Voices of 100%: South Carolina City Tries Green Energy in a Red State – Episode 86 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

Podcast: Local Energy Rules
Source: whisper-base
Language: en
Duration: 1344s
URL: https://media.blubrry.com/localenergyrules/content.blubrry.com/localenergyrules/2019-09-ler86-v100-columbia-SC-stephen-benjamin.mp3
Fetched: 2026-03-03 04:18:51

we don't have the leadership in washington right now that seeks to bring everyone together here in this country and certainly not globally but all across this country climate mayors those of us uh... working with the cierra club and so many other groups we are united in our effort to bring people together and make sure people understand that the past climate courts geoto we're still in columbia south carolina is the only city in that state to commit to one hundred percent renewable energy but it has an advantage it's mayor steven venderman is co-chair of cierra clubs national mayors for one hundred percent clean energy campaign in other words he's all in on addressing climate change with clean energy i'm john ferrell director of the energy democracy initiative at the institute for local self-reliance and this is our special voices of one hundred series focused on local leaders and their pursuit of one hundred percent renewable energy it's all part of local energy rules a bi-weekly podcast sharing powerful stories about local renewable energy we're delighted to have mayor steven venderman join us for the program steven welcome to local energy rules so happy to join you thank you for having me you bet i just want to start you know you have been out front on renewable energy as i mentioned in the introduction helping co-chair the cierra clubs mayors for one hundred percent campaign what is it that makes hundred percent renewable energy so important and why is columbia made a commitment to one hundred percent renewable energy well i'm i love being the mayor of columbia south carolina my third term mayor i am a husband jolly god and i may father and the raising two beautiful young girls in the world in which we live right now it really helps you gain perspective that we are indeed stewards of this incredible earth god's given us for them and it's wonderful to have young voices fourteen and twelve informing my world view every day that daddy your um... you protect this earth for us it's inspired me to get active not only in pursuing a just a thoughtful and smart clean energy strategy that means great jobs here in the midlands but also just wanted to show some leadership for similarly situated communities all across the south where sometimes it's tough for a thoughtful progressive policies that breakthrough we've decided we wanted to be a model uh... so we've been pushing here locally because of those reasons so you know a few cities that have made one hundred percent commitments do own their own electric utility which makes this process of meeting a commitment to a hundred percent a lot simpler or at least more simple columbia is one of those that doesn't and according to the federal energy information administration electric utilities in south carolina so just six percent renewable energy in twenty eighteen so i'm going to care how have they reacted to columbia's commitment you know they express support for it offered to help in any way well we you know i i think i'm sure you know south carolina has had an interesting and tortured recent history with our investor on utility a large assault on the base i'll you recently imploded and has been acquired now by dominion energy that presents new opportunities you know historically we've had some real challenges at the state capital working with the ios and and pushing for some very aggressive clean energy goals you know primarily we focused on on uh... on trying to uh... really push for an aggressive and rapid deployment of solar energy across the state but we found some challenges there i suspect now based on the conversations we've had with dominion that will change significantly and we hope and pray that's the case yeah i should mention when you talk about some of those tortured recent history there is a really remarkable article well series of articles really by reporters at the posting career covering some of those issues about that by out and uh... and a nuclear plant that didn't turn out the way folks expected we don't need to go into it too much here but just for our listeners who are wondering about some of that history there's uh... really excellent coverage by your newspaper there about it post-incurrent of the fantastic job uh... covering the the issue it's unfortunate the rate payers all across the state not just our largest invest on utility software on a base invest on utility but also our are state on utility sent to Cooper uh... and the electrical operatives that by their power been settled with uh... billions of dollars worth of a non-performing asset it's a major challenge and hopefully uh... some some thoughtful policy making will allow us to kind of work how we do it at the same amount of energy been devoted to to making sure that we we met a clean energy goals we could have uh... put a few hundred thousand more people back to work in the South Carolina so uh... we'll see if we if we uh... take this opportunity to to make some smart decisions going forward last year on this podcast we were talking with folks in Atlanta who have also made a one hundred percent renewable energy commitment and one of the elements of their commitment was this desire to generate energy locally like within the city of Atlanta does your vision for columbia include renewable energy produced locally we do have a desire to try and produce as much power locally as we can we have the benefit because of the history of our city uh... form that with a broad and slew the rivers meet the form the congary of having bill city on probably the second oldest hydroelectric power plant in the country it was uh... as irony would have it damaged significantly in the storms of october 2015 uh... hurricane what came if in fact we're able to get that back up and running it should be able to produce a minimum of five megawatts of power for the city to use uh... we're also not says of the point of a massive solar farm that would give us the opportunity to meet the needs of our largest energy user at the city are are whispered treatment plant down off of i-77 so while we might not own a large utility like like some other cities around the country might have we're going to be able to put a dent in our power usage and and hopefully reduce our carbon footprint or our contribution to it here in columbia so you know in other cities that have made these commitments i'm thinking of like george town texas or poeble calirato that we've spoken with on this podcast cost has been a big factor in the decision and the good news is for a lot of those cities renewable energy is generally projected to lower energy costs have you found that with that like with the solar project for example that the city and electric customers in columbia are likely to save money in this pursuit of one hundred percent renewable energy absolutely and i'm not only have we seen the savings i mean so much more important in the age in which we live right now you know we um... we live in the world with a significant income volatility and if we're able to help people reduce their power bills by deploying solar panels on their rooftops and help them understand of the larger goal of of helping reduce everything from instances of asthma to sea level rise it's amazing we work with programs like solarized at sea where we've installed enough solar panels on the homes and businesses across the city generates over 8.2 million kilowatt hours of electricity over the next 25 years and that that has the effective removing greenhouse gases about 13 million car miles and the carbon dioxide equivalent of 6.1 million pounds of coal being burned these are significant improvements to not only people's personal bottom line that helps them pay for the other things that matter in life but also helps with our overall health all across the city do you have a sense from some of these projects whether it's the solar on the rooftops the the solar for the wastewater treatment plant like what percentage of the city's energy might come from renewables in the next decade do you have that kind of plotted out at all or is that take one thing at a time get a big chunk here how is that process working we're currently working on on proposal actually with the Sierra Club and really thankful we have an incredible Sierra Club chapter here vibrant leadership statewide some people might be surprised to know that we have incredible active dedicated environmentalists all across South Carolina helping lead the charge but we've spent some time just in the past couple weeks having a discussion with them on how we can work to very concisely quantify the improvements over the next few years it's important that not only do we state that we're doing these things as a matter principle but but to be able to show to people exactly these are the strides that we're making so data matters you know some folks love the deming quote you know in God we trust everyone else permit data we believe in in data here it's allowed us to do our jobs here very effectively we believe in being great stewards of public assets we we finished seven or last nine years with a budget surplus we've not raised taxes in Columbia in a decade we really believe in being able to show people that not only good fiscal stewardship matters but if you if you can show good fiscal stewardship and the data back you up that you can actually do good and do well at the same time we're going to take a short break when we come back we'll continue our voices of 100 interview with Columbia South Carolina Mayor Stephen Benjamin with a discussion of how to help low-income residents how cities can take advantage of low-cost borrowing to advance their goals and his advice for other southern mayors hey thanks for listening to local energy rules if you've made it this far you're obviously a fan and we could use your help for just two minutes as you've probably noticed we don't have any corporate sponsors or ads for any of 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the program Sierra Club and others that have involved in helping cities set these goals have also talked about how how we get 100% renewable energy to benefit anyone and I was curious when we talked to folks in Pueblo, Colorado and in Atlanta there was specific mention of looking at helping low-income folks or communities of color have access to going solar or other strategy to cut their energy bills are there ways specifically that Colombia's focused on other racial or economic equity is part of this goal? Well you know most of our focus has really been around weatherizing homes really some folks their power bills are they dwarf their rent payments or mortgage payments in some of our communities where homes may not have been built well out of deteriorated over years we've used some of our city general fund dollars and some of our community development block grant fund dollars in very creative way they've put a few million dollars actually into one program maintenance assistance program and another program called the PIR PIR program the first program focused on homeowners the second one on landlord that sought to help people weatherize their homes and also deliver solar panels as well just focused on people spinning less of their very finite income on the energy bills we saw some success there we put a couple million dollars into that program and I expect we'll do more of that over time you know the the focus on community color and sometimes depending on where you are in the country that you'll see some very clear socioeconomic lines and parallel race it's important that we be very laser like in our focus on attacking those those shortcomings in our community we have to make sure that we're building cities for all people if we don't do that then we we lose what makes cities special I'm a mayor I'm a former president of U.S. Compton mayors but I tell people I'm a lifetime president of the mayor's mutual admiration society I do believe that that the role of the mayor the role of city leaders is making sure that that we are indeed cities for all people that we don't become these incredibly jerrymandered communities are very specific interests in that we make sure that we speak to the needs of all of our citizens and that requires a great decree of intentionality we've been able to see that with some very specific programs but now we just need that dedication to send more resources to those programs and watch them grow so I really liked this quote that you had in a story about Colombia's commitment a couple of years ago that you live in this F-150 community and it's not a typical liberal city not a not a liberal state does that perspective give you any particular advice that you might have for mayors of other cities in conservative states either about approaching this idea of setting a goal for 100% renewable energy or even like in the implementation phase how that might be different than say a city like Chicago or Minneapolis where Democrats are the overwhelming favorite politically speaking do you have advice for those communities about how they might approach this differently I just encourage people to dialogue with your citizens to focus on the issues that are most important and I'm right now let me thank goodness for most people who are thinking and who care we realize that we are having a significant adverse impact on public health on the health of cities in the world and in which we live and that thoughtful communities that really just grab the bull by the horns and decide that they're going to lead well not only see improve public health but you'll see increased economic opportunity but you'll see the hundreds of thousands and new jobs and clean energy make themselves available with good policy making you'll see significant economic investment and job creation that if you're going to potentially look at deploying additional capital resources that the ability to access the capital markets is more favorable now than has been in generations the lowest cost of debt if you're going to issue bonds maybe help me those goals at the time is right and that you lead by by speaking to people's values you lead by showing them that you're always going to be a good steward of their money and resources I can't speak enough about fiscal stewardship it is core to who we are here in the South and I've learned that if you take care of people's money they give you a lot of latitude to be downright creative and how you deliver good services to them and that's been kind of core to who we are and why not only clean energy but in a number of other areas I won't digress but thoughtful regulations and rules around guns and gun ownership or investments in the arts that usually serve as a light and ride maybe in Congress we're able to do those things here locally because we're good stewards of people's money and we think big we speak to building a community that everyone wants to live in and we've been able to find some some unanimity of purpose as a result of it I'd really appreciate that response and you've mentioned fiscal stewardship a few times and I just want to follow up with a kind of a specific question about the bonds and the low cost of borrowing I'm a reader of Paul Krugman's column in New York Times and he talks about this all the time and other other kind of prominent economists are saying like hey this is a great time for governments to borrow money to invest in communities invest in infrastructure invest in things that will improve the economy because borrowing is so cheap I'm just curious are any of the projects that you're working on around renewable energy things where the city is bonding for them right now or do you have specific plans around that I think that could be really informative to cities in terms of how they approach this you know I'm glad you asked that question even more so on on the mitigation side we issued just this past December the very first stand-alone stormwater bond in the country that was certified as a green bond by the climate bond initiative not a large one thirty eight thirty nine million dollar issue but part of a larger commitment that approaches almost a hundred million dollars that seeks to mitigate using green infrastructure all across the city the effects of flooding in Columbia South Carolina compliments our overall commitment to spend about about a billion dollars in water and sewer and stormwater infrastructure all across the city that helps us with conservation America's greatest challenge right now is a lack of of investment in good clean water infrastructure if you make the right infrastructure of course it significantly reduces your energy usage usage as well we're spending about a billion dollars in that space over a decade or so will continue to do that but the ability to get really really inexpensive debt right now and to invest it in very thoughtful and creative ways like green infrastructure it's something that I would strongly encourage everyone to look at again looking at the fact that every billion dollars you spend also creates about fifteen thousand jobs as well so using it as a generator to put a whole lot of folks back to work who may also be outside of the American economic mainstream who because of decisions they made early in life may be not employed it's a wonderful opportunity to address some of those issues of equity and race that we spoke about earlier as well it's just a winner all around so we just discussed in our last council meeting some of the major improvements we didn't our Martin Luther King junior park area that then not only is a major green infrastructure program that's going to help with flooding in one of our villages it's flooded since for the last 100 years but it's also beautiful and it's put people back to work it really can work really well if folks just think big about the possibilities and again you're never going to find debt this cheap at all so and I say that not just relying heavily on on the capital markets but we've also gotten three upgrades from standing pours and movies over the last several years we've gotten the government finance officers association award of excellence in financial reporting five years in a row we've been great stewards of tax pair and rate pair dollars because we've been deliberate we've been we've been very intentional and we articulated this broader goal this investment in green infrastructure almost a hundred million dollars passed our city council unanimously and i'm not very few major issues passed our council unanimously this did and we're very proud of it I think that's a great story and it already qualifies an answer to this next question in some ways for what other cities are looking to do but is there something that you've maybe read recently or an experience that you've had that inspires you to keep doing this hard work of pursuing clean energy of addressing climate change and of doing it in a way as you've mentioned that is responsible to the citizens of your city well we um obviously this is the time of year where storms come our way and we're watching the severity of storms become stronger and stronger and it's particularly looking back to October of 2015 that actually is my wife's birthday and recognizing that in the greatest natural disaster to hit our our city in its history we lost 19 precious lives we saw billions of dollars worth of damage all across the state when literally 12 trillion gallons of water hit the carolina's really the ability and the opportunity to to lead this community back and watch the goodness of people the very best of people come together was something I will cherish my entire life to understand that and then realize that there were so many things that we could do as a community to prevent events like that from happening and wanting to make the investments on the front end that recognizes that we are a part of a much larger world interconnected and interdependent that's really all the the inspiration I need my children inspire me every day they are they are complete environmentalists they are smart and they're engaged and they read and consume information and they make sure that they see something that that I have in hand as we go about our policy making but I just encourage each and every one of us to realize that we don't have the leadership in Washington right now that seeks to bring everyone together here in this country and certainly not globally but all across this country climate mayors those of us working with the Sierra Club and some of the other groups we are united in our effort to bring people together and make sure people understand that the Paris Climate Accord Skiodo we're still in we're still in and we're going to continue pushing to make sure that at least here and and the greatest and most powerful democratic nation in the history of the world that we're doing our part I want people to be encouraged and inspired we're all still working well mayor Benjamin thank you for those words of wisdom thank you for your public service and thank you so much for talking with us today I really appreciate it I appreciate your time thank you so much thank you so much for listening to this episode of our voices of 100% podcast series with three-term mayor Stephen Benjamin of Columbia South Carolina to learn about other cities pursuing 100% renewable energy check out our 12 additional voices of 100% interviews including leaders in Madison Wisconsin and Cleveland Ohio or even a beta springs Louisiana also on the website of the institute for local self-reliance you can find the entire list of 100% cities on our community power map and click through an interactive community power toolkit for stories on how cities have advanced toward their goal tune back in to local energy rules every two weeks to hear more powerful stories of communities taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system until next time keep your energy local and thanks for listening