Policy can make or break climate action. Usually, national policy gets the most attention, but what local and regional governments do can make a bigger difference, especially in large countries like the US, India and China. This week, Akshat Rathi speaks with three US governors – Jay Inslee of Washington, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, and Eric Holcomb of Indiana – about how they navigate partisan politics and the need for climate action. As governors who control state budgets and priorities, their decisions now could supercharge national climate action, or hinder it.
More on the topic:
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Brian Eckhouse, Aaron Clark, Jen Dlouhy, Gilda Di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green
Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week, red state, blue state, green state. Policy can make or break climate solutions, and most of the time when you hear the word policy, it refers to rules set out by national governments, but what local and regional governments do can sometimes make a bigger difference, especially in large countries like the US, India, and China. Today, we're going to explore how climate policy is playing out across the US with the help of three governors from three very different states, Washington, New Mexico, and Indiana. The politics of each of these states shows the breadth of climate debate across the US. Two states, New Mexico and Washington, are led by Democrats and the other, Indiana, by a Republican. One is a major oil and gas producer, while another is the country's largest maker of steel. One has a governor who ran unsuccessfully for president, but whose ideas ended up becoming national climate policy. Anyway, the governor is the highest elected official in a state, and what they do now can supercharge national climate action or hinder it. Take the Inflation Reduction Act. You've heard us talk about it one hundred times already on zero. Although this is a federal bill, individual states will determine a lot of how that money gets spent. Estimates say that the law could move some three hundred and seventy billion dollars into climate tech over the coming decade, but it could be a lot more, hundreds of billions of dollars more, if state governments embrace the bill. This week, we find out how different governors work on climate policy while navigating fractious politics, how each walks a different line when it comes to climate action, and why Republicans can also love solar.
I'm Jay Insley, and I'm running for president because I'm the only candidate who will make defeating climate change our nation's number one priority.
For a decade. Jay Insley has been the governor of Washington. He ran to be his party's candidate for president for the twenty twenty election. With a focus on climate.
We have an opportunity to transform our economy. Run on one clean energy there will bring millions there.
Although in the end he was unsuccessful, his campaign outlined many policies that later became part of the Inflation Reduction Act. His state, Washington, is in the Northwest and votes deeply democratic. Its largest city is Seattle, and it has given birth to giants like Amazon and Starbucks. My sister lives there and I've had the pleasure to visit a few times, and because we love biodiversity on zero two, its state bird is the American goldfinch. But despite its glorious looking bird and all of Insley's climate cred Washington's omissions haven't fallen all that much, and in some areas during his governorship they have actually gone up, something I wanted to ask about when I met him at COP twenty seven last year. Welcome to the show, Governor, Thank you, thanks for having me. Let's start by talking about your impact on US policy. You're the governor for the state of Washington, but you ran for a presidential campaign which had climate as a major pillar. It didn't succeed, but there has been a lot that came from your campaign that has resulted in US climate policy. What of your highlights, meen.
Well, my campaign for the presidency did not succeed. I am not in the White House, but quite a number of my policies are and I am thrilled by this. But I think actually maybe the bigger impact I've had on federal policy came after the campaign because a group of my colleagues who worked on my campaign founded a group called Evergreen Action that has become one of the most successful advocates for really ambitious climate policies. I also think that the success we've had in Washington State with our policies that have demonstrated that if you follow the ambition of building a new clean energy economy, you'll have the most rapid economic growth in the country and you will dramatically reduce your carbon emissions. But we have to understand that this is only half of the efforts. We're really halfway there with this federal bill, and that means that states need to carry the ball across the goal line, and we're doing that in our state and we're going to talk about that.
Yes, we had Leah Stokes on the podcast earlier and she was part of Evergreen Action and then help write portions of the Inflation Reduction Act. You mentioned specific policies that you worked on are now federal policies. Do you want to give examples?
Well, the first off, the scale of the investment is huge, and that's number one. I think the scale itself is quite dramatics, like the Great Pyramid of Jobs you know, it's big, and so that's number one. I think it's well targeted. I think the tax credits are well targeted. I think they have really got the interest of the business community. In fact, even in Europe. We were in Europe and a clean energy tour last month and I was impressed with the number of business leaders who want to really get to the United States to take advantage of those tax credits. So I think they're going to be effective. I think that it has been very comprehensive, so which used multiple investment strategies in the discretionary part of the budget to actually help vast swaths of the economy move forward with direct grants the kind of thing that we've had. We have two companies, for instance, State of Washington that have developed a new silicon and own battery that can extend battery capacity by two twenty percent, which could have huge implications for electrifying our transportation fleet. They've each received one hundred million dollars as part of just one part of their portfolio that now will be manufacturing new types of batteries and Moses Lake, Washington, which is a semi rural part of our state of Washington. So that's the kind of thing that's going to happen in multiple industries, and I think that it's right on the beam. Now. The things it did not accomplish that our states are are a price on carbon with our capital invest program, a low carbon fuel standard, We've made major advances in our building efficiencies. Those things are not in the bill, but the states can do those things independently, which we are, and so it's a tremendous start. But I want to reiterate the states have to carry it across the goal line.
Currently, if you add up all the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, they take you to about forty percent reduction relative to two thousand and five, which is lower than fifty percent in production, which is a target that they have to hit by twenty thirty. Now you're saying you can help them meet that gap.
We certainly can, should and are, And I'm not the only state. We started think called the US Climate Alliance, which now has twenty three states that are all committed to meeting these goals in one fashion or another, and the scale of our efforts are significant. In fact, back of the envelope, think you know, as to the other day, the scale of our investments on a per capita basis really match the federal bill on what we're doing. So it is a significant improvement both as the direct investments that we're making and the regulatory action that we're taking that goes beyond what the federal government is doing.
Actually, the California bill, which is fifty four billion dollars, is more than the per capita spend on inflation election.
I'm trying to be humble. I actually think we probably are more too, but I'm always conservative on because we're such a humble state. We're not only the best, most beautiful, most economically productive state, but we're the most humble state in the United States.
Well, talking a few perhaps it's important that I bring up the fact that even though you've been governed since twenty thirteen, emissions haven't fallen all that much in Washington State. If anything, transport emissions, which is almost half of Washington emissions, have gone up, Industry and buildings have gone up. I know, there's the Climate Change Commitment Act that you passed in twenty twenty one, there's the cap and invest program that's going to be coming into play from January first, But emissions have not declined.
Yeah, so they have declined as a unit of GDP something like I think it's almost by forty percent. So as a unit of GDP, we have declined our emissions dramatically. But we've had a million people moving to the state of Washington, and so we're getting all the brilliant innovators coming into our biotech and aerospace and everything else. So we've got additional people. That's fundamentally one of our challenges, and the things that we have embraced are new. I had a republic and legislature for the first several years of my governorship, which would not surprise you to know, blocked almost all of our advances. So we've really been able to make policy changes only in the last three or four years during my term. Those are now kicking in. Given example, in February, we will have our first auction of our Capital invest Bill. That'll kick in our building commitments to require heat pumps so you no longer have to have fossil fuel in your home or business. We will be the first state to embrace that, and that kicks in next year in twenty twenty three. But that won't have an impact on our emissions for a couple of years, right, So we're early in the game. Action has taken place, and it has having a dramatic impact on reducing our per capita emissions now gross level of our emissions. When will they really start to go down soon? I hope now that these policies are being implemented now.
One of the things that clean energy, especially distributed nature of clean energy allows far is to change the political economy because many of the places which will benefit from the clean energy revolution are going to be rural areas. And tends to be that rural areas are republican across the US, but certainly true in Washington. Have you seen that happen already? Is the political economy changing to Republican voting people see this as a part of the solution that is benefiting them? And are they coming on the side of acting on climate because the divide in the US matters to the world.
To some degree, but not nearly as rapidly as I would like. I just gave a congratulatory call to a state senator who took a seat that used to be held by one of the number one climate deniers in my state legislature. Another center just west of me where I live on Bamberge Island, same situation took a seat away from climate denier. So we have defeated quite a number of climate deniers in my state. And I think that is a function of two things. One, people now being confronted on a daily basis with the catastrophes. We are breathing smoke again this summer from the forest fires, so that are literally kids can go out to play a few days during the year. We have the unhealthiest here and I love my state, but the truth is we had the most unhealthy air a couple days in an entire world that includes Mumbai, and we're just into it because our forests are so fragile because of aridity and temperature and some of the management we're doing management or forest to try to reduce that, but these are just huge risks. So people now are experiencing this first cand It's no longer an abstraction or a hypothetical argument, so that has changed people's perception. They are demanding action.
The first time nature of wildfire smoke is certainly a problem. My sister survived COVID and did not get it because of vaccines and taking care. But the smoke from the fires this time around got her and she was sick for a week.
Sorry to that.
And so this is increasing the wildfire risk, especially the numbers in the size of those fires is growing. There are emissions generated from having wildfires grown the size that they grow, and we're not talking small numbers here. The EPA in Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency, points out that there have been years when emissions have been fifteen seventeen million tons, which is almost fifteen to seventeen percent of Washington State's fossil fuel emissions. What can be done about tackling Well, well.
There are some things we can do in the short term, when is active management of our forest to try to remove some of the fuel load in these very dense forests that have become diseased in part because of their density. That has happened because we've done some fire suppression. These fires used to go through and thin the forests and low intensity fires. Now we have suppressed the fires for a century and that has resulted in higher density of fiber in our forests, which puts additional stresses on them of disease. And then on top of that we have climate change, which is the ultimate stressor so we can do and we are doing active management. We've increased our investment to do that, but it's very expensive. We have to hire people to go out and remove the slag and some of the underbrushing, and there are risk involved with prescribes burns as we know, so it is both inexpensive and some risk associated. But we are doing that. We've increased our commitment in the last five or six years fairly dramatically. But the scale of this is so enormous, with the hundreds of thousands of acres, that you can't solve this problem just with this management. We have to go to the heart of the problem, which is carbon emissions, and the whole world has to work on this, and the whole world has to help save my forest. And that's the nature of this challenge humanity faces is I can't solve it as one governor or one state or even one nation. This has to be a global effort.
Now, so far, you have attracted people coming to your state because their jobs being created for them. You said a million people have come. But as climate impacts get worse, you're a northern state, you're going to be cooler place to be living. Do you expect climate migration to happen. Do you expect refugees affected by climate impacts to arrive in Washington State?
To some degree, that's already happening. Actually, I think there'll be much more potentially difficult issues we have to deal with from Central America, because we have thousands, tens of thousands of climate refugees from Central America right now seeking refuge in the United States, and that's only going to increase fairly dramatically. You look at the Horn of Africa and the migrant demands right now from the Horn of Africa is just beginning. And I do believe the northern developing worlds, how we are going to act in a humanitarian way that's consistent with stability in our own communities, it's going to be one of the great challenges next several decades.
And what about internal migration from places like California.
I mean, that's already happening. I have people, you know, who are my neighbors who move to California who got tired of the smoke already, and they've been hit a little harder, and they've obviously got water issues and temperature issues a little more, you know, But as long as they'll abide by the rules and be good pickleball competitors, They're welcome to come.
Governor. Thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you.
If you want to hear more about how James Lee's campaign led to the Inflation Reduction Act. Go back and listen to our episode with Lea Stokes from last year. She was part of drafting the bill and also worked in Insley's camp. We put a link in the show notes after the break. Not all states have the luxury of strong support for climate action. The governors of New Mexico and Indiana explain how they walk the line. J Insley leads a state whose politics is dominated by the Democrats and whose economy is not reliant on fossil fuels. The same cannot be said of my next guest. She's also a Democratic governor, but operates in a very different context.
I'm mister Luhan Grisham, New Mexico's forty ninth in employment and fiftieth for schools. We got to bus through some walls to make changes.
Michelle Luhan Grisham is the governor of New Mexico, a state where oil and gas production is the largest industry. Taxes and fees from fossil fuel production accounted for forty two percent of the state spending last year. She's trying to clean things up with the oil and gas industry. Her administration has set strict rules to reduce methane emissions. For example, New Mexico neighbors the state of Texas and sits on the US Mexico border. It leans Democrat, but was a swing state as recently as two thousand and eight. It's state bird is the greater road runner, you know, the one may governor. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
It is interesting to have the second largest oil and gas producing state in the United States with a governor that's very aligned with climate agenda, is aligned with the Democratic agenda in terms of messaging and making the other side work with you. What are the ways in which you succeeded.
Well, interestingly enough, the policymakers who were elected that are from a different party. So Republicans in my state did not in large part support our Energy Transition Act and didn't in large part or at all support our methane and ozone rule. And it doesn't make any sense because the industries from which they have representation largely in their areas that they've been elected from. All want this, so it doesn't align itself at all, which means it's part of a national messaging against climate change and against doing anything that would be perceived as interfering with oil and gas. So on the one side, we cannot allow the fossil fuel industry to continue to pollute in the ways in which they are, because we will destroy the planet. We're well on our way to doing that. It was, in fact, the oil and gas industry that really pushed even some more conservative Democrats in our legislature to be all on board for our regulatory structure that now the federal government has undertaken so that every state will be doing aggressive methane emission standards and ozone standards as well.
President Joe Biden has been calling for more oil and gas production to be able to bring prices down. A lot of the oil and gas production in New Mexico is on federal land, but federal land permitting has been slow. What are you doing to deal with that bottleneck and help President Biden's agenda.
We've actually made the argument in our state with the industry that we have thousands of permits that have not been effectuated. And while that process has been slowed, and initially there was a moratorium, that's been in large part lifted. And we think the federal government took New Mexico's advices, which is you're better telling them to have the cleanest oil and gas made by setting and they did the methane standards is one example, but doing a whole lot more in cleaning up and incentivizing making them be accountable, but also for example, capping abandon well so that you get in all of the above approach. I think that naysayers have said it's been too slow to deal with economic security around the world and that we should not be addressing that with any foreign countries when the United States can produce more oil and gas. But under this administration, for the first time, the US is now producing as a country the largest amount of oil and gas. And there's been no president whether you agree that fossil fuels ought that ought to be occurring or not, He's the first President Biden to create that energy security for the United States. So I feel incredibly optimistic that these all the above approaches with serious accountability measures and with a parallel to faster innovation, faster investment, and faster generation of renewable energy tackles the climate crisis. It brings new economic sectors, job skills, and it means that you don't have to be reliant on fossil fuels, which is the only path forward for any of us. And he's accomplished all three.
But it does not square with what is a clear message from the International Energy Agency but also from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that no new fossil fuel project should be brought online. That is not what is happening. So how do you square.
Well, you have to have energy in order to actually to even produce cleaner energy, So it squares, and that you have to deal with both. In the notion that we can pardon this analogy, but you can flip a switch, we have proven you can't. We don't have the grid monetization to do that. There's no country that's got the regulatory structure, including ours, to do that. We have no way to export or store it in the ways that we need to. Now we are closing in on both innovations and strategies that get you there, But in the meantime, we have to keep people cool and warm, and we have to make sure that we have power. I mean, I just think about just the power generation in a number of our clean sectors, including our We've got folks like Facebook who are using data cooling strategies that are energy efficient but nonetheless require energy. And while we have their solar field online. Finally, if we weren't using other strategies, you'd have to say no to the entire industry during your transition.
And as the second largestil and gas producing state in the US, one of the quickest ways in which you can address emissions is cutting down methane emissions. You have methane rules in place, but what are you doing about flaring? What are you doing about so they're.
Not allowed to do You can't do flaring right unless it's for emergency. So that's already in our legislation. What we are going to do that enhances compliance because that's really the question, Now what are you doing?
What is the compliance of those holding them?
So the state is But in addition to that, while they do a lot of self reporting clear to US now and I think clear to the federal government. So another economic sector boom, you're going to need independent auditors. And while most of us, including New Mexico, currently are doing independent audits that are largely focused on reports that don't square with us or the lack of reporting. I think you want that plus randomized third party independent audits, and then they need to be publicized so that people know about them. So we'll have a dashboard.
You tell me legislate for that or does that come back?
We don't have to legislate for that. No, we already require that there's some sort of an audit, so we can already just do that.
Now I would set an example for your neighboring state, Texas that seriously under reports it's methane emissions.
I would argue that everyone is under reporting methane emissions. And now I'm going to be a little bit defensive of that environment in and of itself, which is, if you weren't asked to evaluate it, and it's invisible, and you were sending out people with a basic heat and infrared detector, and you're trying to cover thousands and thousands of square miles just in the western part of the country, you would never be able to evaluate it all. You would never get very far. So in this environment, flying using satellite imagery. Doing gis mapping, doing all the kinds of things and not being focused just on individual manpower, and using randomized audits to square that information with what's being reported, and publicizing that where people are paying attention, like on a dashboard or allowing people to sign up with a phone app so that they can measure and monitor, I think will achieve incredible outcomes.
Last question, We're going into a COP which is going to be run by an oil and gas giant, the United Arab Emirates. Your economy is not quite as dependent on oil and gas as the United Arab Emirates is. But what are the examples that you have set that others their major or the gas producing states.
Right, Well, I've just mentioned several of them. I think that by the time we are at the next COP, we'll be able to talk about not only capping abandoned wells and how quickly we can get that done, and how we can identify with those then reduction and emissions look like as a result of capping successfully. We can talk about our dashboards and sort of ask folks at the next COP to commit to doing the very same in every oil and gas producing nation in the world. And you have tangible information that you can show and strategies that you can identify in building coalitions and support for doing the right work. If you don't have those tangibles, it's hard to tell someone that your accolades are enough to get them to change their minds you about what they're doing.
You have not mentioned their favorite solution, carbon capture.
Yeah, well, you know, we are again all of the above, and I think that you'll see some states really robustly do carbon capture and try to demonstrate that that is an effective tool or not. I'm more interested in all those tools in a toolbox and then identify for which states, which industries, which areas are the most effective. We're still working really hard to make sure that our oil and gas companies meet their mission standards and divest and reinvest in renewable energy, and that structure and standard in our state still is paramount. And it reminds me a little bit of sort of clean coal that lots of folks identified that. In my view, this and I think the science is pretty clear doesn't really work, but I think it still it depends. It's going to depend.
Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. We've heard from two Democratic governors, both in very different situations, but both with the clear support of their party to take action on climate change. Now for someone different.
We are one Indiana, and we are one Indiana for all, and it just makes you proud to be a Hoosier.
Governor. Eric Holcombe of Indiana is a Republican walking a tightrope when it comes to the politics of climate change. He's careful not to speak openly in favor of climate action, but was a rare Republican to attend COP twenty seven in Egypt last year, drawing the ire of his own party by doing so. Indiana is a Midwestern farming state that is also a major coal producer and the US's largest producer of steel. Its state bird is the Northern Cardinal, which is as red as the state's politics. Very Indiana's story is indicative of how things are going in the US. Even though the Republican Party opposes the Inflation Reduction Act in principle, states led by Republicans are benefiting from the money it provides, and under Wolcombe, Indiana is transforming rapidly. Argist soular farm in the US is currently being built there. Roughly the same size as Manhattan and for a price tag of one point five billion dollars. So what's driving the change? Governor, Welcome to the show.
Great to be with you.
Six years ago you applauded Trump's decision for the US to pull out of the Paris Agreement, but you've since done a one eighty. Attending a COP meeting in Egypt last year. What changed?
I wouldn't call it a one eighty.
I would say I'm taking a very realistic, reasonable, rational approach, market driven, applauding and celebrating innovation that is getting us to a better place, and we'll continue to do that. And attending COP twenty seven, I was refreshed, quite frankly by all the innovation that is occurring, whether it be in the.
Construction space, utility space.
Manufacturing space, agricultural space, finance space, all these different pieces to the puzzle that are required if we're to have affordable, reliable, sustainable and clean energy sources. And the last thing I want to see happen in the state of Indiana and to the cause, quite frankly, is to be tethered to some benchmark that is not getting us further along the innovation that will be required, and you don't need to look very far around the world to see whether it's rolling blackouts or countries that have reverted back because of quite frankly nothing that they had to do with, could be Russia invading another sovereign country and the chaos that that's brought about in Europe specifically.
There is no walking away from the fact though, that the COP meeting is a climate conference, and climate change tends to be the topic of discussion. Of course, what we do to address it is the reason COP meetings happen. And so when you go and attend as a Republican leader, you are criticized by your own party, by people in the Republican base. How do you win over a base that is skeptical of climate change and then gather this kind of support you need for the action you'd like to see?
Well, I you know, first of all, usually the folks that are critical or unaware of my itinerary, or they just don't care what it is. Maybe they're just trying to score cheap political points. But be that as it may. I am in this business and I've got thick skin. And then I would remind folks who are supportive or critical that if they choose to deny the marketplace or ignore it, they won't be the ones.
That had the last say.
So the marketplace typically does. And for us to be included in the conversations regarding all the different sources of supply, hydrogen, nuclear, solar, win, you name it, that's a good thing for a state like Indiana that is known around the world as a manufacturing intensive state. We're in America. We're the number one per capita manufacturing state in the country. Five autooems in the state of Indiana, Stalantis, General Motors, Toyota, subar Ruhnda.
I'm proud of that fact.
And so we need to be prepared for what's next always, and for a state like Indiana, I don't want to be caught watching the paint dry, and I'm not going to be and so that requires me to not just show up, but to contribute to the We're not just willing, but we're ready to embrace change. And so yeah, I'm going to show up when especially invited to an arena that has so many thought leaders and action leaders, and so I was happy to be included.
The state of Indiana has been known for its coal mining, which began all the way back in the eighteen hundreds and is still one of the top coal producing states in the US. You also have cobon intensive industries like the steel industry, which does consume a lot of coal. Your power currently comes mostly from coal and gas, more than eighty percent of it. But in twenty seventeen, Indiana was twenty fifth state in expected solar deployment. Last year it was fourth. So clearly your pipeline of solar is growing and growing very rapidly. What's driving this boom?
Well, now, I don't think it's anything profound about it. I think it's a number a few factors. I guess I'd say one is, and forgive me, but this is going to sound very simplistic to you, But one is.
But we're just a good place to grow.
Our tax and our reasonable irrational regulatory regime is structured so that you can't be irresponsible, but you can grow. We can cultivate the sun here like we do a soybeans a field for soybeans or corn. You can do that with the sun or wind, by the way, but it's got to make dollars and cents, and that's why you're seeing a state like Indiana really punch way above its weight class. I mean, we're you mentioned those rankings where we are for and that's up against some states that are significantly larger, you know, in terms of scale and opportunity geographically speaking, on scale and so one, it's that we're a good place to grow. Two, I would say we're just blessed with I mean, we're still eighty three eighty four percent farm or forest terrain.
You know.
Again, we're a small state relatively speaking, but we have a lot of land which is required, and it's so exciting. You mentioned solar we have under construction now. Dorale Energy is building the largest solar farm in America right now, thirteen thousand acres. And where credits do our rural community is that terrain that I was talking about. Our rural communities are embracing technology and they're embracing the future, which is oftentimes a big hurdle to get over.
Indiana is also the largest steel producer in the US, and making steel requires lots of energy, which is mostly coming from coal that releases a lot of carbon dioxide. What are you doing to reduce the steel industry's emissions while adopting new technologies and keeping jobs.
Well, we are doing a number of things, but what is most important, what the theme that I would like to best convey is we are supporting those companies, as I said in the very beginning, produce a lot of the steel because there's a lot of demand for steel, and this steel is being shipped globally. So I always start with you're welcome, you're getting steel at a good price, and you're right. We're the number one steel manufacturing state in America. Twenty eight percent of the steel last year was made in one state, Indiana.
So there's that now.
Having said that, the companies in Indiana that are making steel are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to become cleaner and they measure that. And so what I wanted to do and will continue to do over the course of the next couple of years. By the way, I talked to some of these folks in charm Egypt, Charomut Ship and I want to support those plans as they transition.
And that comes in a lot of.
Different ways from the state, but it's working in harmony or in unison, not fighting their new way of doing business.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year is going to supercharge much of the clean energy investments that you're talking about. A lot of Republican states are going to get money from this federal part that was approved. Now that the Republicans are in charge of the House, what do you think they're going to do to supur investment in innovation and clean tech?
Well, I hope, I hope and all convey to Art delegation to continue to support not just a marketplace in a general sense, but to support the Indiana ecosystem, which is only going to grow as much as its power to do so. And I will show them the facts as I've been verbally sharing with you about how are different sources and where are companies whether it be Cleveland Cliffs or US Steel, or BP an Inland oil refinery, or a Lanco animal health company or you name it commins. These are big companies and small but big companies who are making again billions of dollars of investment that support the small businesses in our stake. Now, separate of that, I again have to be honest, and I'm a little bit skeptical or dubious when it was titled the Inflation Reduction Act because again, I.
Just want to look at the facts. I want to look at the correlation. What's the ROI.
Compared to inflation and the rate and how is it driving it down? Now, I'm going to continue to govern the way I have. So you know, our congressional delegation shouldn't they wouldn't be surprised by that. But they've all got I mentioned five auto ems and Commons and other you know, steel Dynamics in Fort Wayne and Pasco down in Jeffersonville. So there's something very close to home that is making major major investments into their future viability.
We need to support that.
Two thirds of Hoosiers support the effort to reach net zero emissions and are willing to pay to accomplish that goal. Would you set a net zero target for Indiana?
I set a goal to continue to work with the community that is growing our economic not just engine but opportunity here. And I'm dealing with issues right now this morning that have to do with the cost of living. We're a very relatively low cost of compared to other states in the country, cast of living place on planet Earth. And yet today, as you mentioned one, it's very easy to.
Say, hey, I'll pay for it.
But I got to tell you, I got a long line at my door that says I need my utility rates lowerd that's a pull too, by the way, And or I need my higher education reduced, or I need my tech property taxes reduced, and we.
Got low property taxes.
It's one thing to say you're for and I don't disagree with that. I'm sure in theory or rhetorically speaking, I'd like to pay less too, But you got to pay for what it costs. And there are major steps that we can take in terms of efficiency, and some of that comes through federal dollars as well for homeowners where they can apply for grant funding to become a more efficient household in terms of energy consumption and use.
So do you think not having a Nazero goal or no having a requirement to reach a certain percentage of renewables percentage of solar or wind in the state's legislature as a target will stop you from reaching your full potential on clean energy?
Very fair question and one that I would say if the facts showed me that, I would have concern.
But they're the opposite.
What we're seeing are the very cars or windmill blades or panels that are required to be manufactured. Not just keeping our lights on, but it's keeping the supply chain. And we need a lot more of it.
By the way.
That's the other side of this equation is everything we're doing, we need a lot more if we're going to continue to make gain and it's got to be produced, made somewhere.
I want to make it.
And so that's why I'm happy to share the facts. That you can write a law, sign up it in to law, and that may make you feel good, But what makes me feel good is looking at the numbers and looking at air quality and water quality and soil quality, and measuring everything and sharing it and if it's not good, just own.
Up to it and deal with it.
If you were to paint a picture, given you don't have a target set in law, what do you think Indiana's economy green economy would look like in ten years or twenty years time.
Will continue to make progress at the speed or pace that we are now at the minimum, and again I'll be working with our congressional delegation and make sure they are fully up to speed on all the steps that we're taking in terms of a hydrogen hub. Now there's more steps to go, for sure, but I want to make sure that our delegation knows that we're pursuing this and are hell bent on adding this a sore more so as a source to our portfolio.
And so the.
Interesting thing is that the economy and the jobs, the ecosystem of the future, the very jobs that we're going after, embrace this as well and are committed to it as well. If you ignore the future of mobility is just one example, or the role of more semiconductors in our automobiles, etc.
Et cetera, et cetera, then you're going to be left behind. And we are not going to be left behind.
Thank you for taking the time, Governor.
Great to be with you and looking forward to it.
Climate action doesn't fit neatly into one political box, and climate change, especially in the US, is still being politicized. That politicization is now being extended to other domains beyond climate, including ESG investing, which takes into consideration environmental, social, and governance factors. For more on that, listen to a recent episode of our sister podcast, Crash Course, where ESG reporter Sigel Kishen speaks about how conservatives in the us are tackling this thorny issue. That episode is linked in the show notes, along with other stories tied to the conversations we had today, and also a full transcript of this episode. Thanks for listening to Zero. If you enjoyed this week's episode, please share it with a friend or send it to someone who recently moves states. Get in touch at zero port at Bloomberg dot net. You can treat me at Akshatrati. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine driscoll. Our theme music is by Wonderly Special Thanks this week to Brian Eckhaus, Aaron Clark, Jender Luis and Kira Bindram. I'm Akshatrati back next week.