Electrification is an economic boon and a technological marvel, but the people best positioned to accelerate it are state legislators, many of them freshly elected, who barely know that it’s happening. In this episode, Hawaii state Senator Chris Lee and I discuss the Electric Innovation Initiative, his bipartisan effort to close that gap by exposing lawmakers to electrification technologies and projects, educating them, and arming them with policy ideas.
Way back in 2016, several lifetimes ago, I wrote an article for Vox called “Electrify everything.” At the time, I was focused on decarbonization, but in the years since, as the idea has caught on and expanded and proven itself, it has become much more. It is now clear that clean electrification is not only the fastest road to decarbonization, it also reduces air pollution and energy costs, creates jobs, and serves as a source for enormous technological and policy innovation.
I have been gratified over the years to see people taking this idea up and making it their own, although, as regular listeners know, I remain somewhat mystified why the political class in the US still seems either ignorant of, or at least insufficiently impressed by, the economic and technological miracles that clean electrification is producing, both here and around the world.
Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way. My guest today is Hawaii state Senator Chris Lee. Lee is a longtime champion of environmental causes and a pioneer on climate change — he is the president of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators and authored Hawaii’s nation-first 100% renewable electricity requirement — but in recent years he has focused in on electrification, specifically.
Last year, alongside David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, Lee co-founded the Electric Innovation Initiative, a loose network of politicians, businesses, and advocates devoted to spreading the gospel of electrification. They have set up an awards program to draw attention to states and companies doing good work on electrification, taken lawmakers on tours of innovative electrification projects, and, perhaps most importantly, are trying to spread electrification policies to more states.
Today I’m going to talk with Lee about how he came to love electrification, what his fellow state legislators do and don’t know about it, and what he hopes will come out of this new initiative. Let’s get to it.
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro: electrify everything, nine years on
03:39 - How electrification clicked: the 2008 iPhone moment
06:10 - The education gap: why the initiative exists
11:35 - Proxy staff and cross-state validation
15:44 - What lands on the tours: eVTOL to the data-center win-win
20:51 - Plain 'electrification': the bipartisan framing bet
26:28 - Climate hushing and Hawaii's two-track proof
30:17 - Policy that spreads: e-buses, heat pumps, RFPs
37:37 - Utility business-model reform: Hawaii's PBR law
42:03 - Affordability after the federal subsidies
45:22 - Hawaii under pressure: LNG and the Lahaina grid
51:53 - State power against federal hostility
55:19 - The ten-year vision and the closing advice
Resources
People & Organizations
David Roberts (Substack - Bluesky)
Volts (Website - Podcast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify)
Chris Lee (LinkedIn)
National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (Website)
Rewiring America (Website)
Company & Industry News
Rewiring America releases Homegrown Energy blueprint to lower costs for households
Why data center operators should pay for residential electrification upgrades
Books & Articles Discussed
Related Volts Episodes
Text Transcript
David Roberts: Alright, Senator Chris Lee, welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for coming.
Chris Lee: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I’ve been a longtime fan and it is fantastic to have a conversation about this, especially in this moment when it feels like we’re… in spite of everything going on, I think that’s been in the news.
David Roberts: I’m sorry, what are you referring to?
Chris Lee: Nothing in particular. But I feel like we’re at an inflection point, truly. And I’m actually more optimistic now than I think I was you know, a year ago, or even before the last election, that we’re actually moving forward in ways that we never would have had we not gone through this period of real trial and even, you know, outright hostility in some areas and to some of these policies and to some of this path.
David Roberts: Interesting. Well, we’ll get into some of that. Well, I want to start with, I know you are have been longtime environmental advocate. I think most people who come out of Hawaii start there. And I know you’ve been focused on climate change for a while, but I’m sort of curious… I know you’ve always been into the environment. I know you’ve been into climate change for a while. I’m curious when electrification specifically took shape for you, became a focus for you. When was that, when did that sort of come onto your radar as a as a specific area?
Chris Lee: You it’s actually an unlikely moment. It was when I was running for office for the very first time back in 2008.
David Roberts: Eight?!
Chris Lee: Yeah. It’s been a minute. But at the time I had you know, the standard flip phone that everybody had. And I was out campaigning and my family and friends and a lot of the folks trying to trying to help me out were frustrated to no end that I wasn’t as communicative. And they’re like, You gotta text, you gotta do all stuff. And so anyway ended up having somebody buy me an iPhone to use, the very first one. In that moment, I realized like, whoa, look at look at what’s happening here. Like this, this level of technology and connectivity and everything in one device and all the Steve Jobs talking points. But that really started me thinking, like, well, why can’t you sort of ‘applify’ some way so many of the other appliances, technologies, you know, everything else out there? And It got me thinking about the broader grid. And that’s really the moment. I didn’t do much about it. I didn’t think much about it beyond that. But that was the first moment where I realized you can do things differently in ways that are going to really change quality of life and really the way that we operate for the better. And it never occurred to me before.
David Roberts: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s taken different people come to it at different times. It’s taken a long time for people, you know, because when I first got into climate change, it was there’s a lot of talk about biofuels and you know, it’s just a lot as a sort of scattered, vague category of solutions. And it’s been just over time that kind of specifically moving from combustion to electricity has kind of become the focus. Different people sort of come to that at different times, I think.
Chris Lee: Absolutely. You know, it’s been good though, because I think for the first time we’re at a point where a lot of the technology, as as you know, as you’ve covered, can actually meet, I think, the expectations we have for where we want to go as a society. So I’ve really picked up on it only in the last, I’d say, four or five years, as we’ve seen that tech and the politics really start to converge. So that’s why I’m talking about this inflection point. I think we’re here.
David Roberts: Well yes. Well speaking of that, so you’re state senator, you’re on the chair of the transportation committee, you’re the president of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. You’ve got a lot on your plate. What brought you to start the yet another new thing? What’s what prompted you to start this electric innovation initiative? Why this and why now?
Chris Lee: You know, I think the biggest challenge we face around the country is really just the lack of education. You know, for years we’ve seen different policies from different states. Every state’s got their own set of challenges and their own set of leaders. But having access to what the full realm of potential solutions to those are, whether it’s affordability or it’s getting access to cheaper transportation or electricity or whatever it is, that’s a nonpartisan thing. And you can only make really sound judgments and make long-term investments of what are ultimately, you know, billions of dollars or opening up industry that’s gonna enable people to make those investments if you know what you’re doing. And I think in the years that I’ve spent working with colleagues across the aisle and across state lines, I’d say nine times out of 10, people just don’t know what they don’t know. And especially now in this moment where in the last two election cycles, about half of all the state level elected officials are brand new, just elected in the last couple of years, right? They there’s not that depth of experience and knowledge. And people are coming in wanting to do big stuff, but don’t know where to start. And that’s where I think we want to start this conversation. How do we get people together and connect them with the leading edge technology, innovation, investment so that people can see at least what is possible today and then think about alright, how do I apply what might be applicable for my state going forward?
David Roberts: Well, this segu this segues perfectly into my next question because honestly, the thing I’m most curious about from you, the thing I’m you know, the thing I don’t really have direct visibility or access into is just what is the state of knowledge or the state of education among state legislators generally? Are they like they coming to this just sort of as blank slates? And do you find that there are divisions along partisan lines or age age lines or rural urban lines? Like who knows what? What is the kind of the level of education you’re starting with here when you encounter these people for the first time?
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, so I’m not here to crap on anybody, but I think across the country fair to say, and I this was me too, when I first got elected, right? You have a ton of people who go through months of campaigning. Sorry, this is like unpacking, you know, peeling back the political skin on this whole thing to take a look at what’s what’s ticking on the inside. First of all, I’ve never met anybody who hasn’t run for office not wanting to do good. Nobody like sacrifices their time and family and personal privacy and probably, you know, 10 times higher paying jobs out in the private sector to do this stuff unless they really care. That said, you go through like, you know, six months or a year of campaigning, trying to get to know everything and then promise the world. And you get elected and you’re like, oh shit, like I don’t actually know what to do. And so I would say there’s a lot of great intention, a lot of great people on both sides of the aisle. But a lot of that gets filtered through, you know, the standard evening news, like sound bites and political polarization, all that stuff. But at its core, people are looking for real solutions. And especially at the subnational level, right? It’s very different than national politics and what you’re seeing on CNN and everything else. People are connected. And so you’re walking door to door in your own communities in most cases, in the states around the country and in the legislatures and at cities and everything. And those folks, unlike you know, the president or Congress, who I think everybody’s mostly been given up on as as real agents of change can actually make a difference at that local level and you’re expected to. You’re expected to fill the potholes, you’re expected to fix the schools, you’re expected to deliver on cheaper power or other things. And so that’s where there’s this desire to do something. And I think when you’re coming in, it, you know, it takes, in my experience, and that with I think a lot of my colleagues who I’ve heard talk about this too across the country, it takes probably five or six years to get up to speed to understand the lay of the land for policy, what’s working, and especially in the energy space, and even transportation space where you have like complex regulatory parameters and investment cycles and all these things that are just not….
David Roberts: It’s all changing really quickly too.
Chris Lee: Yeah, I mean, i the world today, even even you know, since I’ve been around, or even like five years ago, is drastically different than it is today. And so you gotta be on top of that. And that’s where I think there’s a disconnect because you’ve got industry and investors and technology advancing at such a rate that… what’s happening a year ago, right, is in many cases like not even relevant, much less like understood by folks. So we’re trying to close that gap. I think that is the single biggest thing holding back any sort of progress on not only like electrification, but just stuff in general these days.
David Roberts: Yeah. Well, one of the questions I had was people come into these state legislatures, they don’t have a lot of staff. You know, these are not necessarily like super well funded offices. And so I’m wondering how much of what you’re doing here with EII is just kind of serving as kind of proxy staff, just you know, just a source of information and analysis that these people can tap into.
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, it’s it’s crazy. In some states, I’ll give you a couple of examples. Like I you know, the big ones, right? Texas, California, New York. I mean, they’ve got a lot of staff and everything, but smaller states like Vermont and others where you have folks, the same folks making the same decisions on billions of dollars of budgets and all that stuff, have no staff, no office, no capacity whatsoever. You’re basically elected and you know, you’re handed like a pad of paper, like good luck. And so there’s definitely that need, I think. And so part of what we’re doing is yeah, not only trying to convene lawmakers and other regulators and experts kind of in the field to have these conversations and just get to know one another and to get to know kind of where things are going, but then also be able to follow up. And so not only for electric innovation, but for the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators and a bunch of other partners like that are kind of working the space. It’s follow up to be able to answer basic questions and say, you know what, you know, here’s where the price of electricity and this particular modality or whatever is expected to go next year. So if you’re gonna be investing, you know, here’s who to talk to and figure out what that’s gonna mean. Are utilities gonna be wanting to invest in this? Are others going to gonna have certainty and viability? And ultimately be able to follow up and then reconnect policymakers who are working on the same issues across state lines. Because that’s really important too. I’ll give you a really good example of that. Ray Ward, who has been is a Republican legislator from Utah, has been a champion on balcony solar. And you know, that’s something that Utah was first to lead on. His bill was the first to pass in the country. And we’ve been able to help advance that conversation outside of Utah and other states. And there’s been so much outreach to Utah. Asking about how do we do this? You know, what were the not only the technical aspects of this, but how politically do you message this and what does it mean for people if they can afford to have suddenly a new option to reduce their cost? So all those kinds of things are really important because you need elected officials to more often than not validate to other elected officials that something works or it’s viable and here’s the landmines you gotta watch out for and here’s how the politics works, right? And deal with everything else that anybody on the outside of that elected trench really that you’re in can understand. And so that’s a big part of it for sure.
David Roberts: And I would expect also that if you’re just one of these legislators who’s just got a pad of paper and no particular staff, the people you do tend to hear from are talking their own book. You know what I mean? Like industry lobbyists and people who want you to do things and who are spinning to you constantly. And I imagine trying to find just clear, unbiased information is kind of a desperate thing for those people.
Chris Lee: Yeah. And often, you know, right after the election, there’s probably gonna be about a hundred and fifty people knocking on your door, lobbyists and advocates for this and that and so forth. And especially if you’re brand new, right, you don’t know who’s credible and who’s not. And in this area where everybody and their brothers come in saying, I have the solution to you know, this thing. And you don’t have that technical expertise or anybody to talk to, it’s really hard. And so having, I think, those conversations across state lines where we can say, like, yeah, that that particular technology, they’re saying it’s great over here, but in reality, you know, here’s the deal. That’s so helpful just to get a really quick lay of the land.
David Roberts: I’m so curious. You’ve have been taking state legislators on these tours, showing them stuff, basically. And I’m really curious, sort of like, what technologies or projects, like what gizmos are really making an impression? Like what’s what’s blowing people’s minds? What do people really look at and be like, I didn’t, you know, like the makes people’s you something click in their heads. I’m I’m very curious like what’s working, what’s impressing people?
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, I mean, everybody’s, I think, generally wowed immediately and drawn to the sexy things. So like electric vertical takeoff and landing craft, right? Companies like like Joby and Archer and a bunch of others that are doing in fact we just launched here in Hawaii our first electric commercial cargo plane that was flying from island to island. That kind of stuff is it’s very back to the future, twenty fifteen or well now what is it, like twenty forty five? I don’t know.
David Roberts: no kidding. Yeah, it I’m sorry, twenty fifteen’s not the future
Chris Lee: I know, I know, I know. It’s showing my age here. But that’s where the thing is, you at the front end, like everyone’s like, wow, that’s that’s new, it’s novel, it’s sexy. But what’s actually I think connecting more is kind of solutions that are actually quite simple, that are in the nexus of the political fray that we’re kinda caught in at the moment, right? On one side you’ve got for example, data center capacity. That is driving the conversation around the country, like a hundred plus gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade that are needed to meet, you know, hyperscaler demand and all that. And that’s directly in conflict with affordability and everybody from your own community who’s like, okay, but are we gonna pay for this? And so right now you’ve got a number of efforts around the country and conversations going on saying, like, alright, do we would we ban data centers? Or do we require them to finance separately or do utilities do something else? But there are a whole bunch of other options. And for example, Rewiring America had come out recently with their homegrown energy report…
David Roberts: Oh I’ve very familiar, I’m very familiar.
Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah. So this basically says in a nutshell, and correct me if I’m wrong here, or if you can sell it in a more sexy way, but this basically says we can do all of these things. We can create new capacity and flexibility on our electric grids all over the place that can provide that additional capacity that’s being desired to let everyone do AI and other stuff. But we can do it while at the same time shifting our investments so that we’re investing in the right technologies at the household and small business and, you know, in people’s end user portfolio to help them be a part of that. And to help them reduce their costs by putting in PV or advanced technology or heat pumps or more efficient appliances or all these different things to be a part of that solution. And so it’s a win-win where suddenly you can go to those people who are knocking on your door, demanding cheaper power and say, okay, we have a potential solution for you. You know, your utilities will be a part of it, you’ll be a part of it. And the hyperscalers on the other end can then do their thing and help invest in jobs and communities around the country and so forth. So that kind of thing is for the first time merging these two competing pressures that policymakers are being pummeled by on both sides, whether you’re Republican or Democrat and everything in between. So now there’s a potential pathway where we can align the political pressure so that there is a fast track in investment and deployment of policy to support these kinds of solutions.
David Roberts: Yeah, I’m so, so, so, so happy to hear you talking about that because this is something stressing every state. And there’s a lot of bad solutions to it floating around. And this, I think, is one where everybody wins. The data center gets online faster. The members of the community get concrete, tangible benefits from that they can touch, that helps them, that help lower their bills, that helps prevent, you know, that helps them through blackouts. Utilities can get their data centers online faster and they can tell the community, hey, we got benefits for you from these data centers. Like everybody can win from that. And it’s like there’s a lot of just sort of like zero sum solutions flying around. And that’s one where I just think your network I think would be great just just for spreading that, just for making people aware that’s out there.
Chris Lee: Yeah, totally. And we know these things are possible already because we’ve seen them, you know, deployed in a number of places. PG&E is doing some great work. Green Mountain Power. Even here in Hawaii, where we are this year, or this is last year actually, we’re at almost fifty percent of our single family homes that now have rooftop solar and a ton of them have battery storage. So we know on electric grids, this kind of investment and this kind of technology is absolutely doable in ways that it simply hasn’t been thought of before.
David Roberts: Here is a question. Let’s I want to ask a few questions about kind of the climate angle. So like when I talk about electrification here on volts, I always say clean electrification because of course I care about where the electricity comes from. You know, I care about that it’s low carbon electricity that we’re talking about. I notice all your materials are just straight electrification, just plain and simple. Is that a conscious decision to leave this more open to bipartisan participation? Was that a conscious messaging messaging decision on your part?
Chris Lee: Yeah. So I mean for myself, right? Like I think like you said, you can’t live in Hawaii and grow up here and not be conscious of climate and our rising seas and increasing hurricanes and all that other stuff. For me that’s huge. But in the broader spectrum of the conversation, it’s frankly irrelevant to what we’re trying to do today. Because what’s driving now is not the climate conversation and all of that. And that may be relevant for some states, and that’s, you know, absolutely great. You do you. But for other states where folks are really hurting on affordability, they’re worried about jobs in communities that have been, you know, seen manufacturing collapse and everything else. I mean, for them it’s it’s that angle. What are the solutions there? And there just happens to be this overlap. We’re now doing things that help advance clean energy and investment in new technologies and innovation also provides for affordability and cheaper rates and new jobs and investment. And that’s really where this is pulling, I think, everybody together, right? Democrats and Republicans alike. And so we want to create the space where we can have a real conversation outside of the talking head polarized politics that, you know, dominates DC and other places, and be able to just talk about like, alright, what are these real world solutions in a way where we can have candid conversations and we can connect real technology and real world on the ground innovation with potential for you know, expansion and solving a lot of these problems that we are all grappling with in urban areas and rural areas, on the coasts in the middle of the country and all over.
David Roberts: Well, you’ve got some real Republican involvement. You got Tim Echols, late of the Georgia Public Service Commission helping to judge your contests. You got Senator Hufstetler, you got Representative Carney, you’ve got some Republicans involved, but like Georgia, for instance, is building gas like crazy right now. So there is a space where you can have electrification driven by gas. Even you know, people are arguing for that gas on the basis of affordability. So there is overlap with decarbonization, but it’s not automatic. And I just wonder like, have you sort of like taken a vow, at least on this initiative, just to bracket that, just to just to just to not talk about that? Or are you behind the scenes, you know, trying to nudge things in the direction of away from gas towards more clean sources?
Chris Lee: No, I think, you know, different states right are gonna have different grids. They’re gonna have different needs. We’re not here to say, don’t do this, but do this instead. We’re here to say here are the options that you’re not looking at right now that are actually working in a lot of places. And so we wanna have that ability to give everybody whatever the toolkit is that works in their state. And you know, I’ve probably talked actually with more Republicans than Democrats lately and our colleagues, as you mentioned, some of them that we pull this together with, I mean, this is a bipartisan effort, right? Is sort of Republicans and Democrats crafting this whole conversation. For the most part, I mean, folks are looking for answers regardless. And yeah, I mean, some states and some technologies are going to be more advanced than others and further along. But I think we all win when we have a shared vision of what’s possible. And yeah, I’ll give you a quick example. I mean, this whole idea came out of I was actually on a tour with a couple other folks and we were on this boat in a harbor and getting getting toured around showing, you know, what they’re doing and everything. And realized very quickly, like this old tugboat from like the seventies was actually silent and there was like no vibration and all that stuff. And I was like, wait a minute, like what is this? And it turns out that it was electric. It was it was an old tugboat that was converted. And I remember talking, I was with David [Hochschild] at the time. And I remember talking with him after, like, did you know about this? He’s like, no, I didn’t either. And for you know, us being sort of in our positions in the midst of all of this conversation in the US and not knowing that this had even happened at the time made me think, like, well, if we don’t know, certainly all these other people don’t know either. And that’s been true across the aisle. And so it’s really been how do we how do we have these conversations with Republic and so, yeah, we’ve had tons of Republicans, tons of Democrats come together and it’s been great because it’s been the non political conversation that’s just really been about the solutions. And frankly, like we need more of that today. Because obviously in politics I think we get enough of everything else. So I’m kind of excited about this future.
David Roberts: Well, final question about the climate angle. If you’re pulling your head out of this particular initiative and out of your role in this initiative and just looking at the broader landscape, there is this sort of consensus among the Democratic Party, seems like right now. You know, people are referring to it as climate hushing, basically. They’re just like, don’t talk about climate, talk about all these other things. Do you worry about that at all? Do you worry that things are gonna get left out? Do you worry that there are pieces of the puzzle that you can’t really justify including unless you are concerned about climate? Do you know what I mean? Or do you think that there’s enough overlap to get a lot of momentum going and that it’s just better strategically to leave climate out of it for now? Do you have any thoughts on that larger strategic conversation?
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, I think we’re gonna be fine. I’ll tell you why. You know, so this year, for example, here in Hawaii, two of the bills that I was able to with the help of colleagues and everything else, I got written and passed. One of them was conservation sanctuary bill that’s gonna for the first time really like go deep on trying to save our invasive species, our endangered species. Not save our invasive species, save our endangered species. We have more here in Hawaii than the rest of the country put together and they’re dying out at rates that are like, you know, one every few days. And so we’re going hard on that. At the same time, a totally separate bill we passed was creating a clean fuel standard and investment program that will mimic what’s being done in California and Washington and Oregon, other places, and will really catalyze a lot of the investment in the private sector market into better, cheaper, cleaner technologies. And that’s something that, you know, those two things can coexist. They’re totally different conversations, but they’re both ultimately going to have the result that’s gonna address our biggest climate issues. And I’ll just say one other thing about our experience here, because part this is what got me really motivated a few years ago. You know, in 2015, we became the first state to pass our 100% RPS, which was great and all of that, and first of its kind. So we’d never really been through the politics of that before. But because of the way that rolled out, because of these other conversations we’re having where we knew, for example, that we needed to invest and we needed companies to invest in cleaner technologies and renewable resiliency on our grid and all that stuff. We were able to catalyze that. And so over the next few years, people realized on both sides of the aisle and out in the community that, hey, this is actually like viable and worthwhile. And so three years later in 2018, when we passed our law, which also was the first of its kind, making Hawaii the first state to Commit to a carbon negative economy, right? This is like fully climate by 2045. We did that unanimously, right? Democrats and Republicans together. And even and it was okay because even even one of this guy was annoying me to no end, but on the floor, he was giving this floor speech about you know, this is I don’t believe in climate and it’s a hoax, blah, blah, blah. But I’m voting for this because of what it’s gonna mean for our businesses here and it’s gonna mean, you know, potential investment in this, that, and the other thing. And so when we signed the bill, it was the Chamber of Commerce alongside our environmental groups, alongside labor, alongside industry folks, all together, because that was what was really pushing a lot of the new investment potential and economic growth. And I think we’re in the same space now nationally where the economics are and the technology is very obviously just on its numbers and investment gonna push that way. And so if we can clear the barriers, permitting and regulation and all that stuff and really help advance that, I think we win.
David Roberts: Well, I want to get back in a minute to Hawaii and how representative it may be or not be. But another thing about the initiative here that I’m very curious about. So you got these awards, they’re interesting. Yeah, there’s a lot of convening, there’s a lot talking and sharing of information, et cetera. But also one of the explicit goals when you launched was and I quote, commitments, pilots, or legislative proposals in at least three states by the end of the year. So there is an explicit piece of this where you are trying to get policy done at the state level. I’m curious, it’s July. We’re halfway, you know, we’re a little over halfway through the year. Have those legislative commitments come forth yet? And if so, I’m curious what they are or what’s what is the state of sort of specifically the legislative piece of this?
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, yes is a short answer. But let me clarify the goals here, because the goal is really to get people engaged. It’s not to pass any one specific policy or anything like that. It’s to get our colleagues engaged and educated and then pursuing whatever, you know, the thing is that makes sense for them in their place. And I’ll I’ll give you a couple of examples. You know, we went to the Bay Area last year with a delegation of I don’t know, maybe like twenty-five or thirty different elected officials from around the country, Democrats, Republicans from rural states from urban states and so forth. And one of the places we stopped was the Oakland Unified School District’s bus yard. And they’re the first school district to switch over to electric buses. At the time they’ve had the largest electric bus fleet that’s 74, 75 electric school buses that were in operation. They’re vehicle to grid capable. So, you know, they’re they’re all the all the obvious things, quieter, cleaner, better, better experiences for everybody, as well as some of the cool tech stuff like parents can automatically track and are notified, you know, when kids are dropped off and all that stuff.
David Roberts: Oh interesting, I hadn’t even thought about that angle
Chris Lee: No, yeah. And there’s a whole other angle too, which is blowing our minds because I didn’t even know about this, much less any of our colleagues, where attendance rates are going up at the schools because it’s easier for kids to go and it’s more, you know, incentivized. But moreover, it’s believed right now, I think that parents are more trusting because they can actually have more visibility on this… a lot of benefits.
David Roberts: Interesting. Interesting. Well, and also just let’s let’s not rush past you’re not blowing diesel fumes into the lungs of children. Like that’s you know, that’s that’s obvious here, but that’s I always think that’s such a obvious win win. You know, I just kinda wanna put underline that real quickly. Like the most vulnerable lungs in the country.
Chris Lee: You think that would be the lead. Yeah, yeah, good side benefit, right? But yeah, that too, definitely. And so, you know, we went there and everyone was like, wow. And out of that, we had a few of our colleagues go back and basically start talking with their own school districts and schools in their areas about the same thing. And we had definitely a Republican who had put in a piece of legislation that would have catalyzed that in their space. And we’ve had conversations with district you know, superintendents and all that sort of stuff that have come out of this where these officials who are responsible for education and outcomes in their places are like, this is great. Why aren’t you guys looking at this? Advance that. Right. That’s not something that would have happened otherwise because I didn’t even know about this particular pilot project as it had rolled out. And now here we are today, you know, a year later, and it’s taking off across the country. I mean, you’ve got projects in Pennsylvania and other states and I think San Francisco now across the Bay is doing their whole thing. So there’s a lot of that stuff that’s moving that we just don’t see. And that’s the whole point. How do we connect people and get them aware of this and give them those tools and options that they otherwise didn’t have?
David Roberts: Yeah, well, this was another of my questions, which is like what policies are sort of sparking and catching on and spreading and crossing state lines? You know, because there’s such a… there’s a million things you can do. You can do time of use rates, you can do reach codes for your buildings, EV readiness. I mean, there’s a million electrification policies. Sort of curious, like which ones are kind of taking root and spreading.
Chris Lee: Yeah. Yeah, the most obvious stuff is everything related to well, everything is related to affordability, but the stuff that I think is the low-hanging fruit, you know, simple things like, for example, actually let me back up for one second because you had mentioned the awards. Let me talk about that real quick because that sort of sets the stage for this. But basically part of this whole process, right? We wanna we wanna not only connect policymakers with each other and with the technology, but we wanna connect them with like the leading innovators and tech that’s out there. So we can see what’s possible and see where we’re going kind of collectively. And so part this is, you know, we have a very prestigious group of officials and experts in the field that we’ve pulled from both sides of the political aisle. You mentioned Tim Echols, right? Republican Georgia Utilities Commission member and others like that from around the country who are vetting kind of everything that’s going on out there. And so we have an award ceremony that we do once a year. Just to highlight, lift up and highlight the best examples of most innovative, you know, scalable, deployable tech across all these different areas. And then connect that with all our policymakers and everybody else. And so as we think about this stuff, in some of these tours, one of the folks that was recognized in as like a leading innovator was doing heat pumps. But not just any heat pumps, right? Like really just modular plug and play kind of kind of window heat pumps and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And so we went to go see a demo of that. And folks were kind of blown away because people didn’t realize, right? You don’t need to invest massive amounts of new money into upgrading entire electrical systems and all this other stuff to do this.
David Roberts: Yeah, there’s a lot of misinformation about heat pumps floating around.
Chris Lee: Exactly. And so from that, we’ve had there were there were a couple of mayors, for example, who said, we had no idea this was in existence and we’re about to do you know, tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in new public housing. Maybe we should think about this because we could save a ton of money and save a ton of money for operating costs for the tenants. So stuff like that is just so obvious. And I think you don’t have to do a lot. Now I’ll say this, you know, changing policy is like the last resort, changing the laws, like the last resort. It takes the most heavy lift and all that stuff. There is so much stuff you can do before that to affect enormous outcomes and scale stuff. And this is one of those things, like just being aware, like as you put together, for example, RFPs for new projects going out that you’re going to see billions of dollars invested in all around the country. Maybe you should look at, like, alright, how do we ensure that this kind of technology is a part of that?
David Roberts: A lot of this stuff is, I think, really sexy. Like I think electric school buses, like that’s, you know, how do you not love that? Modular heat pumps that you can hang on your window, love that. There are some nerdier things in the background.
Chris Lee: Oh so, of course this is the line for nerdy, I thought I was way past it
David Roberts: Yeah we have a our own unique line here on Volts. But like Hawaii, for instance, has has done a lot of really innovative work on utility reform on performance-based regulation of their utilities. And this is, of course, like takes some explaining why that is important and why it supports electrif… why it supports electrification in the end. I’m just curious, like, has anyone this is just, you know, a particular love of mine, the utility, the utility space, the utility reform, has anybody been sniffing around that? Is that part of the conversation here?
Chris Lee: It sounds like it’s a love hate relationship you have there. If I had to guess. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, so part of this is and in everybody’s district or state or wherever they’re from, right, there’s gonna be a utility of some flavor, whether it’s an IOU or a co-op or whatever. And so I think we’re all familiar with the issues that come up and the frustrations from, you know, customers and everything else. But getting into the regulatory side of that, and this goes back to the start of our conversation. When you’re elected brand new and don’t have an understanding of the whole regulatory framework and compact and all these things, it is really difficult to crack that nut. And I think it’s safe to say that, you know, up until now, or up until last few years, the utility model has been what it has been for the last century. And there’s been enormous resistance to change that. And now for the first time, I think we’re starting to see even larger IOUs. Because they’re they’re right, they’re conservative institutions and when you’re when you’re steering the ship, it’s gonna take time, no matter even if you have a CEO or board or whatever that’s like, we’re gonna do this. It takes a while. But we’re starting to see that change where I think they’re starting to look at alright, wait, we could be the ones that help facilitate investment into a lot of these new solutions and innovations and go behind the meter or do any number of other things. And there’s benefit there, so everybody can win. And part of what makes that possible. I think is them being able to provide assurance to their shareholders, especially in the case of IOUs, that there’s you know, a de-risked path that’s not gonna leave us in the lurch. Or if, you know, technology changes or whatever, we’re not gonna be stranded with all these extra costs and all that stuff. And so part of what you’re talking about, I think, is one of the things that we did here, 2018 to 2020 or so. We passed a law that directed our PUC to go look at a way to change that utility revenue model so that there’s an incentive for the utilities to earn just as much as they did before. Or even more in some cases, while at the same time basing that on their progress to advance, you know, affordability and reduce costs and engage with third-party stakeholders who can, you know, create new programmatic rate models and design and all that stuff and effectuate kind of this, you know, grid 2.0 that we want to see. At the same time advancing renewables and everything else. And, you know, that I think we’re still the first state to do that.
David Roberts: Yeah, I’d love for you to I’d love for you to get some more state legislators in different states on board with that kind of thing. Like although I imagine that takes a longer conversation.
Chris Lee: Is, it is. And it’s gonna take I mean it the tech is evolving faster than I think these conversations on the regulatory side, but I’m optimistic because you know at the end of the day, our utilities are coming out of this, I think with a stronger financial footing and less risky pathway for the future because for the first time they know what they have to invest in. Right. They can still do the traditional CapEx thing and other stuff like that, but that can shift at the same time into all these other strategies that are going to be way more popular with their customers and with the elected officials who are the ones who’s who end up taking all the arrows when the utilities screw up because everybody’s angry and who you gonna yell at. So there’s a win win here, I think, for the future.
David Roberts: As you said, this is all affordability. This is all affordability forward, affordability first. And I think in your materials, you say the average American can save $1,800 a year through electrifying. But of course, that average hides a lot. And of course, you know, a lot of a lot of… the affordability argument, let’s just say, was strengthened when there was a giant federal apparatus and a giant federal bill specifically devoted to making those things more affordable, that has largely gone away. And I wonder, are you still, I mean, with the loss of federal subsidies for like EVs and heat pumps and things like that, are you still as confident in the affordability argument? Like how big of a blow do you think that was?
Chris Lee: I mean, it’s you know, not ideal, but actually I think it’s frankly both almost irrelevant and actually, you know, it might be helpful in some unexpected ways. And so I say that because, you know, even though we’re losing, for example, subsidies for EVs in some cases or for other, you know, renewable energy or whatever. The fact is, and we’re seeing this in real time, the cost of that technology as it scales and continues to improve and innovate, continues to fall faster than anybody could have predicted 10, 15 years ago. And we’ve seen the price of solar and batteries decline by like, what, 80, 90%? EVs with the new battery tech and the new chemistries coming online are also dramatically dropping. We’re about to take a group to China later this year, where we’re going to be seeing an EV that can charge from zero to I think it’s like eighty or eighty five percent in five minutes.
David Roberts: Yeah, Chinese EVs will blow some minds, I think.
Chris Lee: Oh yeah. But I mean across the board here, you know, even in the US where we have stricter regulations and higher safety standards and all that stuff, you know, even seeing vehicles now, right, like Slate and a bunch of other models that are in the twenty, thirty thousand dollar range, cheaper than their equivalent counterparts in a lot of cases. And that’s something that you know, will continue and no one’s gonna fight I think the idea that there’s not going to be consumer demand for this. And those things are not subsidized, you know, now with you know future tax credits, right? Those prices are out the door. And so some states are gonna have additional investment incentives, but not everybody. And I don’t think it’s actually gonna be a barrier to continued widespread adoption because people want better, more innovative tech. And once you discover what that can feel like. You know, when you’re sitting behind the wheel. And I was a car guy and used to build cars. I had like a almost nine hundred horsepower Toyota Supra back in the day. And my base model EV right now, which is which cost me, I think twenty nine or thirty one thousand dollars out the door, feels faster than it. Like there’s no going back.
David Roberts: let’s.. while I’ve got you then I want to talk a little bit about Hawaii. Hawaii is interesting and unique cases in many in many ways. But speaking of the temptation of gas, you know, Hawaii has traditionally had oil-fired electricity, imported oil. Almost anything is gonna be cheaper than that. So you sort of had it somewhat unique circumstances in that you could pitch affordability. You could go affordability first, even in 2015, when you were talking about moving to renewables, because, you know, anything’s better than oil. But now your state’s governor is talking about building an LNG import terminal on the Big Island and bringing in gas. I’m curious how you feel about that and what are the dynamics in Hawaii about it, and whether you are still confident that renewables are the cheapest. Or again, like whether in some sense you gotta kinda bring climate back into this to make this argument. How do you feel about that possibility?
Chris Lee: no, I don’t think it’s a climate argument. I mean it could be, but I don’t think that’s what drives the conversation. I think it is affordability. I think it is cost and you know, financial risk to rate payers.
David Roberts: Well of course like the governor the governor is justifying the terminal on the basis of affordability. He’s making the affordability argument too.
Chris Lee: Yeah, yeah, there’s a big there’s a big conversation you know, brewing in the state about this whole thing. I think what I mean from my view, I look at the numbers and the technology and the comparables and kind of the likely outcomes. I don’t see replacing our dependence on costly oil, which we have to ship in from, you know, overseas to replace that with shipping in another fuel of any type, whatever it is, renewable or not, as as something that’s going to be financially viable for the long term. And I don’t think, you know, as we evaluate whatever the proposals are for this or any other technology coming into the state, that it makes sense when you can invest in something directly today, off-the-shelf technology to increase storage and resiliency and a bunch of other stuff to improve the grid and reduce costs with a guaranteed, you know, flat trajectory for price. Versus.. I think you know obviously Iran this year demonstrates more than anything, versus volatility and an unknown price tag that is outside of our control, not only in Hawaii’s control, but outside of the US’s control in many cases.
David Roberts: It does seem strange to look around the world at this particular moment and think, you know what we need to do is get hooked on gas? What about your utility? I’m you know, the Lahaina, the huge mess, and this has financially sort of wrecked your utility. You’re digging out from a lot of those costs. How is that affecting the policy conversation and the electrification conversation? How are you trying to navigate through that?
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, that Lahaina, that’s what are we, two, three years out now.
David Roberts: It wasn’t that long ago.
Chris Lee: Yeah, no, I was I was getting on a flight when it happened. I remember seeing the update. There’s a fire in Lahaina, took off, and by the time I landed, a number of hours later, like opening my phone to the news that this entire town is like gone. Which unfortunately killed a hundred and two people. It was the worst wildfire fatality disaster in US history. It was, you know, striking. And I can say this, you know, I think when we talk about the opportunity that comes out of this, I think we to talk about the missed opportunities as well. Because looking back, there is so much we could have done differently over the years to prepare. I mean, these things are gonna happen from time to time, right? You can’t control nature, you can’t control especially these kinds of sudden events like that. They’re gonna happen. But how you prepare for it and deal with and build out your infrastructure and everything to figure out how to best weather that, we could have done so much more. And I don’t have a single colleague, I think, today, who doesn’t regret having not done something more because the technology is there. And when we talk about our grid, right? It was a it was the whole fire was sparked by a downed, like a wind blown, downed line.
David Roberts: Yes. And this is not a not a unique to Hawaii problem. The electricity grid sparking wildfires and then and then the utility sort of getting saddled with enormous costs, which makes other things difficult.
Chris Lee: Right. That’s that’s increased cost for everybody, everybody across the state. And so, you know, there could have been, for example, you know, better transmission planning. There could have been any number of new technologies looking at like, well, do we need these kinds of wires in these places? Can we do more you know, resilient kind of distributed generation in certain areas where you don’t need to have that kind of risk? You can more easily shut off and island different parts of the grid during these kinds of events where you’re expecting to have a lot of downed lines and everything. And on the recovery end, you know, after an event like this happens, could we build things differently so that we do have microgrids that are running critical infrastructure and, you know, like fire stations and hospitals and all that stuff. And or even just resiliency centers for the community where, you know, for days people didn’t have power afterward or weeks. You could you could do that with on-site renewables and storage and other things. And you know, cool stuff that we’re seeing. Like, I mean, the Oakland EV bus, school bus fleet, right? It’s literally rolling batteries on wheels that are vehicle to grid capable. You could just literally drive into a disaster area with a ton of power and be able to immediately provide support in ways that it would take way longer and way more costly attempts to do to haul in generators and all this other stuff. So we know these kinds of things are possible. And I think that’s part of the conversation. Now, how do we rethink the way that we’re making our planning and investment decisions. Not that we have to spend a ton more money, but just spend the money that we’re spending differently. And I think that’s the opportunity for everybody around the country right now.
David Roberts: One of the premise of the initiative is that states are kind of in the lead here, that a lot of the power over this stuff is still at the state level. And that too is like something I think that has long been accepted. But like the federal government now is very specifically going after states. Like it’s very specific, like it’s going after California, the California EV rules and even like more obscure things like you know, other regulatory powers that California has had for a long time that it has used in the name of decarbonization, going after, you know, and denying disaster relief to blue states and just all kinds of stuff that I think a little people wouldn’t even have thought of as kind of a possibility before before this administration. And then and I’m sort of curious, like, do you still feel like state policy is kind of a haven or separate from the feds, or is some of this just kind of a holding pattern as you wait for a better federal administration? How do you feel about the sort of power of states currently?
Chris Lee: No, you I think you only need to look to history on this. Because we’ve been through this before in different moments in our in our past. And, you know, we are not our country, right? We are not just the federal government. We are, in it’s truest kind of, you know, republican sense of the form, a collection of all these smaller communities, and we work together and yeah, the federal government’s there and it drives a lot of the conversation because it’s the most visible part of it. But frankly, like you know, ninety percent of the decisions that affect us day to day, like when you get up in the morning, what kind of streets you’re driving on, what kind of power you’re getting, what kind of schools your kids have, what kind of healthcare you’re accessing, all these things are decided at the state and local level, more than anything else. And so those are decisions being made by people who live down the street from you that you’re electing and you can talk to and literally go meet for a cup of coffee. And so there’s a very different dynamic there. And I would look back to, you know, even during… And I have this conversation with Republicans and Democrats alike, often, even during the first Trump administration, right, when there was some hostility toward a lot of this stuff, states still moved. And even looking at our not electrification, but the RPS and other laws that were put in place at the time, right? That was like Hawaii at the time was the first state to do 100% RPS. And by the time we got to the end of the Trump administration to the Biden admin, almost half the country had adopted some sort of similar policy. And that was all done at the state level. So there is momentum, I think, and there is responsibility that exists for local leaders and local elected officials, regardless of party, who want to deliver for their residents. And when you get past the politics of this, it comes down to what is the right solution that’s gonna address issues of like affordability or other things that works in my place. And so really it’s a question of who is gonna be the one to drive that? And I think inevitably, inevitably around the country, you’re gonna see states be the ones to stand up and say, we’re gonna go do this or that or the other thing and it’s really gonna be a state level bottom up transition because it already has been and that’s been proven.
David Roberts: Hmm. Okay, so the EII, this initiative is set to run through twenty thirty five. It’s a ten year thing. So we’re curious. Like what’s your vision ten years from now? What does success look like to you? What do what would be measurably different in 10 years as a result of this initiative? What do you what would success look like?
Chris Lee: Yeah, you know, I think I tend to be an optimist. I don’t know if you can tell, but
David Roberts: I think to work in politics you kinda have to
Chris Lee: Yeah. Well, I’m also I’m also jaded and cynical, having been in it for a hot minute now, but I’m still an optimist optimist and an optimistic about this. I think, you know, over the next decade, and beyond, frankly, you know, I think we have this opportunity in our country where, in spite of all the chaos and political division and everything else, you know, we look back at our history and we ask ourselves, what made us great to this point? How did we end up dominating the twenty twentieth century in all the ways? And you look at the country and you look back at the leaders of the time and we collectively embraced who we were. We embraced innovation and we said, we’re gonna be bold and we’re gonna do more. And we were able to build this economy and technologies and infrastructure and everything that let us completely dominate the world in many ways, for better or worse sometimes. But we did it. And I think in the twenty first century, a lot of those technologies that we developed here, like photovoltaic panels and other things like that, right, are now being improved upon and scaled way beyond what we’re doing by other countries and even competing economies like China and others especially, who are doing just, you know, massive investments in innovation. And so if we are going to be able to compete, I think, in the 21st century, I think everybody sees that we have the same playbook that we need to follow. We need to embrace innovation. We cannot get stuck in the past. And we need to be able to do it together so we can empower and create a good playing field for all the industry leaders and innovators and developers out there, who are the core of our economy and ultimately who are the people driving American innovation. And so I’ll give you an example. Looks like I think this. About a year ago or two years ago, I was in convening of all… a bunch of transportation elected officials who were responsible for transportation in their states. And we’re all gathered with the auto industry folks having a conversation about where things are going. And it was the typical, you knsaveow, start, the first like 15, 20 minutes. And it was some folks saying, well, you know, like EVs, you got all these like environmental impacts because batteries and all this stuff and gas cars are outdated. It was just this very polarized debate. And I remember one of the guys from the industry piped in and basically, interrupted and said, look, look, look, guys, like, this is not a political conversation. Here’s the facts as we see them from where we sit. If we do not as American automakers innovate and compete with all the new EV and electric and other innovative technologies out there that other foreign automakers are pursuing, we are not going to be able to compete at all after this and that will be the end of the American auto industry as we know it. And that changed the tenor of a conversation. And it went from the normal stuff to, alright, how do we then make the right investments, make the right decisions? How do we help our own American auto industry innovate so that we can remain competitive globally and we can continue to innovate and deliver improved vehicles at cheaper costs for local folks, you know, regardless of what the politics and technology is. And that realization, I think, is where we’re at across the board right now. How do we improve our overall trajectory? Look at innovation in this economy. And that’s why we’re starting this conversation because electrification, I think, as a tool, as a strategy, is probably the single best opportunity we have to position our economy and everybody within it to compete on the global stage in the 21st century and continue to deliver the kinds of economic growth and quality of life that we have come to expect here in America.
David Roberts: Okay, very final question. And maybe you just maybe you just kind of answered it, but very final question. I’m a brand new state legislator. Just got elected in a purple state in a swing district. I have no particular experience in energy. I have no staff. I have a pad of paper. I have a hundred and fifty lobbyists outside my office. I get in touch with your initiative, with your group. What is the first thing you tell me?
Chris Lee: If you’re interested in diving into some great conversations with fellow colleagues who are working on the exact same issues in states around the country and learn from some of their mistakes, learn from some of their successes so that you don’t have to recreate the wheel, come join the conversation because we can all benefit when we learn from each other.
David Roberts: Awesome. Awesome. Alright. Well thank you so much, Senator Chris Lee. Thanks for coming and talking through this and thanks for, you know, spreading spreading the gospel. Thank you. Thank you for joining
Chris Lee: No, thanks so much. Thanks for helping me move my nerd goalpost here a little bit.
David Roberts: Alright. Thanks. See you now.
Chris Lee: Take care.
