Reflecting on the work of the soon-to-retire House climate committee

In this episode, Florida Rep. Kathy Castor, chair of the House
Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, describes the committee’s
ambitious goals and notable achievements over the past three
years.


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transcript)


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Text transcript:


David Roberts


In 2019, in the wake of Democrats’ congressional victories, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would be re-forming the
Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which had been disbanded
by Republicans in the previous session. She appointed Florida
Representative Kathy Castor as chair.


At the time, the decision caused considerable controversy in the
climate community. Climate activists were pushing for a more
ambitious committee, with the power to write a full Green New
Deal legislative package. Instead, the committee was to be an
advisory body only, meant to do research and develop policy
suggestions.


History is littered with congressional committees that busily
produce reports and whitepapers that no one reads. But the
climate committee proved much more potent than that.


Castor set about gathering testimony from hundreds of witnesses —
scientists, policy wonks, and average citizens alike — and
putting her expert staff to work translating their testimony into
policy recommendations. But the recommendations did not simply
decorate reports. The Democrats on the committee, and the
Democrats educated by the committee's work, took those
recommendations back to their own committees, where they found
their way into a wide variety of bills. The bipartisan
infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction
Act contained numerous policies that originated in the climate
committee.


Altogether, hundreds of the recommendations made by the committee
found their way into law — a crazy-high success rate for a
committee with no real power. As the committee prepares to sunset
— of course Republicans are disbanding it again — it has put out
a final report, summarizing all its achievements and pointing to
the work that remains to be done.


I called Rep. Castor to get her thoughts on the committee's work,
the achievements she is most proud of, and what progress she
thinks can be made in the next two years.


Alright, then. With no further ado, Representative Kathy Castor.
Welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.


Rep. Kathy Castor


Oh, I'm delighted to be here, David. Thank you.


David Roberts


So just to start off, I'm assuming that the coming Republican
majority is going to shut down the committee. Has this been
explicitly stated yet, or is this just ... are we all assuming?
Is that a valid assumption?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yeah, the ranking member, Garret Graves of Louisiana, did kind of
spill the beans. The problem is, on the Republican side, the
Speaker-to-be, Kevin McCarthy, does not quite have the votes yet.
So that leaves everything in limbo getting organized for the new
year. But, they've made it plain that the climate crisis is not a
priority for them, and therefore the Select Committee on the
Climate Crisis will not exist in the next Congress.


David Roberts


So then it's been wrapped up. It's been a whirlwind three years,
I guess, since you were placed in charge of this committee. Have
you had a chance to kind of pause and step back and think about
it all, or are you still kind of in a sprint til' the end of the
term?


Rep. Kathy Castor


It has been a sprint right til' the end, especially since the
large appropriations package and the defense bill were not
completed due to really foot-dragging of the US Senate. We have
so much more left to do. I mean, we are thrilled that this was
the most important Congress when it comes to clean energy and
climate action and building more resilient, safer communities
across the country. I mean, this was the Congress, the one that
people inside and outside have been pressing for decades,
frankly. But there's still so much more left to do. We're living
in a climate emergency, and the world's top scientists tell us it
is just urgent that we reduce climate pollution across the board.
And now we have the tool. We passed a number of the tools, but
implementation will be key, and that's what we're looking ahead
towards.


David Roberts


I wanted to ask you, looking back on it, if you can cast your
mind back to 2019, when you became chair and you had a majority
in the House, but very narrow-split Senate, looking back, were
you surprised by the productivity of this Congress? How did it
perform, relative to your expectations from back in 2019?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Gosh, it was yes, I think the the fact that we were able to
accomplish so much when the United States Senate was divided
50-50 truly exceeded our expectations, but we really didn't have
a choice. Policy could not wait any longer, while so many private
actors, private sector, clean energy entrepreneurs, some
utilities, some states and local communities are going
gangbusters. The federal government and the Congress had not
responded. So the stars finally aligned when we kind of knitted
together pieces of the climate movement across the country,
across the economy, and had the plan ready when President Biden
was elected. But a 50-50 Senate, that was a roadblock. But
looking back now, it's pretty impressive. The bipartisan bills
that we were able to pass into law.


David Roberts


Yeah, my expectations are so low, naturally, that I was quite
pleasantly surprised. So let's talk about a little bit about what
I think is one of the most striking features of this last few
years, which has been a crazy time. But I wrote a piece back in,
I think it was 2019 or 2020, about the climate movement kind of
splintered apart after Waxman-Markey back in 2008, 2009, and was
kind of just fractured and drifting up through, I would say
probably like 2018. And then, of course, I've been writing about
these processes, whereby groups are talking to one another, and
there's been just this intensive policy discussion and activity.


And the left seem to sort of pull together around a policy
vision, which I sort of characterized as standards, investments,
and justice: SIJ. I tried to get SIJ to catch on, but it never
quite did. But then your committee comes along, you consult with
hundreds of people. You get testimony from hundreds of people.
And that's kind of that shared vision is more or less what you
came around to. And for all the chaos of the ensuing years and
all the sort of ups and downs and roller coaster of it, there was
remarkably little, I thought, conflict within the Democratic
Party or within the left about policy specifics.


There seemed to be a weird sort of policy consensus that kind of
held firm. Did that strike you too, especially relative to like,
2008, 2009, when, you know, whether you supported cap and trade
or not was this, you know, this absolute marker of your purity or
your intentions and all this, you know, all the very vicious
policy fights back then? I thought there was a strange amount of
consensus around policy this time around. Did you find that as
well?


Rep. Kathy Castor


I'm glad that we made it look easy, because it wasn't. And it
really started with Speaker Pelosi's vision coming back in
tackling the climate crisis, there's nothing like having a
professional committee, staff of experts. Some of the other
committee chairs in the Congress, they protect their turf, their
jurisdiction, but she understood that solutions to the climate
crisis cut across all jurisdictions and they needed to be knitted
together. So having Ana Unruh Collin serve as our staff director,
a brilliant, knowledgeable scientist, but policy guru. And then
Alison Cassady is our deputy, who had served under Chairman
Waxman, went through EPA after a report and now is helping
Codesta in the White House get all of these clean energy and
resiliency policies done. Fatima Maud, great on transmission in
the power sector. Samantha Medlock, who understood that the
climate we have to prepare and adapt, so another professional. So
there's nothing like having a team that is in place, ready to
listen.


David Roberts


Most of them, veterans of the Waxman-Markey fight. So, had seen
how things could go, I think, and went in, determined to make
them go differently this time.


Rep. Kathy Castor


You're absolutely right. And what I learned watching Speaker
Pelosi and just kind of growing up as a policy nerd myself, is
that from the very get-go, you have to listen. You have to listen
and learn. And that's what we set out to do right off the bat;
listen to farmers who were hungry for climate solutions because
their crops and livestock being impacted, scientists, folks in
the clean tech sector, the innovators. We needed to understand
what the modern solutions were. The environmental justice
community, who had felt so left out of discussions on solutions,
on clean energy and technology for many years, and we set out to
do that, held a number of those listening sessions, but put out a
request for information asking for the climate solutions across
the country.


And at that time, we also Hal Harvey and the folks at Energy
Innovation gave us a kind of set-the-table tutorial to really
point us in the direction of what gets the biggest bang for the
buck when we're talking about reducing climate pollution and
clean energy. And then, before COVID came down, trying to go out
across the country to listen, one of the first trips was to
coastal South Carolina to look at the impacts of climate on ...
and coming from the state of Florida, I understand very well the
impacts of climate on a tourism economy and your economic
wellbeing. But then out to Colorado, to the National Renewable
Energy Lab, where we really tried to bring our Republican
colleagues along with us, because durable policy oftentimes has
to be bipartisan. And I think looking back on the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS Act, everything we've done in the
defense bills through the appropriations, they were bipartisan,
and they will be more durable. The Inflation Reduction Act, not
as bipartisan, but, boy, to have ten years of continuity of clean
energy tax credits and energy efficiency across the economy will
provide that certainty that our innovators need.


David Roberts


So you put out this report in 2020, or not 2020. When did the big
report come out? Was that earlier this year?


Rep. Kathy Castor


It was 2020, David.


David Roberts


It's all a blur.


Rep. Kathy Castor


I know. It does get blurred. And in fact, we were set to release
it in March of 2020, and I remember very well talking to Speaker
Pelosi and Leader Hoyer on the floor, and we said, okay, well, we
won't be announcing it next week because of the COVID, but we'll
be back in a month to do this. And it took a little longer, but
it gave us time because the country was grappling with the murder
of George Floyd. And we knew that, unlike Waxman-Markey, kind of
technical solution to the climate crisis, that people across
America were hungry for solutions that are much more
cross-cutting and focused on equity and addressing the
communities that have disproportionately carried the burden of
pollution.


So, that gave us time to kind of build up our environmental
justice pieces of it. And the other thing that gave us momentum
was the youth climate movement at that time. And thank goodness
we have environmental advocates across America who know how to
organize. And they organized, and we heard them. Our very first
hearing was with youth climate leaders, so that they understood
that we were truly listening to their pleas for action. And it's
important to have those protests they were protesting in the
Congress, and they need to continue to press policymakers. But we
listened and really turned their passion into policy.


David Roberts


So this report comes out in 2020 magisterial report, I would say
extremely I wrote it up when it came out. I just thought it's
extremely fleshed out in the report. There were 715 policy
recommendations, and your recent sort of wrap-up report that just
came out says, "Out of those, 436 passed to the House, and then
314 of them were signed into law." So I did the math: that's a
44% hit rate. You got to be feeling pretty good about that. I
don't know what typical expert committees in Congress produce,
but that seems like a remarkably high success rate for getting
recommendations into policy.


Were you surprised how much from that initial report, sort of,
survived the sausage-making process and sort of came out the
other end more or less unmolested?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yeah. We looked for every opportunity in every bill moving
through the Congress to build in some of those policy
recommendations into law. And for folks that want to look at that
groundbreaking report at climatecrisis.house.gov, you'll see we
had legislation in certain areas already drafted that was ready
to go, and then we made other recommendations for the need for
legislation and to their credit, members across the Congress took
us up on our offer. We work very closely with each congressional
committee. Almost, just about every committee had a piece of
this.


David Roberts


Yeah, I wanted to ask about the ... because the committee didn't
have the power to write legislation. It's just an advisory
committee, which I think makes it kind of even more remarkable
how much of its recommendations became a law. But tell me a
little bit about the process, whereby this sort of
recommendations that began in an advisory committee made their
way to lawmaking committees. What was the sort of process,
whereby you kind of diffused your recommendations and tried to
get them into things? It seemed to work remarkably well behind
the scenes. I didn't read a lot of stories about sort of
infighting or backbiting so it seemed like a weirdly rational
policy-making process. Tell us a little bit about how these
things made their way into policy.


Rep. Kathy Castor


Well, Speaker Pelosi was very wise to appoint to the Climate
Crisis Committee a number of members who are steeped in climate
policy and politics. For example, Jared Huffman from California
who was an environmental lawyer. He also sits on the
Transportation Committee and has kept a very keen eye on those
policies. Plus, Sean Casten, a clean energy tech guy from the
midwest who understands power markets very well. Suzanne Bonamici
of Oregon who is a leader in oceans policy, Ocean Solicitors.
Donald McEachin, who recently passed away, was kind of our moral
conscience, and had crafted an Environmental Justice For All Act
that we recommended, and a lot of the policies in equity sprung
from that.


So, for example, as Chairman Peter DeFazio and the Congress was
crafting the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that we also
called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We had made
recommendations for electrifying the transportation sector and
doing it in a way that also built the bridge to workers and
labor. And though it looked pretty easy looking back, I'll even
say great. But these were very difficult discussions with auto
makers, with auto workers, with members of Congress like a Debbie
Dingell. But you had a Chairman DeFazio focused on this very
important infrastructure law, something that President Biden ran
on. So in the end, all of those taking, listening, and hammering
out the compromises and policies in advance, we end up with an
infrastructure law that includes $62 billion for the Department
of Energy over five years to support clean energy transition and
infrastructure upgrades, including the $7.5 billion to build the
very first nationwide EV charging network.


So, that had already been built into the Biden administration's
goal of 500,000 public EV chargers, and a future where all
Americans can have easy access to EV charging. But it also has
those important — none of this happens unless we can build the
batteries. So $3 billion for battery manufacturing, recycling
grants, another $3 billion for battery materials processing.


David Roberts


That was in the Infrastructure Act, right? I mean, this is one of
the interesting things, is that you sort of seeded your
recommendations in the Infrastructure Law and in CHIPS and in the
Inflation Reduction Act. And so, we didn't end up in that kind of
situation where there was just one big bill with everything this
time. You guys were working on everything that had a chance of
passing. It seems like.


Rep. Kathy Castor


That's correct. And with a patriotic flare. Buy American, build
American. I know right now it's causing some consternation for a
lot of our allies that also make cars and trucks, but that
domestic content and the requirements for manufacturing in the
United States, we viewed as vitally important to building
bipartisan support for decades to come. And already you've seen
the announcements of where these battery plants, where the EV
plants are going to be built, largely in the midwest, largely in
red states, in Republican areas.


And I think over time, the GOP is so wedded to oil and gas, but
over time, as these workers and these communities have a piece of
the clean energy future, it will be changing. It will build on
itself, and it will help us address this climate emergency.


David Roberts


Yeah, I want to come back to that, too. So I don't want to ask
you to choose a favorite child, but out of all these, out of this
report, full, just chock full of recommendations, are there any
recommendations or set of recommendations that became law that
you are particularly proud of, that you think are particularly
sort of central to what we're doing? If you had to choose kind of
your favorite thing that you did that ended up actually passing
the finish line, what would you point to?


Rep. Kathy Castor


The electric grid across America. And it's not all the way done,
because there are some very significant policy changes that must
happen. But what folks like Hal Harvey and Energy Innovators told
us right away is the most important way to tackle the climate
crisis and to reduce greenhouse gases is in the power sector,
getting the lower cost solar, wind, energy-efficiency resources
out ASAP, and then especially following on with the
transportation sector. So, here I sit in the state of Florida,
the so-called Sunshine State, but they've kept us addicted to
gas. They've put all the eggs pretty much in the gas basket. And
that has really cost my neighbors a lot of money.


When we have price spikes, especially after Putin's unprovoked
attack on Ukraine, we can do so much better. We can lower cost,
we can clean the air. We can build more resilient communities.
You probably saw that after Hurricane Ian, the one community that
didn't lose power and really didn't suffer as much damage was a
solar-powered community, Babcock Ranch in southwest Florida. And,
I want that for the entire country. And we're on the cusp of
getting there, but that's why we have more work to do when it
comes to getting the renewables out. But David, there's nothing
like having those tax credits now for ten years.


David Roberts


Yeah. Hearing you put the grid at the center, of course, warms my
heart. Of the stuff that didn't make it, were there pieces that
you were more disappointed didn't make it? This is sort of the
flip side of the other question. Is there stuff that you were
hoping was going to make it that didn't, that you look back on
with regret?


Rep. Kathy Castor


I wish we could get a national renewable portfolio standard.
Again, using my experience here in the so-called Sunshine State,
boy, we're a laggard. And again, we could bring that lower cost,
clean energy to more of my neighbors here. And it's just so
disjointed. You have states that have truly committed, local
communities, truly committed. They're going to reap the benefits,
and really, the benefits should be available to everyone. So, we
recommended a clean energy standard, energy-efficiency standard.
You need those goals to press ahead, even as you have the
standards investments in justice. I think the goals are very
helpful to set the bar.


David Roberts


Well, that's the standards piece, which is hard to get through a
reconciliation bill, right? That's the nature of the beast.


Rep. Kathy Castor


And remember, it morphed into making large incentive payments to
utilities to get there. But that didn't quite go. And at that
time, it looked like the climate policy was teetering. And thank
goodness we had a president who never gave up. And Senator
Manchin came around to his credit, and a lot of outside groups
kept pushing. I don't think that's very evident when you watch
what's happening in Washington DC. You think it's so insular, but
I think everyone can be grateful for the wide variety of
interests, from the environmental justice groups to the
innovators, to the scientists who just kept at it, kept pressing.


David Roberts


This is probably an unanswerable question, and I don't want to
get into trying to get you to psychologize Joe Manchin. Thank god
that those days are past us for now. But do you think that
pressure from outside groups reached him? It's very hard to tell
from the outside. He looks, from the outside, like he just
doesn't care about most of those outside groups. Do you think
that pressure had some role in bringing him around?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yes, I do. And I think he has children and grandchildren. I don't
think he wanted to get up and look in the mirror and be
responsible for a planet that is not as livable for our kids and
future generations.


David Roberts


Let's talk about a little bit of the Manchin changes. So he
stripped out the renewable portfolio standard or the, I can't
remember, the name of what it had become, but the sort of
reconciliation equivalent of the renewable portfolio standard.


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yeah, Clean Energy Payment Program or Performance.


David Roberts


RIP.


David Roberts


So that would have been nice. But, the other main thing, as far
as I can tell that he changed, was some changes to the EV tax
credit. And I'm just curious what you make of the changes to that
credit. Were you sort of supportive of those? Do you think they
went too far? Because I've heard some concern that the
requirements now for domestic content are kind of so tight that
no one's going to be able to meet them for a couple of years. So
curious if you have any thoughts on that.


Rep. Kathy Castor


It is going to be difficult. And when I say that we had a
patriotic plan of action that was because we really do want to
win the future. We want the United States of America to be
building those electric vehicles and have the leading technology.
But the minerals and the batteries are going — the domestic
content requirements are going to be difficult — and I think
everyone is pressing ahead. They're good tax credits and
significant dollars to build up those domestic manufacturing, the
plants, the workforce. So everyone is kind of pressing along in
that direction, now.


It's only been a few months but yes, we're hearing from our
allies. I know when President Macron was here recently that he
was bending the President's ear. And there may be some ways for
the administration as they go through implementation to listen
and do some and things on timing. But I think, mostly, Americans
are committed to wanting these to be a pathway to good paying
jobs for our people. The industrial base in America, we've got to
invest through CHIPS, through everything we've done with EVs, and
I think we still have more room on workforce to do, but okay, so
difficult, but we've got to try. It's important for
competitiveness.


David Roberts


So Manchin stripped out the Clean Payment Program. He tweaked the
EV tax credits a little bit, sort of tightening their domestic
requirements. But it was striking that, for all the sort of
suspense around Build Back Better, is it going to happen, is it
going to not? Manchin stripped out the care provisions and a lot
of the healthcare stuff. All this drama, through all that, the
basic clean energy and climate portion of that bill was mostly
left alone. What ended up passing in the Inflation Reduction Act
is pretty close to what your expert committee members wrote down
on paper. Did you expect Manchin to do more?


Because, you know, for all that, he's objecting and objecting and
saying no. And I just thought, "Well, surely he's going to strip
this down. Like he stripped everything else down." But he ended
up sort of not doing all that much to it. What do you make of
that?


Rep. Kathy Castor


I make of it that it really was an effort that knitted-together
interest and collaboration across the economy that was bigger
than the Congress. People knew if we didn't act now, we were
condemning our kids to a bleaker future and that now was the time
to lay the foundation to slash pollution across the board. It
ended up through tax credits. Tax credits will drive investment
in affordable clean energy, the electric vehicles, cost-saving
energy efficiency technologies, but also through making
environmental justice a cornerstone of climate action, a stronger
enforcement of environmental laws. Monies will flow into that,
increasing the investments to communities on the front lines.
Rural communities, tribal communities, energy.


A lot of the communities that grew up through coal mining and
frack gas, they're going to need to see themselves in the clean
energy future as well. Bonuses for those High Road Labor
standards, domestic manufacturing. Also the cross-cutting
approach to reducing methane pollution. I think there was broad
bipartisan realization that control of methane is vitally
important ASAP to give us a fighting chance to meet our climate
goals.


David Roberts


So do you think he left it alone because it was good policy? I
guess, I love that story, and I hope it's true. So you say
several times in this recent report there's a lot left to do. 44%
of your recommendations pass, which is remarkable, but that
leaves a bunch more that didn't pass. Do you have any hope at all
of decent energy legislation passing through this coming Congress
with Republicans in control of the House? Or is it more or less
up to Biden over the next two years to act via executive action?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Democrats are going to be quite focused on finding bipartisan
solutions moving forward, even with the chaotic Congress, the
House of Representatives, that is sure to come, because there are
some folks on that side that just are ... they live to shut down
the government for some reason, I don't know. They're just not
constructive. But, hopefully, they don't cause complete chaos. So
most of the action, yes, will be in implementation. We have got
to get money back into people's pockets through the more
energy-efficient appliances and through weatherizing their homes
and building the solar plants. My local mayor here in Tampa
looked at the tax credits that they will receive and said, "Well,
I'm going to put solar panels on top of this brand new big
community center, and that's going to save us a million dollars."


Multiply that all across the country. But it's going to be
important to get those monies out into people's pockets. And
thankfully, we've got allies that are going to be working with us
on that.


David Roberts


I'm just curious if there are particular things that you would
like to see Biden do via executive action over the next two
years? Any sort of top priorities left over from the report that
you would like him to sort of prioritize?


Rep. Kathy Castor


The Department of Energy now has more resources at its disposal
than ever before. That Green Climate Bank, I think is going to be
fascinating to see the innovations that come from across the
country. It's kind of like community development block grants
that go to local communities where they have the most flexibility
to determine what meets their own community needs. And I see that
Green Climate Bank as a way to speed up some of these climate
solutions.


But back to where there could be bipartisan work that I would
hope everyone again can continue pressing policymakers to move
on. We'll have a farm bill up, and ranchers, producers, farmers,
they are hungry for climate-smart ag policy.


David Roberts


Is that true? Because now, traditionally there's been some
hostility from the agricultural sector toward climate stuff. This
has not been traditionally, historically allies. Do you really
think opinion within that community has swung around to the
necessity of this stuff or is it still kind of a trench warfare
over there in that sector?


Rep. Kathy Castor


We have work to do. But I'll tell you, I met with a very
conservative group here in Florida. The citrus growers, the dairy
farmers, all of our nurseries, the specialty crops and they are
ready to be part of the solution. There is so much that they
learn through our ag extension offices and we have now made these
climate-smart ag hubs, where farmers now can do more for soil
health, for conservation. They should get some compensation if
they are going to be part of the solution and sequester carbon
and be smarter and more efficient. The whole entire food system,
I would highlight, is an area where we can do so much better as
well.


Then the defense bills now, the past two defense bills have been
the most climate forward. For example, we're going to pass this
omnibus appropriations bill and well over half of the trillion
dollars, I think upwards of 900 billion goes to the Department of
Defense. So they can be an important customer, a research
instigator, deployment across their military bases, but
developing those clean technologies in everything that they do.
So that will have to continue. And that's why I'm so happy that
the smart people at the Biden administration are there for two
years so that we can implement and get these technologies and
policies on track.


David Roberts


Well, if we're talking about executive branch action, you kind of
got to think about the Supreme Court. I wonder how worried you
are about the Supreme Court. How much of this do you think they
could screw up? How safe do you think this entire effort is from
the Supreme Court? What's kind of your level of worry there?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Well, the good news was the last term they didn't completely got
EPA's authority to regulate climate pollution. So that was an
important takeaway. And EPA needs to continue on in all of their
important enforcement activities and ways to cut climate
pollution from the regulatory side. You may remember, since
you've read our 2020 Climate Crisis Action Plan all the way to
the end, that we highlighted other policies that are important to
tackling the climate crisis involving strengthening democracy.
The January 6 Committee, now, has issued their final report. We
have got to strengthen the laws relating to big money in
elections transparency. There have been scandals across America
in various states where electric utilities now are playing in
elections. There's no reason that any ratepayer money, or some
fungible money, should be going into blocking the deployment of
lower cost clean energy. So strengthening our democratic
institutions we highlighted as important climate solutions as
well and they remain so.


David Roberts


It does not seem like the Supreme Court is on your side on that
particular issue. This is a little bit of a depressing question,
but it's all about implementation these next two years and the
nature of the House seems pretty binary whether you have the
majority or not. Is there anything you can do from the minority
in the House to really make sure this is implemented well? What
can you do from the minority in the House? Or is this just a time
to retrench and dry your powder for the next fight? or what can
you do from the minority?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yeah, David, the policies, the grants, and the opportunities that
flow out of the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation
Reduction Act, CHIPS, and everything else are so vast that an
average member of Congress could spend every waking minute on
making sure that your local community understands and is
maximizing what will flow out of that law. So before I went to
Congress, I served as a county commissioner and I'm busy already
talking to my local partners and nonprofits, my environmental
justice folks, but just plain city county governments and others
to make sure that they understand what is available. At the same
time, we've got to keep an eye on the entrepreneurs and the
scientific discoveries. And again, I'll highlight the vast new
resources at the Department of Energy.


In Congress, on the Energy and Commerce Committee, we know that
the Republican majority is going to shine a spotlight on the
Department of Energy. I anticipate Secretary Granholm will be a
frequent visitor for our committee, and there's nothing wrong
with oversight. But if you're going to throw a wrench into lower
cost clean energy solutions, simply to benefit the legacy oil,
gas, fossil fuel industry, that's just plain politics. And we
need to stay focused on the people, and people over politics, and
there will be plenty to do.


David Roberts


So big picture-wise, if you step back and you look at, say, the
coming ten years, what do you see as kind of the biggest —
between us and decarbonization, most of which is supposed to
happen in the next ten years — what do you sort of lose sleep
over? What do you see as the biggest challenge? Is it education?
Is it transmission? Is it going to be politics? What are the sort
of big, looming challenges you see that you worry most about as
we try to pull off something, which is huge and has never been
pulled off before?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yeah. Again, I come to you with a Sunshine State perspective
where we should be a leader in clean energy and where we lag
behind. So I see enormous opportunities to lower electric bills
and we're suffering through a property insurance crisis and flood
insurance is not widely people just don't take it. Maybe they
will now a little more these more intense hurricanes. But I see a
political system that is not responding as it should for the
people to have a plan to expedite the clean energy technologies,
the plain weatherization, to use every tool at our disposal to
help move to the clean energy economy through good paying jobs
with an element of justice.


Fortunately, we now have a plan like that on the national level.
But I worry it will be too disjointed and politics will come into
play and the people who need it most will be denied the
opportunity to have the lower cost clean energy, or the
appliances, or the readily available EVs over ... in ten years
that they should have.


David Roberts


Speaking of red state politics, I'm curious, looking back, how
much help would you say you got in all of this from the minority
members of the committee? How on board were they versus trying to
throw wrenches in the works? What's your sort of take on where
the Republicans on your committee are on all this stuff,
especially after three years of work?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Well, they don't outright deny climate change any longer, so they
bring arguments on cost that some things are unworkable. So I
guess one thing it does is it has us sharpen our pencils and make
sure that what we are proposing is workable. There are some
bipartisan solutions out there on natural solutions and
resiliency and adaptation. We've had good discussions on that and
crafted some legislation on that, but still on the clean energy
side, they're not totally there. But again, I am hopeful because
now businesses, small and large, innovators, universities, red
states and blue states, rural areas and not, will, over time,
understand and have access to the jobs, the careers, the
opportunities that I think will push them. The problem is we're
running out of time.


David Roberts


Yeah, I was going to ask about that. So, one aspect of all the
legislation they passed this last term, which I feel like doesn't
really get enough press, I'm not sure if the public at large
understands it very well. It's not just focused on reducing
emissions and climate stuff, it is a big, industrial policy
package. There's a ton of money to bring manufacturing and
factories and mines and processing facilities and battery
manufacturing and battery recycling, tons and tons of money to
onshore those industries.


And I swear since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, I've
probably seen like a half dozen, at least announcements of new
plans for big manufacturing facilities. I just saw one plan for
West Virginia yesterday, I forget what it is, if it's maybe
battery manufacturing or recycling, one of those. So, one of the
things that's going to happen — it's happening already — but it's
going to continue happening in the next few years is a flood of
jobs to red states. And I just wonder, is that going to change
their position on this? Is that going to change their orientation
on this stuff just at a grassroots level? Is incoming jobs going
to shake people out of the partisanship on this and if so, when?


I realize there's no way to answer that question, but it seems
like this ought to be sort of like an acid eating away at that
opposition, right? The more jobs you have, the less opposition.
Do you see that dynamic taking root yet or how long do you think
that would take for that to sort of put down roots?


Rep. Kathy Castor


Yeah, there is nothing like your home grown, hometown industry
and workers, your neighbors tell you these are good paying jobs.
We see a future for our children to stay in this community, live
here. There's nothing like that in moving a policymaker. And
that's why we understood it was important to focus on energy
communities. A rural, electric co-op here in Florida, they
highlighted to me how important that was going to be to change
over from old coal and gas into solar and other clean
technologies. Oftentimes, those plants are the largest property
taxpayer in those communities.


They are the largest employers. So, yes, over time that has to
happen. But as I stated, we're running out of time, and so we're
all in this together. But community engagement, that's why we
thought it was also important to focus on building capacity among
those energy intensive communities and the communities that have
a lot of the polluting plants. And you'll see as the Biden
administration rolls out grants and initiatives, they're going to
stay true. I trust to that push for environmental justice, and I
know a lot of people poopoo the term, but it simply is based on
fairness. And we've got to follow through with our promise to
make sure we're lifting up everyone, that everyone benefits from
this transition to clean energy. Otherwise it will take longer
and it will be harder.


David Roberts


Well, I've kept you a while, but to wrap up, I thought it was
quite notable that in the 2022 midterms, as contentious as they
were, you did not see Republicans organizing around opposition to
— I was going to say the Inflation Reduction Act, but really the
Infrastructure Act, CHIPS — all these sorts of big, marquee
legislative achievements, many of which crucially involved
climate stuff. And the Inflation Reduction Act basically was a
giant climate bill. They didn't run against those, which is a
striking contrast, again, to back in 2010, when opposition to the
Waxman-Markey bill, the quote unquote "carbon tax," was a
headline feature of almost every Republican campaign.


They didn't campaign against this climate bill. So what do we
make of that? Why did that happen? What what is what can we learn
from them?


Rep. Kathy Castor


You're right. They didn't shoot the Inflation Reduction Act with
a shotgun.


David Roberts


Yes, exactly. No one shot it.


Rep. Kathy Castor


No, because climate impacts are all too real. All across the
country, no one's immune. Whether you're suffering major water
shortages in the west, Colorado River drying up, or huge
wildfires, extreme heat, hurricanes that intensify faster,
everyone ... there's been an awakening to the impacts of climate.
And they cost so much. The folks aligned with fossil fuels,
they've gotten away for years with saying, "Oh, we can't do clean
energy because it's so expensive." Well, for one, clean energy is
cheaper energy. But the cost of climate, the years of inaction or
smaller steps were really costing us.


And I think people understand there are solutions out there. We
just have to unleash the scientific know-how that we have here
and convert a lot of those good ideas into actual solutions.
We've got a lot of smart people — and a lot of dedicated people —
who are ready to do this. And we're on the cusp of making it
happen. I think having these huge gas price spikes, and people
watch their neighbor with an EV doesn't even have to stop at the
gas station and drives right by it. It kind of made people think
twice. I know that F-150 electric truck as it rolls off, that's
the number-one selling vehicle in America.


And they to think that you'll be able to come from the Florida
perspective again. We have a hurricane, and they knock out your
electricity and you can plug in your air conditioner, your home
into that truck and power it for a while. So people now, they're
waking up to ... okay, climate is ... if we don't address it now,
we're condemning our kids to a bleaker future. And right now,
it's costing us a lot, and we've got to get a hold of our
wallets, too.


David Roberts


So you really think that climate denialism and the sort of
anti-clean energy has lost its political potency on the right?
Are you willing to lay down that marker?


Rep. Kathy Castor


I wouldn't say entirely, no. There are still members of Congress.
They don't lead with it anymore.


David Roberts


Right.


Rep. Kathy Castor


They don't lead with it, but it's there, unfortunately. But, I
think we're poised to deliver again. But that's what it depends
on, this implementation. And it's up to everyone. I hope everyone
who listens to your podcast understands they also have a
responsibility, and I trust they take that seriously, to be
guided by the science and rooted injustice and powered by
American workers to provide those solutions to our neighbors.


David Roberts


Well, I do think, facts on the ground, as they say, generally do
more to change people's minds than arguments and reports and
white papers and IPCC meetings. So we'll get to see that tested
in these next few years.


Thank you so much for coming on. I encourage everybody to read
this report you guys put out. It's a really interesting sort of
summary of what made it from your report into law and what
remains to be done for Congress. Again, it's always policy nerds.
Policy nerds will love this. It's very in-depth of what has and
hasn't been done. And just thank you, again, for your work over
these past three years.


I feel like it's not often, especially in the current American
system of government, that you really get a chance to be at the
center of something and help change things in a concrete way. And
I feel like your committee has done that in a way that a lot of
expert committees and meetings don't. So, congratulations on that
and thanks for all your work.


Rep. Kathy Castor


Well, thank you, David. And again, we had a fantastic team, some
committed members. We had the most effective Speaker of the House
in the history of America, and Nancy Pelosi. And the Climate
Committee was her vision, and she's always focused on making sure
we're keeping an eye on our kids and future generations. But
thanks to everyone. I bet a lot of your listeners weighed in with
the Climate Committee along the way and helped us craft these
solutions. And thanks to you for your attention to our work.


David Roberts


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