Government Energy Policy, Business and Technology

Making Clean Energy A Bipartisan Cause In A Partisan World

Renewable Energy World: At Clean Edge, we have emphasized for years that the growth of clean energy and energy efficiency should not be a partisan issue. Benefits like highly skilled jobs, economic development, American innovation and entrepreneurship, global competitiveness, and clean air and water win support across the political spectrum in the U.S., as do direct questions about whether the nation should expand its development of renewable power.

But political bipartisanship of any kind, which has taken a beating for the past two decades, is now in full retreat. In the less than three weeks since President Trump's inauguration, the administration's "alternative facts" and contentious, with-us-or-against-us attitude have exacerbated an already grievous partisan divide across the country. As Time magazine put it on its Person of the Year cover story in December: "Donald Trump, President of the Divided States of America”. (Trump said he thought the headline was “snarky”). In this current reality, what chance does clean energy have to avoid a knee-jerk Democratic, liberal, or "blue" label?

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