Sen. John Fetterman is getting tired of people asking him if he’s become a Republican. But he says he might use his newfound friendship with Donald Trump to push clean energy — despite the president’s hostility towards it.
“I’m the same person I’ve always been,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “For me, the labels have left me, but one that won’t is being a Democrat. That’s not going to change.”
His frustration comes after being criticized as the only Democrat thus far to travel to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, and for later supporting Attorney General Pam Bondi’s nomination.
More chatter came after his recent comments to Puck that Democrats were mistakenly “freaking out” about Trump.
He refuted the idea his intentions are suspect. “So, perhaps if we could just change the narrative that I’m making some kind of sinister moves when I just happen to have some independence on things.”
In fact, the Pennsylvania Democrat, who has bucked his party on several occasions, said he would use his open dialogue with Trump to push Democratic priorities like clean energy incentives. And given the rise of solar, wind and hydropower in many right-leaning states, he thinks he’ll get some traction.
“It’s a fact that a lot of the green energy things … red states are producing a lot of it,” he said. “Four out of the top five [clean energy producing states] are either red and or purple. So yeah, I think he will discover some of those kinds of investment tend to bend toward red states and their own constituents. They will probably discover that was smart investments. I don’t support cutting all those kinds of things.”
There’s plenty of data to back that up. An election year analysis by Atlas Public Policy showed that seven swing states, including Pennsylvania, are on track to host 44 percent of of clean energy manufacturing projects announced by the Biden administration. All of those states voted for Trump.
Another analysis from the Democratically aligned group Climate Power showed Pennsylvania has seen $1.33 billion in investment and helped “create or move forward” 4,692 good-paying clean energy jobs since the climate law was enacted in 2022. The report says a majority of new clean energy investments are in districts held by Republicans and half of the top 10 states for new clean energy jobs have been under Republican governors.
Despite all those rosy statistics, Fetterman has a tough hill to climb. Trump and Republicans aim to reverse course from Biden climate and energy policies and repeal as much of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy incentives as politically palatable. Trump has issued spending edicts and executive actions that aim to thwart wind and solar energy.
In the past, Fetterman has given Democrats and greens some heartburn. Last year, he gave mixed signals ahead of a vote rolling back a Biden administration rule cracking down on tailpipe emissions. Republicans had railed against the action as a de facto “electric vehicle mandate,” but after intense lobbying from environmental groups, Fetterman joined his Democratic colleagues to vote the effort down.
For now, Fetterman says he’s going to keep the lines of communication open with Trump. “He’s established that there is a channel and that it’s open,” he said. “And that’s not something I’m going to abuse. Or I’m not just going to call him up and be like, ‘Hey.'”
But he added of his clean energy push: “I’m going to bring concerns on those kinds of things.”
