In The Arena I’m a Republican. I Want My Party to Tackle Climate Change. And I'm spending $175 million of my own money to get them to act.

Jay Faison is founder and managing partner of ClearPath Foundation, a 501(c)(3) group, and president of AmericaLeads.org, a 501(c)(4), and executive chairman of SnapAV.

I’m a Republican, and I want to champion Republican answers to a challenge we aren’t yet known for embracing.

But first, as a happy — if worried — conservative and a lifelong entrepreneur, I’m ready for the Obama administration to pack its bags. I believe in school choice, tort reform, balanced budgets and small government. I believe we need a health care policy that doesn’t cost businesses like mine millions of dollars. I support a free enterprise system unshackled from bad regulation and big labor unions — which were the right thing for American workers in 1890.


For all those reasons and more, I’m a committed GOP donor, having contributed to campaigns and super PACs supporting Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush and Rob Portman, to name a few. But I also believe that my party needs a fresh approach on one of the most important issues of our age.

Energy policy should be a powerful tool in the coming Republican resurgence, but for too long we’ve ceded the issue to the Democrats. It’s time to develop a conservative national energy agenda that grows the economy, reduces our dependence on foreign oil, protects jobs over lizards and reduces greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our planet.

In my conversations with fellow Republican donors and friends, it’s this last point — reducing emissions — that often produces puzzled looks and awkward silences. Our party’s dialogue about the issue has generated a lot of heat but not much light. I think this is largely due to a few things. First, the left has put forward Big Government, command-and-control climate solutions that scare any true conservative. Second, many liberals have been in denial about the progress the U.S. has already made: Thanks to energy efficiency gains and the shale gas revolution, our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are lower than they were in 1995. This should be something we celebrate.

However, the latest government data show that our national carbon emissions are once again on the rise. And I, along with many Republicans — at least 61 percent in a recent survey — believe that without a significant reduction in those emissions, global warming will soon be a very serious problem for our planet. This view is especially high among millennials and Hispanic-Americans, groups where our Republican presidential candidate will need to make inroads to win in 2016. Even major oil companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell, which would likely take a financial hit if consumers cut their carbon emissions, are on board with the scientific concurrence on emissions and warming.

I want to capitalize on this momentum, so I’ve committed $175 million of my personal funds through a new charitable foundation and a separate political action fund. The foundation will engage in targeted advocacy at both the state and national levels, make the public case through cutting-edge media platforms and give grants for innovative, conservative policy work. The political action fund will champion Republican candidates and legislation that support market-based solutions for clean energy and climate issues.

If you’d told me 15 years ago that this would be my cause, I would have laughed. I grew up the son of a real estate developer who loved the outdoors but disliked “crazy environmentalists,” and I followed suit. But over time — after poring over the research and talking to scores of scientists like the climate experts at MIT and NASA, all of whom now believe we need urgent action — I concluded that this is one of the biggest risks and opportunities of our lifetimes.

Some have compared me to Democrat Tom Steyer, which makes me chuckle and cringe. He and I may read the same scientific findings, but that’s about it. Steyer and his allies have largely focused on defeating Republicans. I’m interested in encouraging, defending and supporting Republicans. That’s why I recently gave $500,000 to support Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire in her reelection bid. We need strong Republican leaders like Ayotte who are forward-thinking, recognize the risk of climate change and believe America can accelerate its inevitable transition to clean energy without harming the economy.

As a conservative, I strongly believe it’s time to stop fighting about the climate problem and begin fighting about the solutions. If conservatives fail to put forward our own agenda, climate change policy will likely go the way of health care — the Democrats owned the answers, and we ended up with Obamacare. On carbon pollution, a similar dynamic is already happening; exhibit A is the Environmental Protection Agency’s new 111(d) rule. It mandates that states must reduce carbon emissions — by an EPA-decreed amount — from their existing power plants. The agency is requiring each state to develop its own compliance plan or face a federally imposed one. It’s a top-down, regulate-and-mandate solution rather than an economywide, market-based system.

We need — and I believe we’re developing — better answers, genuinely conservative answers that do exist in the realm of proven fact, technological finding and smart forecasting.

First, we need to prevent and reform regulations that obstruct the promise and development of distributed solar power, especially on rooftops. This form of electricity generation could eventually help the world drastically reduce emissions. And for millions of consumers, it could soon be the ultimate in energy freedom — if we prevent the massive monopoly utilities and their fellow incumbents in the political class from strangling it with overregulation. “Net metering” is a policy that, among other things, allows consumers to sell the excess energy generated by their rooftop solar panels. Utility companies in places like Arizona and Florida, where solar power presents a real alternative to the conventional grid, are spending millions lobbying lawmakers to kneecap it.

Second, conservatives should encourage and fund innovation and research and development in both the private and public sectors. We are a land of inventors and optimists whose technologists have met big challenges with breakthrough solutions time and time again. Elon Musk, one of America’s current great inventors, announced in April that his company is launching a new home battery that could eventually redefine how Americans consume electricity and provide the necessary storage for distributed solar energy. We must celebrate private-sector achievements like these and bolster them by fully funding basic public-sector R&D.

Third, conservatives should embrace and promote energy efficiency in their own lives and businesses. Personal responsibility is a bedrock principle of conservatism, after all. Public policy can be a force for good in this regard. The recently enacted Energy Efficiency Improvement Act of 2015, carried by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), is an example of the kind of common-sense, bipartisan policies that Republicans should develop and champion.

Unshackling distributed solar and net metering from regulation. Funding and encouraging basic R&D. Promoting personal responsibility and energy efficiency. These are three good starting points for building a conservative agenda to tackle emissions.

People too often forget today that the Republican Party has long been the voice of smart environmental policy. Teddy Roosevelt, our original conservationist, protected our national treasures for future generations. Richard M. Nixon signed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Ronald Reagan forged an international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. George H.W. Bush enacted a trading program that lowered sulfur dioxide, the primary ingredient in acid rain, by 80 percent.

A candidate who embraces these past successes and articulates a market-friendly vision for addressing climate change could shift the environmental debate in a direction that favors Republicans — and free markets.

There is no shortage of policy initiatives to consider. The best ones involve entrepreneurial innovation, lower taxes and less bureaucracy.

Republican primary voters currently have more than 16 declared and potential 2016 candidates to choose from. More than one will smartly break away from the pack by embracing free-market solutions to our extraordinary opportunities in energy. It’s good policy and good politics. Moreover, I believe it will fuel a revitalized GOP — and that’s something this nation badly needs.