Another Renewable Energy Basher and Koch Network Alum Joins Trump's Department of Energy

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Until February, Christine Harbin spent much of this decade fighting against state and federal clean energy initiatives for organizations with close ties to the petrochemical billionaireย Koch brothers. Now, however,ย she has joined the Trump administrationย as a senior adviser for external affairs in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE)ย Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, which deals primarily with the electricityย grid.

Before joining a number of other Koch network alum in the Trump administration, Harbin served as vice president of external affairs at Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded group with nearly three dozen active state chapters pushing for conservative legislation at the state and national levels. She had worked for Americans for Prosperity sinceย 2012.

Before that, she was employed for a year with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Koch-funded and founded group that writes so-called โ€œmodel legislationโ€ for state governments and cultivates relationships with mainlyย GOP state legislators through its meetings and summits in the interest of advancing โ€œlimited government, free markets, and federalism at the stateย level.โ€

Chrissy Harbin’s History of Clean Energy Attacks at Americans forย Prosperity

While working at Americans for Prosperity, Harbin often criticized the Obama administration’s clean energy policies, including, repeatedly, the president’sย signature Clean Power Plan, which proposed reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector, including coal-fired powerย plants.

She also used her position in Americans for Prosperity’s national office to coordinate local โ€œgrassrootsโ€ groups in campaigns and messaging against wind power. The first of these efforts came to light in 2012, as David Anderson explained on the Energy and Policy Institute blog:

โ€œ[I]t was Christine Harbin of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity that organized a 2012 letter signed by a number of local anti-wind groups and national organizations backed by the Koch brothers, according to a document found on the website of one of the signers, Auglaize Neighbors United. Among the signers were AWED, Freedomworks, and the American Energyย Alliance.โ€

Evidence of Harbin’s coordination can be seen in the draft letter that was circulated to the localย groups:

And also in the final product, which was signed by dozens of national and local groups and published online:

In June 2014, a similar letter was published as a full page ad in Politico. Further investigation by The Energy and Policy Institute found that some of the โ€œorganizationsโ€ that signed the letter were little more than names on paper, with no online presence or formal organizationalย structure.

In December 2015 and January 2016, Harbin penned a pair of op-eds for The Hill in which she bashed the production tax credit (PTC) for wind power, which Congress was in the process of extending through 2020 in a massive omnibus spending bill. Though she called the PTC โ€œcorporate welfareโ€ and โ€œforced investmentโ€ for American taxpayers, she neglected to mention the much larger and permanent tax breaks and subsidies that are enjoyed by the fossil fuel industries, such as the $4.86 billion (on average, in today’s dollars) that the oil and gas industry has received every year sinceย 1918.

In February 2018, Harbin left Americans for Prosperity to join the Department of Energy, where she will work alongside a number of fellow Koch network alums.

But if a genuine concern of Harbin’s is seeking โ€œenergy solutions that can make it on their own in the marketplace โ€” not ones that need to be propped up by government indefinitely,โ€ she may get a shock at the DOE under Secretary Rick Perry.

Last fall Secretaryย Perryย proposed a controversial rule, which sought to prop up ailing coal and nuclear plantsย by guaranteeing to pay them for all of theirย power, whether or not it was needed,ย in the name of grid โ€œresiliency.โ€ Perry’s plan contradicted the conclusions of his own agency about the state of the American power grid, andย was ultimately rejected.

The DOE‘s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, where Harbin now works, is charged with โ€œ[developing] new technologies to improve the infrastructure that brings electricity into our homes, offices, and factories, and the federal and state electricity policies and programs that shape electricity system planning and marketย operations.โ€ย 

Under the Obama administration, this office focused greatly on electric grid reliability and promoting the โ€œnext generationโ€ of transmissionย technology.

If Harbin’s recent work history in Koch-funded organizations is any indication, she will use the office to promote fossil fuel generation as a sort of โ€œcure allโ€ for electric system reliability issues, and to bash wind and solar power asย โ€œunreliable.โ€

Main image:ย Aerial view of technicians working on the 1.5 MW wind turbine at the National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) National Wind Technology Center. Credit:ย  Dennis Schroeder/NREL, publicย domain

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Ben Jervey is a Senior Fellow for DeSmog and directs the KochvsClean.com project. He is a freelance writer, editor, and researcher, specializing in climate change and energy systems and policy. Ben is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School. He was the original Environment Editor for GOOD Magazine, and wrote a longstanding weekly column titled โ€œThe New Ideal: Building the clean energy economy of the 21st Century and avoiding the worst fates of climate change.โ€ He has also contributed regularly to National Geographic News, Grist, and OnEarth Magazine. He has published three booksโ€”on eco-friendly living in New York City, an Energy 101 primer, and, most recently, โ€œThe Electric Battery: Charging Forward to a Low Carbon Future.โ€ He graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College, and earned a Masterโ€™s in Energy Regulation and Law at Vermont Law School. A bicycle enthusiast, Ben has ridden across the United States and through much ofย Europe.

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