Last Wednesday, Speaker Pelosi held a roundtable discussion on climate change in San Francisco, followed by a press conference.
She said — no news here — that she’s determined to introduce an energy and climate package on July 4th, (energy) Independence Day. In preparation, she’s instructed relevant committee chairs to move their bits of legislation through their committees by early June.
She got a lot of advice — some of it, given that this is the environmental community, conflicting.
Dan Jacobson of Environment California urged her not to pass just any bill, but to take the time necessary to get it right. David Hochschild of PVNow urged her to be bold, seize this moment, and not delay.
K.R. Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, spoke of the need to level the playing field, but emphasized that government should not pick winners. Dick Swanson, founder of Sunpower, and JP Ross of VoteSolar didn’t mind picking winners at all, and urged her to pass HR550, which provides tax incentives for solar.
You can’t see it in this video clip, but our strategy for repeating it ad nauseum must have worked, because when it came to the press conference, that was the only bill she mentioned by name. Pay particular attention to the tall gentleman on the left. Doesn’t he do an excellent job?
Also, she’s quite pissed about the lapses of ethics at Interior and Justice. But aren’t we all.
My takeaway: her strength is her sense of flow. She’s the Tai Chi master for the country.
