America’s energy picture has changed

Not so long ago, the odds that clean and renewable energy powered your life were practically nil.

In 2001, the wind, the sun and heat from the subsurface of the Earth generated less than one half of one percent of our country’s electricity. If you were traveling throughout America during that year, you’d rarely spot a wind turbine or solar panels on a roof. You couldn’t find energy-saving LED light bulbs on store shelves: The technology wasn’t there yet; the cost was prohibitive. You could buy a hybrid Toyota Prius, but not an electric Tesla: The company didn’t exist yet. 

Meanwhile, more pollution was being dumped into your community’s skies and waters, cutting short the lives of some of your loved ones, while the entire planet was warming — all due to America’s dangerous and near-total dependence on dirty energy sources.

Fast forward two decades and it’s easy to see that America’s energy picture has changed.

You find LED bulbs everywhere; they cost just a few bucks each. You might drive one of the more than 1 million electric cars buzzing along our roads. If you happen to stumble upon the 2020 edition of Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Renewables on the Rise report, you learn that renewable energy in America is spreading like dandelions on a lawn — producing more than 40 times as much renewable electricity from the sun and three times as much from the wind as we did in 2010. 

You sense that a quiet revolution is unfolding. The growth of clean, renewable American energy is accelerating. 

What changed?

Cracking the conundrum

For decades, the growth of renewable energy had sputtered and stalled.

Advocates faced a chicken-and-egg problem: The cost, especially the upfront price, of wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies deterred investment and adoption. The lack of investment and adoption left entrepreneurs with little incentive to achieve the innovation and economies of scale that drive down costs. Renewable energy was going nowhere fast. 

Over time, however, clean energy advocates figured out a way to crack this conundrum: by persuading state and local officials to make steadily more ambitious commitments to wind, solar, energy efficiency and other clean energy technologies. 

Along with nearly $90 billion in federal investments (and even greater investments in clean energy technologies in countries such as China), these policies produced undeniably positive results: Innovation accelerated, costs plummeted, and the country now generates 20 times more clean, renewable electricity than it did in 2001.

Nobody did more to craft, advocate and organize support for the state and local policies that helped fuel this growth than the staff, supporters and allies of PIRG and Environment America. 

Among the most consequential efforts were three campaigns: one that helped commit 29 states to increase their reliance on wind and solar power to generate electricity, another that put California on a path to a million solar roofs, and another that bound nine states to an even bolder commitment: 100% clean energy.

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A dream put on hold

The future of clean energy appeared bright at the Democratic National Convention in 1980. 

Driven by the PIRG-organized Campaign for Safe Energy and championed by U.S. Sen. (then-Rep.) Ed Markey (Mass.), delegates at the convention approved a plank in the party’s platform calling for a $100 billion investment over five years to achieve a goal of 20% solar energy by the year 2000.

The election of Ronald Reagan put that dream on hold — and even brought down the solar panels that President Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House roof. Federal support for clean energy under Reagan withered.

A new idea spreads across the nation

Slowly, however, renewable energy came back to life across America, a reawakening due in large part to policies that only a true clean energy wonk could love: state renewable portfolio standards.

Starting in Iowa in 1983, the idea began to spread, with help from clean energy advocates with state PIRGs and, later, Environment America and its state environmental groups. By 2020, 29 states had set concrete, and often steadily rising, goals for renewable energy. In 19 of these states, driven by the leadership of our top energy advocate, Rob Sargent, our advocates played key roles in winning approval of the standards or expanding them. 

We celebrated each success, but to be clear these policies were not the stuff of headline news — until, that is, a new energy crisis hit California in 2001 and, for the first time ever, renewable energy appeared on a statewide ballot, in Colorado in 2004.

Explore an interactive timeline of our clean energy milestones.

Confronting a crisis in California

In 2001, after California deregulated its electricity market, the energy-trading firm Enron saw an opportunity to create artificial shortages and jack up rates. Rolling blackouts darkened the state’s homes. Utilities went bankrupt. 

In the early days of the crisis, Gov. Gray Davis signaled his approval for dozens of new gas-fired power plants, a move that would have left the state more dependent on dirty energy for decades. 

Dan Jacobson, a young advocate with CALPIRG, had an alternative plan: double the state’s commitment to clean, renewable power.

Dan and his CALPIRG colleagues convened a panel of economists to discuss the economic benefits of clean energy; released reports showing that California could generate 25% of its energy from wind, solar and other clean, renewable sources within a decade and highlighting the dangers of increased dependence on natural gas; built grassroots support across the state; and requested that the state devote a $5 billion bond to clean energy.

In 2002, Gov. Davis shifted his position, authorizing the expenditure of the majority of the $5 billion bond on clean energy and endorsing and eventually signing the Clean Energy Bill, committing California to obtain 20% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2017. 

The goal meant that California would produce more renewable energy than all 49 other states combined.

Putting energy on the ballot in Colorado

More than a year later in Colorado, an effort to convince state lawmakers to pass a similar Clean Energy Bill fell short — for the fourth time. 

Matt Baker, then executive director of the newly formed Environment Colorado (now the deputy secretary of energy in California), faced a choice: Make a fifth try to convince the Legislature to pass the bill or take the risker, costlier option of bringing the issue before the state’s voters.

Matt made the right call. Despite a full-scale attack on the initiative waged by Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility, on November 2, 2004, Colorado voters approved the nation’s first renewable energy ballot question, transforming the politics of energy in the state. 

Lawmakers have since increased the state’s renewable energy goals three times. By 2019, Colorado was generating 25% of its electricity from renewable sources. And Xcel had committed to going 100% carbon-free by 2050.

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Teaming up with the ‘Solarnator‘

By 2005, Californians had installed only 20,000 solar energy systems — enough to meet only a tiny percentage of the electricity needs for a growing population of 35 million and counting.

That made no sense to state Sen. Kevin Murray of Los Angeles, who introduced a bill calling for one million solar roofs on the state’s homes, businesses, farms and schools. 

Home builders, a major force in California politics, opposed the Murray bill, objecting to a provision requiring the installation of solar panels on every new home. Environment California urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, known to moviegoers for his role as The Terminator, to become the Solarnator and fulfill his promise to lift up solar power. 

With our help, the Solarnator delivered. 

As Gov. Schwarzenegger and lawmakers agreed to a compromise 10-year, $3 billion solar rebate program, Environment California mobilized public support behind the bill in communities across the state. The home builders dropped their opposition and the bill became law on Aug. 21, 2006. 

Celebrating a solar milestone

A little more than 13 years later, at a Dec. 12, 2019 event, former Gov. Schwarzenegger and Gov. Jerry Brown joined Dan and Environment California’s Bernadette Del Chiaro (now the executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association) in celebrating California’s one millionth solar roof — a 50-fold increase since 2005. 

The Million Solar Roofs Initiative helped drive down the price of rooftop solar from $9.45 per watt in 2006 to $3.80 per watt in 2018, helping to persuade home builders — who opposed the original Million Solar Roofs bill — to support an Environment California-backed policy requiring solar on all new homes. The state adopted the policy on Dec. 5, 2018. 

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Drawing a bright line

By 2016, the convergence of three developments gave our clean energy efforts even greater urgency.

The pace of climate change was accelerating. The federal government had failed to adequately respond by making the necessary changes in our nation’s energy policies (and, with the election of Donald Trump as president, was not going to do better for at least four more years). Meanwhile, there was hope that, with the right push, renewable energy technologies could soon reach a positive tipping point. 

Environment America’s Margie Alt and Rob Sargent concluded that it was time to draw a bright line: to persuade first the environmental community, then the public, and then decision-makers that our collective goal should be a country powered by 100% renewable energy.

On March 30, Environment America and Frontier Group released We Have the Power, a survey of studies that, said Research Director Susan Rakov, indicated that America could in fact power our future entirely with renewable energy.

California commits to 100% zero-carbon electricity

As the idea of smaller-scale commitments to 100% renewable energy gained toeholds in such cities as Lancaster, California and such college campuses as Cornell University in New York, our network sought to win commitments in a larger forum: the statewide level. 

A pivotal moment occurred as Environment California’s Dan Jacobson received a phone call from state Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin DeLéon. The senator had caught wind that advocates at Environment Massachusetts had drafted legislation to move the Bay State to 100% renewable energy. Sen. DeLéon had no intention of letting Massachusetts get ahead of California. He asked Dan for the Massachusetts bill language, and soon thereafter the senator introduced the symbolically named Senate Bill 100: “100” for 100% zero-carbon energy.

Dan and the Environment California team enlisted the support of more than 250 organizations, from the California Catholic Conference to the business association the Silicon Valley Leadership Group; organized district meetings with 25 lawmakers; hosted multiple citizen “lobby days”; organized media events in 13 cities and towns; and earned the backing of an array of public figures, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Leonardo DiCaprio.

As a final touch to the campaign, Dan ordered hundreds of baseball caps embroidered with “100%" and handed them to coalition partners, legislators and anybody else he could convince to wear one. (Dan claims he now has a permanent ridge in his hair from wearing his 100% cap all day, every day.)

On Sept. 10, 2018, Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 100 into law, committing the state to 60% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% zero carbon electricity by 2045. Environment America’s Rob Sargent wrote, “Visionaries, experts and political leaders have talked for years about what a zero-carbon electricity system might look like and whether it is even possible. California’s message to them is: ‘Watch us. Let us show you how it’s done.’”

Nine states committed to 100%

The win in California turbocharged our efforts to win similar commitments in other states. 

In New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on March 22, 2019, signed legislation calling for the state to go 100% carbon-free by 2045. Sen. Jacob Candelaria, the chief sponsor of the bill, praised Sanders Moore, then director of Environment New Mexico, calling her "general of the bill." On May 7 that year, climate champion Gov. Jay Inslee signed a similar bill into law. In each case, Dan Jacobson shipped some 100% ballcaps to each state for the bill-signings.

As of mid 2021, nine states have enacted legislation committing to 100 % clean energy, including Hawaii, Maine, New York, Virginia, Oregon and Illinois.

Going into 2022, our state environmental groups are campaigning in Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin to set similar goals. And Environment California is urging state officials to speed up the timeline for achieving its 100% goal. Said 100% Renewable Campaign Director Emma Searson, “State policies have played an outsized role in securing the remarkable progress we’ve seen to date. We plan to make sure that those laboratories of democracy continue using their winning formulas to transform our energy future in the years ahead.”

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