SmartPower to Schwarzenegger: You’re dead wrong.

By Brian F. Keane
President, SmartPower 

In a Washington Post op-ed today, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger argues we should vet all our clean energy investments to get a good return for the American people.

I’m with him there.

But, contrary to how you might think I come down on this issue, Schwarzenegger’s wrong about investing more federal dollars into clean energy subsidies alone. Indeed, as SmartPower’s decade of success marketing clean energy to Americans shows, we should be investing in a national outreach campaign to educate consumers about the benefits of clean energy to our pocketbooks, our communities, and our economy.

Investing in these types of campaigns has exploded demand - and adoption - of solar technologies in Arizona, even outside of available incentives from local utility providers. And it has drastically increased clean energy purchasing in Connecticut, where more than 100 cities and towns have been designated “Clean Energy Communities” for their dedication to renewable power sources.

There is no reason why the entire U.S.A. can’t earn this designation for itself, either. But it won’t happen if we focus on politics, and on policies that are just as reversible as the Carter administration’s White House solar panel installation back in the seventies. All it took for those to come down was Reagan’s entrance - and the clean energy movement was set back for the next 30 years.

Clean energy isn’t a political issue. It’s a consumer issue. So Arnold, let’s focus on what really matters: a balanced, well-informed federal approach.