Solar is now a non-partisan issue as Republicans embrace clean energy.

It used to be that Republicans relentlessly mocked clean energy, especially in the 2012 election. Mitt Romney made it a habit to bring up the fact that Barack Obama wanted to expand green energy and get people employed and green jobs. To the Republicans, the idea of “green jobs” was once a laughable concepts. Now, in 2018, people would laugh at someone saying something like that. So, what changed?

Solar jobs are expanding and growing.

Last year alone, 250,000 new solar jobs were created. Solar now has twice as many jobs as the coal industry, which Donald Trump is on a mission to bring back. While Trump’s sets his sights backwards, the majority of Republicans are now facing towards the future.

Aside from the number of jobs created in general, the main reason Republicans changed their minds about green, clean energy was because these jobs started coming to Republican-leaning areas. If their party continued to try to make this issue partisan, people employed in this industry would start turning on them in increasing numbers. It only makes sense for them to not want to lose their supporters who are employed in the solar industry.

Dan Reicher, the Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration, said, “Republicans are seeing a huge number of big paying jobs being created in their states. It’s the economic reality. It was inevitable they would come to this conclusion.”

The huge impact of solar energy.

There are almost 3.2 million clean energy jobs in America, in every state. Solar panel installers are becoming one of the fastest growing careers in the world, as more and more of them are needed every year. With the increase in solar panels being bought, there comes the increase in people needed to manufacture and install them. This is, in turn, creating a new, huge boost to the economy that every Republican should begin to acknowledge so that they can become apart of this growing industry.

“These are attainable jobs that can be done by anybody,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs. “They are being done by people in communities all across America - Republicans, Democrats, and everywhere in between.”

Clean energy has become a completely non-partisan issue.

Clean energy is still seen as a Democrat position. However, the reality is that clean energy is now a completely non-partisan issue. As of a 2016 study conducted by Vanderbilt University, conservative states are just as likely to be in favor of green energies as liberal states.

William Timmons, a Republican nominee in South Carolina’s 4^th District, said, “Regardless of your thoughts on climate change, renewables just make sense. We should harness it however we can. If all else is equal and I can get solar energy for the same price with no emissions versus fossil fuels that have emissions, I don’t see any reason not to go the cleaner route.”

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