This conservative group says the GOP should lead on environmental issues like clean energy

The federal Environmental Protection Agency this month submitted a handful of air pollution waivers from California to Congress, according to Politico; the body can vote to nullify them under the Congressional Review Act.

If that happens, it’ll mean carmakers wouldn’t be subject to those rules from California; other states, including New York, also generally follow California’s standards.

The Trump administration has moved to scale back some environmental regulations nationwide. In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Corporation Commission this spring repealed the state’s renewable energy standard.

But David Jenkins said the GOP should pay more attention to the natural environment.

Jenkins is president of the group Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. The Show spoke with him earlier, and asked what to him are the biggest environmental issues that conservatives should be talking about, but aren’t.

Full conversation

DAVID JENKINS: Well, I’ve always argued since way back, gosh, you know, during John McCain’s first campaign back in 2000, that Republicans should be leading on the issue of climate. When I speak to Republican groups, I say, “Look, this is an important issue. It’s real. We know. There’s plenty of evidence. But why on earth would conservatives want to punt the issue to the left and let them come up with all the solutions?”

Republicans have come up with solutions before. Conservatives have come up with solutions before. You can go all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt. It seems like it’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction that anything that the left is interested in, we’re just going to back away from and not engage, when actually our solutions would be better.

MARK BRODIE: What kind of responses and reactions do you get from when you talk to Republican groups, groups of conservatives, and you say we should be talking about the climate and that climate change is real?

JENKINS: Yeah, I get zero pushback. And if I go speak to like a local conservative group, you know, this is the base of the base. And they understand it. It’s funny that so many groups seem to feel like you can’t talk about climate with conservatives. You can. You’ve just got to talk about it in a way that makes sense to people.

Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship

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BRODIE: Well so, I’m curious then where you think the disconnect is, because as you say, the folks who show up to these group meetings tend to be sort of the base, the folks who in theory would show up to vote in a primary.

So, why is it then that these people believe that, you know, they seem to agree with you and agree that these are issues that need to be addressed and that the solutions that conservatives have might be the better ones, why is it then that the people who are elected from those primaries and those general elections aren’t talking about these issues in that way, if at all, and certainly don’t seem to be trying to solve the problems in the way that you’d like them to?

JENKINS: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do sort of the way we stovepipe our information sources. I don’t get pushback on that we need to take the lead and find solutions on climate and not leave it up to the left, but I do get pushback sometimes on basic facts.

Like, over the past four years, we’ve produced more oil and natural gas than any country on earth. We’ve broken all records. And yet, because of the talking points that were put out during campaign season and so forth, when I said that simple fact — which you can verify so many different ways — people didn’t believe it. And I had to jump through a lot of hoops to show them how much oil we were actually producing.

But they believed that we stopped producing oil during the last administration, and we didn’t. So there’s a difference in where people get their information and what they think is real.

BRODIE: What do you make of the effort to go back in some cases to, for example, coal-fired power plants, and moving away from things like wind and solar? That seems to be the goal of the Trump administration?

JENKINS: Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. It’s actually contrary to the market, the free market. You know, our motto is you follow the market. And that wasn’t very popular back when Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House and it cost $60 per watt. You know, it didn’t make any sense, so the market wouldn’t support it.

But now the price of solar and wind and geothermal — even nuclear in a lot of cases — is cheaper than keeping open those old, ancient coal-fired power plants.

BRODIE: Well so, how do you try to make that case, given that, as you say, people sometimes don’t agree on what the facts are, and that is certainly not the the position of the current Republican administration — either in the White House or, for example, in Arizona with the the utility regulators, the Corporation Commission?

JENKINS: Yeah, the Corporation Commission has went from being a utility watchdog to utility lapdog.

But in terms of speaking to folks about energy, I’m like, “There is no red or blue or right or left energy, and what makes sense at any given point in time depends on the cost, depends on what you’re trying to do in terms of preventing pollution and and and availability and so forth.”

And what’s happened is that some people on the political right — and I won’t say “conservatives,” because I don’t believe they are. Some people on the political right seem to think that coal is a red source of energy, that just because the left doesn’t like it, because they’re worried about climate, then it’s great.

Well, the market says no. The utilities are trying to close these plants for a reason, and they want to make a profit. So, for any president or politician to come in and say, “I know better than the market, that I want to keep these open,” just to troll somebody or something like that, what they’re actually doing is raising the electricity cost and the energy cost for every single American.

BRODIE: I’m curious if you have found over the last number of years that when it comes to enacting policy, that you are perhaps more in line with those on the political left than those on the political right.

JENKINS: Well, I’m consistent with genuine conservatism and looking out for future generations. Ronald Reagan said when he talked about our natural resources, he said, “This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children, and our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.”

Now that’s conservatism. Margaret Thatcher, his good friend, she articulated the same kind of thing. And so the fact that someone on the political right decided to try to be a populist and follow the talking points of the oil and gas industry or the coal industry and be captured by special interest and might try to put a conservative cloak around that doesn’t make it conservative.

BRODIE: I guess so like when you talk about, you know, you mentioned earlier that when you go and talk to Republican groups or conservative groups, you don’t necessarily get a lot of pushback on what you’re saying about dealing with the climate and the fact that climate needs to be dealt with.

But then you look at sort of the national debate or even, you know, on the state level, we just talked about the Arizona Corporation Commission, how the the solutions coming from from Republicans, from from conservatives or people who consider themselves conservatives don’t seem to be in line with the kinds of solutions you’re talking about.

JENKINS: Yeah, and there’s some solutions, proposed solutions from the left that I don’t think make a lot of sense. For example, one thing that does make a lot of sense — and actually Arizona was on track to do this, but they seem to be backsliding now. When you set a clean energy standard, so what you’re doing, you’re saying to the utilities is that, “OK, as you plan, as as old plants retire, you replace them with energy-generating capability that help you meet that standard in 2050 so that you don’t have to shut down a plant early because it’s blowing you up past that limit.”

And so, you’re allowing them to plan and to just change in the normal course of business. That is a conservative thing to do.

BRODIE: All right, that is David Jenkins, president of the group Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. David, thanks for the conversation, I appreciate it.

JENKINS: Yeah, thank you for having me.

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