking for in a candidate,” ClearPath said. It said it will begin rolling out new research and recommendations “soon” to show how the GOP “can disagree with the extreme left on environmental issues and still win in November.”
The campaign will seek to illustrate how the League of Conservation Voters’ clean energy plan is full of “enormous holes” that the GOP can seize upon to advance better energy policy. “Victory is ours, if we are willing to put in the work,” ClearPath said.
The head of the League of Conservation Voters, Gene Karpinski, addressed the Democratic National Convention Thursday in Philadelphia.
He told reporters ahead of the speech that the group was formally adding Republican nominee Donald Trump to the list of politicians that support “dirty” environmental policies, noting Trump’s prominent denial of climate change.
“We’re excited to put dirty, dangerous, denier Donald Trump on our Dirty Dozen list and we’re going to do all we can to make sure Hillary Clinton is president and Donald Trump is not,” Karpinski said.
