Issues

Dave has been involved in energy issues as a Congressional Legislative Assistant, at GAO, and teaching graduate environmental policy and climate change policy for 20 years. He teaches a graduate climate policy course he designed at the #1 public affairs and #1 environmental policy university in the US (of 267).

Trump is ceding nearly all the renewables markets to Chinese companies for decades into the future. On a whim, he's chasing expensive, heavy, and sour oil in Venezuela that the oil majors don't need or want, and that's hard to extract, refine, and market. Exactly the opposite of what's good for the US, Americans, exports, and domestic energy security.

Chicago can and should be the world's center for clean energy jobs, research, manufacturing, and technology exports, to US and foreign markets. We can. We should. We have as many as 2 million jobs in Chicagoland, but we need more and we need to start building now. Chicago is a logical place for a climate and renewable energy jobs cluster to grow. It will grow 25% a year here or, if we give up, somewhere else. We have all the building blocks even if Congress won't help right now. I will help build it within Congress and here. Chicago already has many vibrant industrial and service clusters. Manufacturing, transportation & logistics, biomedical & life sciences, financial services, food processing, construction materials, insurance, legal and accounting services, IT and software development, marketing, advertising, management consulting, corporate headquarters, and many education and research universities and institutions. All of these could participate and benefit 7th district workers and each sector if we went all-in as a center for clean energy. We could streamline local and national regulations to install rooftop solar in weeks, like Australia. We could permit and build ground-source geothermal here, an always-on source of heating and cooling for 30 years that can reduce heating and cooling costs by 70%.

This Congress and federal government's legacy will be seen as some of the worst set of policy decisions ever made. A time when the US ignored the health and welfare of both Americans and others around the world. When we deliberately slowed the world's progress on climate change. And set the world economy back sharply, increased pressure on the most vulnerable populations and countries, and made the loss of dozens of important low-lying cities around the world inevitable. While destroying our own health, economic, and trade interests.

Congress can change course by stressing the evidence that renewables are not only the future, but the present. They're cheaper, faster to build, aren't subject to fluctuations in fuel prices, and improve local health from respiratory and heart and other diseases. Renewables lower PM2.5, NOx ,VOCs, Ozone, and SO2. They reduce rates of asthma, COPD, CVD, heart attacks, stroke, low birth weights, and premature death. These are facts. It's a hoax to say they're not true. Trump is also pushing Canada to accept Chinese EVs rather than US EVs. It makes no sense.

Good environmental policy with clear, output-based standards can spur innovation, empower small businesses, create new markets, incentivize efficiencies that make companies and industries more efficient and competitive than companies with no such environmental policies.

There's plenty of good climate and energy news, and plenty Congress can do in the 120th Congress (2027-2029). States, cities, and counties are not waiting for Trump to leave. They're building their own renewable energy systems, laws, and regulations. We should too. Chicago's workforce is perfectly positioned to produce all kinds of clean energy products and services that other cities would struggle to match. Chicago's clean energy cluster could compete with any city in the world. And Chicago's companies, many of which already seek shared value, can help get us there, providing hundreds of thousands of good new jobs, increasing productivity, preparing for the future, and improving the lives of everyone in the 7th district.

Even if you were to believe Trump's hoax talk, and even if you don't care about climate change, renewables make sense. They're already 90% of new energy starts. It's delusional to think that natural gas, coal, or nuclear power, even their costs somehow miraculously drop sharply, will produce less expensive electricity. The LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) is lower for solar and wind than natural gas in most places, and has dropped 70% (onshore wind) to 90% (solar) over the last decade. Gas plants are the fastest fossil fuel sources of energy, and they take three times longer to build than solar.

The Trump war on renewable energy despite rapidly growing energy demand is the dumbest energy policy in US history. It makes absolutely no sense and gives up any US economic leadership in renewables, EVs, heat pumps, or any of the myriad technologies and services involved in renewable energy and low-cost grids, new transmission systems, and a great workforce in each area. There's no competition between environmental and business interests. It's not one or the other. That's a false debate.

His oil-fueled invasion of Venezuela is also not thought out. Even if Trump is successful at stealing Venezuela oil fields in the short term, American oil companies are not keen on making decades-long investments and risking tens of billions of dollars in a politically fraught area likely to be litigated internationally forever. Further, maximizing Venezuela's huge reserves will likely push the price of oil down, risking profitability. Meanwhile, there's no plan on "running" the country or transitioning to democracy. The Iraq invasion was poorly planned, but this time they can't even put together talking points for a single rationale for the invasion. The House was right to vote to stop the intervention using the War Powers Act. The Senate seems to need more chaos before agreeing. Maybe Trump's bizarre Greenland fixation will be enough for the Senate to act.