The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Why This Solar Company CEO Wants to Drill

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Drew Bond, co-founder and president of C3 Solutions, is a serial entrepreneur. Having founded several companies in the energy industry, he’s now leading an organization that helps conservatives counter the Left’s radical environmental ideas. “I would argue that many conservatives are, in fact, better environmentalists than many in the environmental community,” Bond tells The Daily Signal. He brings to the job experience as a solar company CEO who is passionate about expanding all types of American energy, including drilling and pipelines to meet the needs of U.S. consumers. Bond previously worked as chief of staff to former Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner. (The Daily Signal is the media outlet of The Heritage Foundation.) Listen to the full interview on “The Daily Signal Podcast” or read a lightly edited transcript at DailySignal.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I would argue that many conservatives are, in fact, better environmentalists than many in the environmental community. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, November 7th. I'm Rob Blewey. And that was Drew Bond, co-founder and president of C3 Solutions. On today's show, we discuss how to counter the left's radical climate agenda. He also explains why American energy production, including drilling, is the best path for lowering prices for consumers. And you'll probably be surprised to hear him explain why, conservatives are the true environmentalists. Stay tuned for our interview after this.

The Daily Signal is your source for election news and analysis. Join us on election night beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern for a live broadcast of the day's biggest stories. Our team of reporters and Heritage Foundation policy experts will be tracking the key races that will determine control of Congress. The live coverage begins Tuesday, November 8th, at 8 p.m. Eastern. Visit DailySignal.com for everything you need to to know. We are joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Drew Bond. He's the co-founder and president of C3 Solutions, an organization that works on energy and climate issues. Drew, welcome to the show. Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here. Well, as a Heritage Foundation alum,

we are delighted to have you as a guest on the Daily Signal podcast today. And I think it's helpful to always begin by hearing a little bit more about your story. Tell us about the origin of C3 solutions and how two conservatives, yourself and John Hart, ended up starting the organization. Yeah, thanks for the question. And, you know, it's an interesting story. You know, I guess everybody's life is an interesting journey. But as you know, I had the pleasure of being chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation

under Ed Fullner for, I guess, four years. And then CEO of townhall.com. And so Townhall actually was my first startup. The fast forward to today, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've got, I guess, five startups under my belt. and several of them in the energy space and a couple of technology related. And generally just find myself sort of in the space

of looking to solve problems. And I think that's where I had spent that time at Heritage and first cut my teeth on Capitol Hill years ago with Don Nichols, Senator from Oklahoma. And that's where I've met John Hart, who's the co-founder with me at C3 Solutions. And John was a longtime communications director for Tom Coburn.

just one of the best people and conservatives that you'll ever find who's sadly passed on. So John was his comps director throughout his entire career, House and Senate. And so we got to know each other through that and then stayed in touch over the years. And more recently, I guess right before we started, C3 Solutions in May of 2020, the prior summer, we started to reconnect. over sort of a funny little thing that, you know, you find that conservatives actually have these things in our lives that we don't consider to be environmental causes, but we do care a lot about. And that is, you know, John had bought a 62-acre farm in Maryland. And he was pretty

excited about stewarding his land and learning how to really care for it. And one of my startups is actually a solar company. And so I have a company called Powerfield Energy. We don't make any of the solar panels or electrical equipment. We just make a very simple installation system for making solar faster and easier to install when we make it in the United States. And I never thought I'd be in the solar business, but, you know, again, it goes back to problem solving. I found an idea that was worth commercializing, and here I am. And so we were both on his farm, talking about putting solar on his farm, and we got sort of a good laugh out of the fact that, you know, there's a lot of conservatives that actually care a lot about the environment.

We just don't speak the language of the environmental left. And I would argue that many conservatives are, in fact, better environmentalists than many in the environmental community. You know, farmers, I would say, are the first environmentalists. And so we just, you know, realized that there's a gap in the market, the marketplace of ideas in particular where we felt like conservatives really needed to get on offense on this issue. And not just the environment, but specifically climate, which has really become nomenclature for all things, energy, environment, and climate change.

So, you know, we did a little bit of our own market discovery process, as any good entrepreneurs should do, and found that there was compelling need in the marketplace for this. And so we launched in 2020. And here we are, I guess, almost two and a half, three years later. That's fantastic. fantastic. Thanks for sharing that story. I want to pick up on one of the things you said there.

So often it does seem that conservatives are playing defense on energy and climate issues. So how do we go on offense? And what are the advice and the tips that you have, not only for maybe people who are listening to this, but the policymakers in Washington who are setting the agenda? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the ways to go on offense is even the origin of our story. I mean, you know, C3 Solutions starts for the, it stands for the, it stands for the conservative coalition for climate solutions. So we very intentionally put conservative and climate in our name, but also intentionally put solutions in our name because so much of the

dialogue globally has been focused on, you know, climate change is going to result in ending the world and sky's falling and we all need to look to government to solve all of our problems. And we just know that's fundamentally wrong. And so I think that's, it really starts with conservatives being willing to engage on the issue to say, look, climate's changed, it's changing, it's real, it is human induced in some respects. You know, there's natural elements of climate change and there's unnatural elements of climate change. And so the, you know, the unnatural ones, the man-made ones, let's see what we can do to make sure that we reduce our impact on the environment and on the climates globally and leave this place better than we found

it, and that's fundamentally a conservative principle. So, you know, I think conservatives have really started over the last couple of years to be unafraid to talk about climate. You know, for the longest time, it was only a fight about the science and the projections. And, you know, you can argue about that all day long. But the reality is that no matter what you believe about climate, and I use the word belief hesitantly, because it has become somewhat of a religion, But no matter what you think about climate, whether you think it's happening or not happening, somewhere in between, you know, the solutions are always free market driven.

And so, you know, we feel like this is like bright territory for conservatives and free market thinking people to go into it with real solutions. Because if we don't, we're going to lose the issue and we're going to lose future generations that care about this issue. Well, thank you for explaining that. One of the things that I found particularly helpful in the work that you do are the values that guide C3 solutions. And you have seven of them without going through every one of them in detail. Tell us about why those are important and how they guide your work. Yeah, I mean, I think principles are critically important for, you know, keeping on the right path. And, you know, I think one of our first principles is that, you know, people are first.

And so why we care about the planet and we want to leave it better than we found it, you know, you can't save the planet at the expense of people. And so, you know, the true environmentalism really ought to be what is best for people around the planet. And so then you've got to look at, you know, what do we know historically has worked and what has not worked. And we know that the free enterprise system works. We know that economic freedom leads to a cleaner environment. And we, you know, we even took the longstanding report that Heritage's, heredges have published for, what, almost 30 years, I think 27, 28 years now. You know, Heritage does the Index of Economic Freedom, which ranks countries around the world in terms of how free they are, in terms of business freedom and individual freedom, you know, how big is the government and how intrusive is it and so forth.

and you see that track record of these governments. And it turns out when you overlay that data, the index of economic freedom with other environmental data. And so we used Yale. Yale University has an environmental performance index. What you see is that economic freedom leads to a cleaner environment. And it's not just by little, it's by a lot. It's twice as much. So countries that are economically free are twice as clean as countries that are

are economically unfree. And this prigs out even just anecdotally. If you look at Venezuela, you look at China, you look at Russia, I mean, pick your country, pick your flavor of communism, socialism, dictatorships, you know, Venezuela, none of those countries are good for the environment. And when you look at countries that really care about economic freedom and reducing the overall burden of government in people's lives, you see that people, care about the environment. People make individual choices to leave things better than they found

them. So, you know, there's there's a lot of principles in there, but I think fundamentally the most single important principle is, you know, people have to be first. And certainly the planet is part of that calculus. And the way that you actually, you know, square that circle is through economic freedom. That's a great point, Drew. And I appreciate you putting that one first. As you know, as well as I do, that many people, not just here in the United States, but across the world, are suffering in some respects, given the high cost of energy, we see it when we fill up our tank of gas, or we see it in the cost of other products that rely on energy for their creation. It's on the minds of many Americans as Election Day approaches.

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you do to address some of these challenges? Well, let's start by increasing American energy production, and that's like, period, you know, increase American energy production, period. You know, America actually is the largest energy producer in the world. We do it cleaner than anybody else in the world. And so this idea that, you know, we can't, you know, under this current administration, you know, pipelines are not acceptable. And so, you know, instead of having a natural gas pipeline,

pipeline, we're going to have simply a pipeline of 18-wheeler trucks, you know, trucking fuel down the road. And so if you really care about the environment, like which one of those is better for the environment? A pipeline or a pipeline, you know, long line of trucks. You know, things like that, there's environmental laws and permitting restrictions in the United States that are actually keeping clean energy projects from being deployed, being built. And not just clean energy.

I mean, pick your energy, whether it's natural gas or nuclear. solar, wind, hydro, you name it. You know, there's this environmental law that's been on the books for almost 50 years. You know, the NEPA, as it's called, the National Environmental Policy Act. And, you know, that was intended to protect the environment. And now, if you really care about the environment in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, then you need to deploy more energy faster, and it ought to be cleaner, energy, which by and large is American energy.

And so we really need to unleash the private sector to be able to build more faster and here in the United States and be able to export that around the world for when we have excess, and particularly with our allies. And so, you know, I think, yeah, if I had a magic wine, I would, you know, open up all opportunities to, you know, drill and build pipelines and deploy, you know, all types of energy here in the United States as fast as possible. Are there things that the next Congress would be able to do to potentially challenge the Biden administration on the points that you've just made?

Or is it really going to depend on having somebody else in the White House in order to enact the agenda you outlined? It's a good question. I mean, it feels like this, you know, these environmental regulations, for instance, have been a bit of a ping pong ball. Under the Trump administration, they actually made great strides to, you know, put in place streamlining

of permitting for projects and a lot of, you know, a lot of things at the bureaucratic level they simplified processes and forced projects to be, you know, identified in terms of, you know, one page even, and that might sound

like a small thing, but, you know, to be able to actually go from having to submit an application that's hundreds of pages to, you know, a single page saves companies' time and money and allow us to produce projects faster. So that, you know, under the Trump administration, they actually did a lot of good things. The Biden administration came in and completely wiped out away. More recently, they've, you know, made some strides to try and, you know, tip their hat a little

bit to some of these, you know, NEPA reforms and even under the, you know, negotiations, under the so-called inflation reduction act, you know, there was that quid pro quo basically where Senator Mansion was given the promise that, you know, after he agreed to spend all this money, that he would get his environmental reform, you know, permitting process, you know, voted on and hopefully done. Well, you know, what happened, of course, is, you know, we spent all this money, but we don't have any permitting reform. And in a large part, the reason we don't is because the environmental community and the environmental left in Congress has opposed it. And so while they say that climate change is the most important

issue in the world, and they say that, you know, in some cases, extreme cases, they say that, you know, the world's going to end in 10 years if we don't do something about it, well, they can't seem to get out of their own way in order to, you know, actually deploy these technologies. So, I mean, even if you wanted to deploy more solar and wind faster and only solar and wind, good luck, because you know, you've got to, you're going to head straight into those environmental regulations and then, oh, by the way, as much as solar and wind are great in some places, they're not great in all places and they're not great all the time. We need backup power. And so, you know, I think back to your question, you know, it remains to be seen. If we end up with a divided Congress,

you know, where we've got Republicans leading the House and hopefully the Senate, and we've got Biden in the White House, I'm not sure that this administration, his people in his White House in particular and the policy shops could ever agree to get anything done. It seems like they'd rather use climate as a political football. So it may take, you know, a whole new administration. Well, we will certainly be watching and certainly keep a close eye on what happens in terms of the next next few months, it'll be an interesting time. And certainly one of the things that we are advocating at the Heritage Foundation is a robust agenda. We can't just be opposed to something we have to be for something. And as you said earlier, having those solutions is certainly part of the equation.

Drew, I want to ask you about what we can learn from the current energy crisis in Europe. Is it a warning of what could happen here in America? Yeah, great question. And short answer is yes. It's absolutely a warning of what could happen in America and anywhere in the world. I mean, I think, you know, I would say that, you know, look, climate change is real. And let's consider the fact that bad climate policy is actually potentially more dangerous than bad climate change. I'll say it again. Bad climate policy is potentially more dangerous than bad climate change.

And that's what we're seeing play out in Germany right now is, you know, you've got, you know, government-led initiative where they said we're going to go all in on solar we're going to get rid of nuclear we're going to get rid of coal we're going to because they went all in on solar and when they had to get natural gas from somewhere as a backup baseload power and they got that from Russia you know which actually you know their gases is not close to being as clean as the United States gas so So sort of in the name of the environment, you know, they went all in on solar and wind and Russia natural gas.

And now that Russia and particularly, you know, Putin has invaded Ukraine, you know, you're seeing that, you know, Germany is now in a very unstable, insecure energy position. And that's having ripple effects across all of Europe. And so you've got, you know, governments calling for energy rationing. And, you know, sadly, it's... government policy that put them in this place and now government policies coming in to try and fix it. And I think, you know, what we have to recognize is that, you know, there's always unintended consequences to policy. And so, you know, it doesn't make sense to go all in on any one

particular piece of technology type of energy. And again, this is not a religion. It should not be a religion. Energy is a technology. And you've got tradeoffs and you've got cost. And you've got costs and benefits. And so, look, solar and wind are good in some places and not good in other. And nuclear energy, you know, great in a lot of places, but maybe you don't want to put it in other places. In fact, you know, in spite of the fact that it's the safest form of energy out there and also the cleanest from a greenhouse gas emission perspective, you know, natural gas, even coal for that metal. I mean, coal has been demonized and workers in the coal industry have been demonized. And look, with innovation, who knows? I mean, coal could actually be the technology one

day that in fact helps save the climate. No one knew what innovation was going to result in when you think about our natural gas industry in the United States, right? We thought we were running into further and further depleting resources. We were importing energy, not exporting it. And through innovation, because of innovation, we're now exporting energy around the world. I think we exported something like this year, we'll export like 16% more energy this year than last year to the rest of the world. So, you know, innovation really is the key energy diversity, energy abundance, reliability, like all of those things, we need to check the boxes on it. And I just continue to go back to, you know, when I first got into energy space, the reason I did was we were, We as the United States were beholden to the Middle East for our energy resources.

And I just thought that's crazy. I mean, any smart person, and you don't have to be even that smart, if you want to put your money into a bank account or a 401K, I think most people want to see that money diversified. And so when we think about our energy resources and what energy supplies for us in terms of our food and water and all kinds of resources, I want diverse. reliable, abundant, affordable energy resources, period. Well, Drew, one of the things that I'm concerned about that could certainly get in the way of that is this effort on the part of the left, which is pushing ESG. It's an environmental social governance framework. What should Americans know about ESG and how it's driving changes in our society right now?

Yeah, I mean, this has become a really hot topic, you know, because it's all in the context of, you know, the sort of woke movement. And so, you know, ESG, as you said, it stands for environmental, social, and governance. You know, I try to be an optimist about this stuff. And so, you know, I think when I look at where it started, I think, you know, there are some good intentions behind it. People want their companies to be, you know, more, you know, a better steward of their, you know, a better steward of their environment, a better steward of their resources, a better steward of their, in their communities. I think everybody wants that. But when you start mandating that companies have to act a certain way and embrace certain environmental and social causes, then that's when you start to run into real

problems. And I think that's why we're seeing a backlash in that movement right now. because, you know, they've, if anything, probably emphasized the environmental and the social perspective of it and less so the governance. And I would argue that any company that is governed well is going to care about the environmental and the social implications of how and where it does business. And so I just think, look, if you really care about being a profitable company in a capitalist free market society, then you're going to care about how you do business and who you do business with. And so, you know, you're going to be a good steward and a good citizen in the community. And I think the other thing that's been lost in all of this ESG movement is, I mean, so much of it is about, you know, what's your climate goal and everybody's trying to one up themselves or the next, you know, company over, you know, are you going to meet zero carbon by 2050 or 2045 or, you know, heck, let's just do it in 2030.

why not? Well, that all sort of defies reality is we've got to, if you want to really address climate, we want to move as accelerated as possible, but in a manner that is also reliable and affordable and responsible. And we also have to keep in mind that, you know, just because you deploy solar and wind here in the United States, you've got to make those technologies somewhere, right? And in many cases, they're actually made from fossil fuels. So that's not a bad thing, but the environmental community seems to ignore that fact. And then, you know, where are you getting your minerals? And where are you mining those minerals from?

And what labor standards are you utilizing to mine those? Are you using slave labor? Are you using child labor? Or are you living up to, you know, the higher standards that we have here in America? So, you know, all of this ESG movement seems to sort of not take a, an actual full picture approach and perspective of this, and they just want to sort of mandate their own values on these companies and forcing them into, you know, making decisions that aren't always good for people

and aren't always as good as the planet for the planet as advertised. Drew, as we wrap up here, I've got a couple final questions. First, what are some of the biggest myths that you encounter about the environment or climate in your line of work? Oh man, there's so many. I'm not sure there are. I think the biggest one these days is that, you know, look, that the climate is changing so rapidly that if we don't fix it in the next 10 years, then we're all doomed. I mean, that's kind of what is being sold to the world, many students. I mean, you start to see this with kids around the country that, you know, they've got this, you know, what's becoming a medically diagnosed.

condition of, you know, climate anxiety. And it all sort of stems from this, like, overhype of how bad the problem is, which ignores the fact that, all right, if the climate is changing and we need to do something about it and we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible, well, how faster can we do it again, reliably and affordably and, you know, with good resilience? and let's do it in a way that is responsible. And let's talk about that in a responsible way. And so I think that is the biggest myth is that we can somehow just like go all in, wind and solar.

And that's going to save the planet. When, you know, again, I'm nothing against wind and solar. And like I said, I have a solar company. So, you know, but to go all in 100% wind and solar would be insanity. It would not be reliable. it would not be affordable, and it just wouldn't make sense. And so, you know, I think the environmental community is like overselling the, you know, alarmism of climate and overselling the benefits of renewables when, in fact, we just need like

a rational, practical, diversified approach. Well, that's great advice. I appreciate that. And a final question for you here, you know, as a father, of three kids and somebody who knows whether it be through schooling or just media broadly, they are in many ways indoctrinated from a very early age with a certain perspective on the issues we've been talking about. So how can we as conservatives reach that younger generation of Americans with the message that we've been talking about today? Yeah, it's a great question to me.

You've got three kids. I've got six kids. It's an important issue. Like I said, I think kids really care about climate. You know, when you poll them, climate change is like one of the top three issues that they care about. And so I think it's important to point them to, you know, reliable resources that sort of take a full picture approach here. I mean, Heritage is one of those, certainly. You know, C3 is a part of our efforts to educate people, kids included on this. We have a news magazine just called C3. And so if you go to C3 newsmag.com, There we try to promote the innovation that's happening around the world and the fact that there's a lot of good things. There's a lot of innovation that's private sector led.

There's a lot of free market competition and always trying to kind of point towards solutions and underscore the fact that it's the private sector. It's free markets and it's not the government that's going to solve these challenges. And so, you know, I think try to point them to good, reliable resources and hopefully, you know, Our news magazine is one of those. Drew Bond, co-founder and president of C3 Solutions, thanks for spending time with us today on the Daily Signal podcast. We appreciate the work you're doing, and we'll make sure to provide a link to your website and other resources that you provide for our audience. Just visit the transcript at DailySignal.com. Thanks, Rob.

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