Hot Climate Action! 3! - Count 'Em - 3! GOP Donors Meeting To Discuss Ways To Wheedle Candidates
Supporters of a Republican response to climate change are meeting in New York today for a meet and greet ahead of next year's elections. Among the meeting's participants will be entrepreneur Jay Faison, who grabbed headlines last month by pledging to stake $175 million on encouraging moderates and conservatives to address the causes of warming (Greenwire, June 9). GOP environmental group ConservAmerica will host the gathering on the sidelines of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) summer meeting at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel. Texas real estate scion and Republican donor Trammell Crow will attend, and Republican climate donor Andrew Sabin, owner of a precious metals refinery, was slated to do so but had a scheduling conflict.
All three Republican businessmen have provided financial backing both to candidates and to academic and nonprofit groups that operate in the climate space -- making them anomalies in a party that is more closely associated with the likes of anti-regulatory donors Charles and David Koch.
Their goal is to help facilitate a Republican shift away from rejection of climate change science to a stance that emphasizes nonregulatory approaches to mitigation. Some, like Faison, embrace the idea of a revenue neutral carbon tax. Others, like Sabin, favor research and development and other incentives for low-carbon industries. "I think the three of us want to convert the party and get them thinking environmentally," said Sabin, whose family foundation gave Columbia University $3.5 million to found the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
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Crow said he recently met with Texas State Land Commissioner George P. Bush (R), son of former Florida governor and 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush, and told him that his father needed to articulate a stronger position on the human causes of warming. The elder Bush, who is among the front-runners for the GOP nomination, has tried to chart a middle course between rejection of climate science and the kind of pro-action stance Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has sometimes taken. Crow said that during their conversation, George P. Bush repeated the current GOP talking point that the climate is always changing and the cause is uncertain -- a line Crow panned as a "cop out." He said he also raised his concerns in a meeting with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus earlier this month at which he said he warned that his support would depend on the RNC's accepting the science of climate change. "He tried to placate me and tried to assure me that they're getting there," Crow said.
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