Former Democratic Sen. Harry Reid is resurrecting his annual clean energy conference next month after a two-year hiatus.
The ninth annual National Clean Energy Summit will be held Oct. 13, with former Vice President Al Gore headlining with Ernest Moniz, energy secretary under former President Barack Obama.
The summits were held routinely each year in August when the Obama administration was in office. There was no summit last year. And it was not certain with Reid retired if the summits would continue.
The announcement in July that the event would continue this fall was done quietly and without much fanfare. On Thursday, the summit announced that it is including a special session to hear from mostly Republican mayors, including Dale Ross, the mayor of Georgetown, Texas. All the mayors accept the science that climate change is caused by manmade activity and are leaders on energy efficiency and renewable integration.
The addition comes amid increasing criticism of the Trump administration’s denial that climate change and warmer global temperatures had anything to do with the devastation caused by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey.
“Folks have political dogmas that they’re attached to and they’re not going to give those up in the face of evidence,” Ross said in an interview with Morning Consult earlier this week. Ross is a fervent clean energy advocate and began running his his city on 100 percent renewable energy in March.
Mayor Jim Brainard of Carmel, Ind. also will participate on the panel. Brainard has led a national conference of mayors in pledging to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement after President Trump announced June 1 he would exit the agreement.
Mayor Greg Stanton of Phoenix, a Democrat, also will join the panel.
“The mayors will discuss their experience in developing renewable energy resources to power their cities, increasing the energy efficiency of public and private buildings, and incorporating smart technologies across municipal operations,” the summit said Thursday.
