Despite President Donald Trump's dismissive attitude toward renewable energy, Axios reports that those in the industry see signs that the administration won't be as bad to them as some think.
"Initially there was this 'sky is falling' type of discussion juxtaposed with a fossil-fuel based focus with the new administration, but we haven't seen that," Stephen Bull, senior vice president at Statoil, a state-owned Norwegian oil company that is currently focused on offshore wind farming in the U.S., said last week at the American wind Energy Association's annual conference.
Those in the industry worry the energy department is over-reliant on the electric power grid, and that Secretary Rick Perry has a clear preference for fossil fuels over renewable resources.
However, Axios lists three reasons why insiders shouldn't worry, yet, about Perry's Energy Department.
1. Energy said people read too much into Perry's memo requesting a study on the reliability of the power grid, and that nearly everyone in the department "are career level and not political appointees, working with no bias or preconceived notions."
2. Multiple federally funded laboratories are providing energy with its information.
3. Both the head of the win group, Tom Kiernan, and the head of Solar Energy Industries Association, Abby Hopper, spoke in separate interviews of their positive interactions with administration officials.
"It was a really good dialogue about the various attributes that renewable energy brings to the grid," Hopper said to Axios. "We talked a lot about the market and market rules. It was much more focused on that than any preconceived outcome."
Recently, reports emerged that Trump was considering ending America's participation in the Paris climate agreement, though a spokeswoman for Trump told Axios in a statement that the president "supports the growth and expansion of America's renewable energy industry, and will implement policies to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers to innovation in the sector."
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