A senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Bracken Hendricks was a founder of the Apollo Alliance and was talking about the potential of green jobs and the benefits for national security, urban planning, transportation, and economic development six years ago, long before it became the first talking point of every Democratic candidate.
What are you trying to achieve at the convention?
The convention is the best opportunity to focus on themes. It's the place to get people talking. The platform is great but the platform's just a document. At the convention we can start shaping the language that people use to articulate problems and solutions. And they're realizing that clean energy is a jobs agenda, it's an urban agenda, it's a national-security agenda.
Suddenly every candidate is talking about clean energy and green jobs. They point to shuttered factories with alternative-energy investment. You've been pushing this for years, but has it become a bit of a panacea? Not every congressional district can rebuild its economy on clean energy, right?
Bill Gates once said that every transformation is overstated in the short term and understated in the long term. You’re right, every county won’t manufacture solar panels. But every county will have to install them. We will have to retrofit every building. We will have to rebuild the transportation infrastructure. It’s deeply embedded in local economies, even as it's a national initiative.
And these are good jobs that can rebuild some of the broken ladders to the middle class.
Do we need to pass cap-and-trade legislation on carbon emissions to create the incentives, first?
No. Eventually, we have to have some kind of price-signalling mechanism for carbon. But there's so much we can get started on now. We can't wait for cap-and-trade to finance the transition. It could take two years to pass, another four years to really start generating revenues. We can't wait for that. And it's about more than pricing carbon – it's about changing farm policy, transportation policy.
Is there a fight coming over coal? Between Democrats who want to make “clean coal” and coal gasification a big part of the energy agenda, and enviros who oppose mining?
There could be, but I think there's a consensus that we have to do something about coal. There are people who think that, in theory, you could build an energy future on clean energy and efficiency alone, but the reality is that coal is going to get built, and the ideas about carbon sequestration are promising. It might get more complicated when there's real money to spend.
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From there, I went on to a briefing with Govs. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Martin O'Malley of Maryland, where there was a lot of talk about coal gasification and clean coal and coal, coal, coal as the future of the Democratic Party.
—Mark Schmitt.
Previous Party People Q&As:
Karen Brown and Bonnie Tierney, Clinton and McCain supporters.
Don Beyer, former Democratic VA gubernatorial candidate
Chris Redfern, Ohio Democratic Party Chair
David Cicilline, Mayor of Providence
Nancy Ruth White, Clinton Delegate
Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL
