ClearPath announces effort to make clean energy a priority for the GOP

To spur fresh ideas and stimulate thoughtful debate about the merits of clean energy, conservative philanthropist Jay Faison, founder and CEO of ClearPath, a private foundation, announced today at the National Press Club the launch of a seven-figure digital campaign targeting GOP policymakers and energy policy advocates.

Faison, who is based in Charlotte, N.C., said there is now opportunity for Republicans to lead with a conservative clean energy agenda. Such a move would cast the GOP as a more forward-looking party and help the GOP win voters, he said. ClearPath’s research, he said, indicates that 72% of Republican voters favor clean energy and accelerating its development and use. Demographically, that pool of voters keeps growing.

Next week, ClearPath will launch a new $1 million digital campaign with ads that direct inside-the-Beltway policymakers to ClearPath.org for policy analysis and an interactive polling and messaging tool with data drilled down to state and district levels. ClearPath has not endorsed a presidential candidate.

Through its new super PAC, ClearPath Action, ClearPath plans to insert itself further into the political realm by finding and supporting clean energy-minded candidates in legislative races. The ClearPath CPAC will campaign to raise $7 to $10 million to support candidates favoring clean energy, Faison said.

“Energy drives everything we do,” he said. “It drives our national defense, our economy, and for the longest time, it’s been a very divided debate.” The conservative clean energy vision will insert logic to fill the “vacuum” in the middle between the left’s penchant for “subsidies and top-down regulations” and the right’s “drill, baby, drill,” he said.

ClearPath’s policy focuses on four pillars -- nuclear energy, clean coal and gas, hydropower, and innovation. While innovation helps build markets here and abroad, “clean energy creates jobs, it increases energy independence, and it lowers environmental and carbon pollution,” he said.

Faison admits that while not all Republican policymakers are on board with the notion of climate change, most will agree on the merits of developing and using clean energy.

ClearPath considers itself the “trusted broker, providing the politics, policy, and messaging for conservative clean energy," Faison said. "We work with the best and smartest groups that we can,” on behalf of the party and the country.

ClearPath was founded last year with a personal infusion of $165 million from Faison as philanthropy following the sale of his company, SnapAV. At the Newsmaker, Faison announced ClearPath’s new Washington, DC office and expanded advisory team.

ClearPath’s new DC office will be managed by Zak Baig, former majority staff director for the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

ClearPath’s conservative advisors now include polling expert Kristen Soltis Anderson, former White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Jim Connaughton, former RGA Executive Director Phil Musser, and former NRFCC Executive Director Liesl Hickey.