Revolving Door Project | The Clean Energy PAC Spending Most Of Its Money On…House Republicans

American Clean Power Association’s political donations indicate they’re much more serious about “American” and “Power” than “Clean.”

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In an election year in which one presidential candidate cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the largest piece of clean energy legislation in U.S. history, and another has pledged to “tell the frackers” to “drill, baby, drill” on Day 1 and repeatedly lied about the impacts of wind turbines, you would be forgiven for assuming that a political action committee (PAC) which claims to represent the interests of the renewable energy industry would be more aligned with the former candidate’s party than the latter.

But the PAC of the American Clean Power Association (ACP), which identifies itself as the “leading voice of today’s multi-tech clean energy industry, representing over 800 energy storage, wind, utility-scale solar, clean hydrogen and transmission companies,” is spending more money this year backing Republican candidates for Congress than Democrats. Their seeming focus? Maintaining Republican control of the House of Representatives. So far this year, ACP has contributed $131,500 to House candidates and $19,500 to Senate candidates. Of that, ACP has spent $101.5K on Republicans, over double the $49.5K spent on Democrats.

Many of the PAC’s donors are American Clean Power’s directors and executives, though not all of ACP’s directors and executives have donated to the PAC. Of the 163 large individual donations to the PAC that collectively added up to over $232,000 raised in the 2023-2024 election cycle, over $136,000 came from ACP directors who are high-level executives at ACP member companies, and over $35,000 came from ACP employees like CEO Jason Grumet, Chief Advocacy Officer JC Sandberg, and Chief Policy Officer Frank Macchiarola. Most of ACP PAC’s other donors appear to be employees of ACP’s member companies, though this analysis is complicated by the fact that ACP doesn’t provide a full public list of its corporate members.

Who are the House Republicans that American Clean Power wants in power? The five House Republicans who received the most money from ACP’s PAC in 2024—$10,000 each—are Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), David Rouzer (R-NC), Bruce Westerman (R-Ark), and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY). Examining their energy platforms, the trend is clear: American Clean Power is supporting pro-developer, pro-deregulation voices in Congress. Let’s take a closer look.

Donating to Pipeline Pushers In Iowa

Randy Feenstra and Mariannette Miller-Meeks have both represented Iowa in the House of Representatives since 2021 after previous terms as Iowa state Senators. They also have a few other things in common, including:

supporting (and being supported by) the carbon pipeline developers seeking to seize land through eminent domain over the objections of Iowa landowners,
lambasting the Biden administration’s energy priorities, and
voting in favor of the pro-gas export bill “Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act and the pro-polluter permitting bill HR1, or the “Lower Energy Costs Act.”

While President Biden called HR1 “a thinly veiled license to pollute” that would “pad oil and gas company profits—already at record levels—and undercut our public health and environment,” ACP CEO Grumet praised the bill for “encouraging the development of clean energy infrastructure on public lands.” (For a great look at how the latest permitting reform proposals are oriented towards “satiating the energy industry’s bottomless appetite for America’s public lands,” check out San José State University Professor Dustin Mulvaney’s latest.)

Feenstra claimed inaccurately that “on his first day in office, President Biden destroyed American energy production by killing the Keystone XL pipeline, banning energy development on federal lands, and outsourcing our energy needs to our enemies.” Miller-Meeks said she “stood against the Biden Administrations egregious Electric Vehicle Mandate that would force American’s [sic] to ditch their gas powered vehicles in favor of EV’s,” and introduced the “Refrigerator Freedom Act,” which would limit the Energy Department’s ability to improve refrigerator energy efficiency.

Both Feenstra’s Republican primary opponent Kevin Virgil and his Democratic opponent Ryan Melton in the general election hold “the same views on top issues like opposing the use of eminent domain for building pipelines and criticizing the influence of corporations and Political Action Committees in politics,” according to Melton. The American Clean Power PAC is evidently backing the pro-pipeline, pro-corporate candidate to represent Iowa’s 4th District.

Donating to Fossil Fuel and Deregulation Advocates

David Rouzer (R-NC), Chairman of the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, introduced the “Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act” which passed the House this spring. As North Carolina’s Port City Daily reported, “The final bill’s provisions include extending the period of permit renewal from five to 10 years and putting new restrictions on courts’ abilities to rescind permits for violations. It also limits the statute of limitations for dredge-and-fill permits, often used for excavation of wetlands and other surface waters.” Environmental groups opposed Rouzer’s bill, arguing that “the new provisions would slow down the EPA’s process for updating water quality criteria, limit EPA’s ability to terminate permits if activities were found to cause severe environmental harm, and prevent effective judicial review of projects damaging wetlands and other waters.”

The legislation bundled several Republican energy permitting proposals, including Rouzer’s so-called “Nationwide Permitting Improvement Act” which would, among other things, limit what sorts of pollution releases qualify as failing to comply with water permits, limit the ability of courts to revoke permits for polluters, and streamline permitting for oil and gas pipelines. Major polluter Koch Industries is Rouzer’s #2 donor this cycle; American Clean Power is #16.

Bruce Westerman (R-Ark) recently introduced his own piece of legislation to limit the scope of federal environmental reviews for permitting major infrastructure projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), after over a year now serving as a “pivotal player” on the GOP side in permitting reform talks. Westerman is clear that he wants the U.S. to expand its fossil fuel extraction, arguing that “American energy, especially American natural gas, is the solution, not the problem,” and that “continued success is only possible with an all-of-the-above-energy strategy rather than the Biden-Harris Administration’s not-in-my-backyard mentality.”

Westerman falsely claims that “American natural gas is the cleanest, safest, and most ethically sourced on earth,” and that “U.S. gas has done more by far to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than our combined government subsidy programs,” despite the U.S. being the largest polluter of methane from oil and gas operations in the world. Talk about a clean power advocate!

“Misleading At Best”

Last year, my colleague Dorothy Slater wrote for The American Prospect that “descriptions of ACP as a clean-energy industry group are misleading at best,” as “ACP does indeed represent many clean-energy companies, but is also a conglomeration of executives and corporations that are tied to, and benefit from, the fossil fuel industry’s continued reign—including some executives from some of the biggest oil companies in the world.” This remains true: several of ACP’s current directors are executives at companies whose energy portfolios are predominantly fossil fuels, including Shell, BP, Engie, Equinor, Dominion Energy, NextEra Energy, and Xcel Energy. But many others lead companies heavily or solely invested in solar, wind, and other renewable energy technologies, making the group’s political behavior all the more troubling.

ACP CEO Grumet has been explicit in his vision for the energy industry of “moving from kind of a clean-versus-dirty, renewables-versus-fossil imagination of this kind of bifurcated energy industry to the reality that these are big companies with both renewable and fossil assets.” It’s hard to imagine how it benefits the renewable energy industry to wed themselves to the fossil fuel industry with its dirty tactics and ticking clock, which also happens to be fighting tooth-and-nail to preserve its market dominance over renewables…but apparently that hasn’t stopped some renewable energy companies from being along for Grumet’s ride.

Over the past few years, American Clean Power has consistently backed Republican proposals for energy deregulation that would shield clean and dirty power build-out alike from environmental safeguards, judicial review, and community input. Such standards are crucial if we want not just more energy on the grid, but a just energy transition, one which doesn’t worsen the biodiversity crisis in attempting to fight the climate crisis. Unfortunately, it seems that ACP is following the well-trodden footsteps of its legacy oil and gas industry predecessors who’ve benefited over the decades from both federal subsidies and federal deregulation, getting at the same time a leg up and an easy way out.