Latest / Energy Empire / Bonus Episode: Former EPA Administrator Michael Regan on Data Centers and Public Health (Recorded at UNC Clean Tech Summit)

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Bonus Episode: Former EPA Administrator Michael Regan on Data Centers and Public Health (Recorded at UNC Clean Tech Summit) · Energy Empire

• 0:00
  Hey, it's Jigger Shaw. Welcome back to Energy Empire.
• 0:04
  This is the second of our three special episodes from the UNC
• 0:08
  Clean Tech Summit, produced in partnership with Suncast.
• 0:12
  This week. I sat down with Michael Regan,
• 0:15
  the 16th administrator of the EPA under President Biden and
• 0:19
  the first black man to ever lead the agency.
• 0:23
  It's a pretty candid conversation.
• 0:26
  Love to know how you think about it.
• 0:35
  A lot of folks want to characterize clean energy and
• 0:39
  climate as an existential threat in a fight, and I'm not going to
• 0:44
  say that they aren't. But when it comes right down to
• 0:48
  the work that we're trying to accomplish, it is about
• 0:51
  establishing long term healthful environments for our families
• 0:57
  and for the generations to come. Few people have been able to tie
• 1:00
  the work that we're doing in energy and climate to public
• 1:03
  health. Like our next guest, Michael
• 1:06
  Regan is the former administrator of the EPA and is
• 1:11
  also a fellow N Carolinian. It's awesome to have you here,
• 1:15
  Michael, with Jigger and I on this collaboration podcast
• 1:19
  between Suncast and Energy Empire.
• 1:21
  Well, thank you all for having me.
• 1:22
  I'm a big fan of the podcast and you finally invited me.
• 1:25
  That's right. You've made it.
• 1:27
  We didn't have practice reps before we got superstars on you.
• 1:31
  Know I was. Going to say I feel like we've
• 1:32
  made it now so. That's great.
• 1:35
  I mentioned that you grew up here in North Carolina.
• 1:37
  You know your father is a veteran National Guard, worked
• 1:41
  in agriculture, helping farmers take care of their land.
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  You grew up like I did, hunting and fishing and really
• 1:48
  understanding the stewardship of the land.
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  Did you talk about what it was like growing up in that world?
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  I had a blast. I I grew up hunting and fishing
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  with my father and grandfather. And, you know, it wasn't just
• 2:01
  sort of being out in nature hunting and fishing.
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  It was being with my father and grandfather an opportunity to
• 2:10
  bond and to learn and hear the stories.
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  And so I really valued that time.
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  It was very precious to me and growing up I did have some
• 2:22
  issues, some respiratory issues that were exacerbated by
• 2:25
  pollution. And when the ozone was really
• 2:29
  intense, those ozone action days, those were times that I
• 2:33
  could not be outdoors with my father and grandfather.
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  So you can imagine as a kid wanting to be out there with
• 2:39
  them and having to sit in the house, that was no fun.
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  Sort of very early age, I started to make the connection
• 2:48
  between public health personally and nature and the environment.
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  But I had a wonderful childhood, rural eastern North Carolina,
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  and I really try to always think back to what that meant to me
• 3:06
  and how do I incorporate that into my service.
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  Yeah, I think when you think about, you know, the origin
• 3:14
  story of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, right, the
• 3:17
  Cuyahoga River being on fire, you know, 20 million Americans,
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  I mean, 10% of the entire US population participated in the
• 3:25
  first Earth Day. Yes, Right.
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  I mean, clearly there were a lot of people who had that similar
• 3:32
  sort of life story to you around the fact that something was
• 3:36
  clearly wrong, right? That we were a lot of balance in
• 3:41
  a way, right? And that we were prioritizing,
• 3:44
  you know, economic growth over human health, right?
• 3:47
  Talk more about your, you know, the bad air days and like, you
• 3:52
  know, how did you make a connection between that
• 3:57
  experience for you and what was causing it?
• 4:00
  Yes, that's a very good question.
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  It took a while for me to really make that connection.
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  But in high school, you know, as the chemistry and biology
• 4:12
  classes become more intent, you start to ask yourself some
• 4:16
  questions and you start to understand how these things
• 4:19
  connect. And it's at that point where you
• 4:23
  really start to talk to others. And at that time in life, we
• 4:27
  didn't really have the vocabulary to understand
• 4:32
  environmental justice. We just knew what was happening
• 4:34
  to us as individuals, but then you talk to others in your
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  community and then you realize, hey, this is happening more
• 4:40
  frequently than one might think. I pursued an environmental
• 4:45
  science degree at Anti State University, and it's really
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  there that I started to understand the connectivity to
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  pollution, public health, and the impact to natural resources.
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  I think it's something that has always been a focus because it's
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  so personal. But again, you quickly realize
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  it's not just about us as individuals.
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  You start to talk to others and see, quite frankly, that there
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  are some that have it much worse than you do.
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  And when I look back and I think about some of the surrounding
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  communities where I grew up, there were a lot of communities
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  that were much closer to a hog lagoon than we were, much closer
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  to a coal ash pond than we were most, much closer to an
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  industrial operation than we were.
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  And it's at that juncture you start to think, wow, what if I
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  lived that close to some of those operations?
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  I would have been in much worse condition.
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  And that's where some of the passion comes from.
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  Now, you mentioned coal ash. A lot of folks now rightly know
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  the work that you did at the EPA before that you were running
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  North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality, won a
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  landmark case against Duke, 80 million tons of coal ash as an
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  as a judgement that that alone must have felt very sort of
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  vindicating and and honorable in the work.
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  I'm curious the amount of work that you did that really is it
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  it changed the way chemical companies and utilities think
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  about how they have to interact with the communities.
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  Yes. It's transformative, not just
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  for the state of North Carolina, but other states that are
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  watching and learning from it. Where did that confidence come
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  from to attack this kind of a social justice issue?
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  I have to tell you, while I always had a a personal
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  intrinsic motivation, the day I was being sworn in as Secretary
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  of the Department of Environmental Quality, I bumped
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  into a former governor, Jim Hunt, who told me that if I
• 6:54
  really wanted to know the state, that I needed to visit all 100
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  counties. We did 90 counties and then
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  COVID hit. But during that tour and
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  visiting those 90 counties, when you sit down in the living room
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  with the mother whose child has asthma that's exacerbated by a
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  cement kiln, or if you're talking to some grandparents
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  whose water wells have been contaminated by coal ash, if you
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  care, it's really hard to look away.
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  And so spending time in the communities with people in their
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  living rooms, one-on-one, having the personal conversations led
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  me to believe that I had to do everything that I could to
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  uphold the mission of the agency, which is to protect
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  public health. When most people think about
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  EPA, they think about the environment.
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  I think about EPA. It's really a public health
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  agency 1st. And so staying connected in that
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  way really incentivize me to push as hard as possible.
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  Working with the former attorney general who is now governor of
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  North Carolina, Josh Stein, and the Department of Justice, we
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  pursued the largest coal ash settlement in United States
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  history. I think Duke Energy understood
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  that they needed to put that chapter behind them so that we
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  all could collectively focus on clean energy, and they could not
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  focus on a clean energy future with that dark cloud hanging
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  over them. And we needed to rectify the
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  significant issues that they caused in so many communities
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  all across North Carolina. No, I think that's well said.
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  I you know, I I continue to struggle though with, you know,
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  the fact that the EPA really was created around as you suggested,
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  all of these communities were in some ways forced to live next to
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  a lot of this pollution and that there was a responsibility to to
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  find a balance. Yes right.
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  And, you know, when communities tested their own water, did
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  something to, like, you know, prove that there was maybe some
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  harm there, that there was a responsive EPA to, like,
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  actually help them through that process.
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  I do think that there's been a feeling on behalf of many of
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  these communities and it bubbled up a lot in the wake of George
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  Floyd's death, right? Going into the 2020 election,
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  that EPA was really focused on shutting down coal plants, but
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  not necessarily focused on serving those communities.
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  I'm wondering whether you heard the same thing from those
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  communities and whether like while you were administrator,
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  like they felt more heard that the processes felt more
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  transparent. Like, I mean, what is it that
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  like, what is the relationship now between those communities
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  and those groups and. EPA.
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  Well, I'll tell you, I learned a ton from the Governor Hunt
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  suggestion. And so when I became EP
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  administrator, within a couple of months we launched a Journey
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  to Justice tour. It started with Mississippi,
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  Louisiana, and Texas, but by the time we finished with the
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  administration, we had toured the entire country, including
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  Puerto Rico and Alaska. It reshaped my agenda.
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  Of course, the president had an agenda, but spending time in
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  those communities, whether you're in McDowell County, West
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  Virginia or Lowndes County, Alabama, when you see straight
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  piping out the side of a house into the Creek where people are
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  getting their water, when you understand the number of
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  petrochemical facilities that are lay lined against, lined up
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  against communities in Louisiana, that's where you
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  start to really focus the agency's mission.
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  And we're supposed to provide equal protection under the law
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  for everyone, irrespective of political affiliation, how much
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  money they have in their pocket or the color of their skin.
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  And so I will tell you that the folks in Alaska are Puerto Rico
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  in the South, in the Southwest, really helped me understand that
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  you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
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  You can't solely focus on coal plants.
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  You have to focus on all pollution sources, and you have
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  to prioritize the communities that are most vulnerable.
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  And I believe that's what we did.
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  And not only do I believe it, we received billions of dollars
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  from Congress to pursue these actions.
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  And to answer your question directly, over the four year
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  period I was EPA Administrator, we developed relationships with
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  communities that had never existed before.
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  We've worked very hard to earn their trust and right now it's a
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  significant disappointment that they are not having the same
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  seat at the table that we gave them.
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  Administrator, it is I, I share that sense of disappointment and
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  I'm sure that we can dig in a little deeper on kind of what
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  you're seeing now from the sidelines before we go there.
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  And I appreciate you tying connecting the work that you did
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  visiting all the counties to the journey of justice.
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  I'd like a little bit more understanding of how that showed
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  up in regulations that you wrote.
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  How did it affect the work more than the dollars that were
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  funded flowing in? How did they show up in
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  legislation during your time? Well, I can tell you what it the
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  first place it showed up in was enforcement.
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  Yeah. We were not taking action in
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  these communities from an enforcement standpoint like we
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  should. The data and the record from the
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  enforcement action further substantiated the direction we
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  needed to go in many regulations to ensure that everyone was
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  properly protected. And there were some flaws in our
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  regulations that left certain data sets out for certain people
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  behind. And so as we pursued regulations
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  for certain chemicals, as we looked at the emissions coming
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  from petrochemical facilities, as we looked at, you know, our
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  natural gas facilities, our coal facilities, we were able to put
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  certain people and certain data sets and certain things in the
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  context and demand that certain technologies be applied.
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  It was never about shutting down any facility.
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  It was about controlling the pollution and the emissions. 1
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  regulation that I will point out is a regulation focused on the
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  petrochemical industry. And there is a community in
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  Louisiana in one of the parishes where we reduce the risk of
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  elevated cancer by over 96% with 1 regulation.
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  And and that regulation really brought into focus how we have
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  been missing the mark for so many years.
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  Yeah, I mean, I, I think that like when you think about what
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  this new administration, you know, the, the press and the
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  narrative that's coming out of it around the endangerment, you
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  know, find finding the, the coal plant work, etcetera.
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  You know. Give me some more information on
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  what they're doing on the enforcement side of things,
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  because I don't see that in the press.
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  I don't feel like that's part of the narrative.
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  I don't feel like folks are talking about it.
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  I mean, are they rolling back enforcement?
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  Are they rolling back? You know, some of the good work
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  that's done on clean air and clean water?
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  Absolutely, We are seeing a retreat from the leadership
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  position that EPA should play. The endangerment finding
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  argument really from this administration isn't about the
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  science. They are stipulating that it's
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  out of EPH jurisdiction to control pollution that impacts
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  public health. Yeah.
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  That's mind blowing. So we're not even talking about
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  an attack on the science per SE. We're talking about an attack on
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  the agency's mission. So yes, we are seeing a retreat
• 15:27
  in regulatory oversight and we're absolutely seeing a
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  retreat in enforcement of the laws that are on the books that
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  are supposed to protect the least amongst us.
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  It's very troubling. And, and I will say, because
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  most people will think that what we did was political, but
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  whether you were in McDowell County, West Virginia, which was
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  a very red county majority population that are white, or
• 15:57
  Lowndes County, Alabama, they were facing the same issues.
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  And so when we have this retreat like we're seeing now, I can
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  assure you it is just as much, if not more impactful to red
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  counties as it is to blue counties.
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  You really can't put borders around pollution and public
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  Health Protection, and I don't think we should pretend that you
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  can't. Oh, people do care about the
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  health and safety of their family.
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  Absolutely. So much of what you fought for
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  is getting rolled back right before your eyes.
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  What do you think is really gone that we might, can't, might not
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  get back? What can we salvage?
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  And even and more importantly, what can justice communities do
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  to have a voice at this time? Well, I, I think we have to
• 16:43
  remain optimistic. And under the Biden
• 16:46
  administration, not only did we build trust with communities
• 16:50
  that we never had before through grants, through connectivity, we
• 16:55
  built infrastructure that never existed before.
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  Yes, that infrastructure, that connectivity, that leadership is
• 17:02
  paused for now, but there's a foundation there that will be
• 17:08
  poised for the next opportunity. I do believe that we've lost a
• 17:14
  lot of time. I do believe that a lot of
• 17:17
  people will get hurt. I do believe we've lost a lot of
• 17:21
  talent. But regulations, as you both
• 17:25
  know, are not something you turn on and turn off.
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  You have to go through a process.
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  And I think we need to be prepared to litigate the process
• 17:34
  by which these regulations are unlawfully being terminated.
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  And I think we really need to litigate the lack of equal
• 17:45
  protection under the law for all people all across this country.
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  And I don't see the American people being protected
• 17:54
  adequately with the assault that we're seeing on certain
• 17:57
  regulations and certain policies.
• 18:00
  I do. Think it's blowing back on the
• 18:02
  administration now, though it does feel like, I think part of
• 18:05
  what you're saying, I think is that there is like this sort of
• 18:09
  business as usual approach that they're sort of trying to go
• 18:12
  back to. But I think that that's also
• 18:15
  hurting them on the data center side.
• 18:16
  So when you look at like this ratepayer protection pledge,
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  right? I mean, part of that is, well,
• 18:23
  you can meet the pledge by building new coal plants or new
• 18:26
  natural gas plants, right, to support these these new data
• 18:30
  centers. But you can also do it through
• 18:33
  deployment of batteries, deployment of resiliency
• 18:35
  technologies, deployment of energy efficiency,
• 18:37
  weatherization in people's homes, right?
• 18:39
  I mean, I guess what I'm trying to figure out a little bit,
• 18:42
  though, is that part of what you did as administrator was to, you
• 18:46
  know, try to facilitate a different type of conversation,
• 18:50
  one where you could get a win, win on two or three different
• 18:53
  fronts just by spending a little more time listening and a lot of
• 18:58
  my time talking. And I'm curious like that
• 19:01
  approach, though, seems like it's relevant in this moment
• 19:04
  where, you know, Duke is is trying to raise rates 15% in the
• 19:08
  state of North Carolina because they want to use business as
• 19:11
  usual techniques and they don't instead want to lean into
• 19:14
  battery storage or lean into other technologies.
• 19:18
  Like, tell me a little bit more about the process and what we
• 19:20
  learned about the process of being more inclusive and whether
• 19:24
  that really gets you to a better outcome.
• 19:27
  It it absolutely gets you to a better outcome.
• 19:30
  People Washington DC and sometimes Raleigh seems to think
• 19:37
  that communities are anti growth or anti business.
• 19:40
  That is absolutely a myth. Folks want jobs.
• 19:44
  Folks want jobs. They want a strong tax base so
• 19:48
  that they can have good schools and, and, and, and, and, and,
• 19:51
  you know, opportunities to go to a museum or see a Symphony.
• 19:57
  And so they want to see growth. They just want to see growth
• 20:01
  that is not disrespectful to them and their culture.
• 20:06
  And so through conversation, I found it's the easiest, easiest
• 20:10
  path to make the process more efficient.
• 20:13
  And yes, you have to tweak your plans here and there, but at the
• 20:16
  end of the day, you can get the project done as we're seeing
• 20:20
  with data centers. I believe that this country is
• 20:24
  approaching this topic haphazardly and the constituency
• 20:29
  is too educated to stand by and not understand how to stop
• 20:34
  things. Did you know that the latest
• 20:36
  poll numbers actually show the data centers are more hated than
• 20:39
  ice than ice? I mean, like, you have to really
• 20:45
  screw up the narrative and communication you do to, to be
• 20:50
  pulling that low, you know, like, but like, you have to keep
• 20:53
  going. Sorry.
• 20:54
  Well, I, I, I, I think that what happens is when anytime you try
• 20:58
  to shove anything down anybody's throat, they're resistant.
• 21:02
  Yeah. And I think you have to
• 21:04
  acknowledge the potential negative aspects of any
• 21:08
  construction project, whether that be a data center or a
• 21:13
  natural gas combined cycle project or a solar project.
• 21:18
  A construction site is a construction site in the eyes of
• 21:21
  someone who owns property. But when you go in and have a
• 21:23
  conversation about how it will be done, take in some ideas, see
• 21:29
  if you can tweak that. I guarantee you most communities
• 21:33
  will see a path forward that we all could work with.
• 21:37
  This administration, time and time again, is fumbling that
• 21:41
  ball. People's voices matter.
• 21:44
  And I think as it relates to data centers, we're not even
• 21:48
  getting to the communities talking about the negative
• 21:52
  environmental impacts. Potentially people have educated
• 21:55
  themselves on rates and affordability and they are
• 21:59
  protesting these facilities based on an antiquated system
• 22:04
  that we have in place to create and generate electricity in this
• 22:08
  country, especially here in North Carolina.
• 22:11
  I think Duke is is learning a big lesson and and they should.
• 22:15
  Administrator Reagan, thank you for all the insight into what it
• 22:21
  takes to really hold in high regard the public health of all
• 22:25
  our communities. North Carolina, I'm sure across
• 22:30
  the country, is seen as a very RedState, but in fact, it's a
• 22:32
  very purple state. There's a lot of of need for
• 22:37
  bipartisan action. You spent your whole career
• 22:39
  learning to navigate and in some ways straddle that divide on
• 22:46
  behalf of clean air and clean water.
• 22:48
  I wonder what you've learned that as an industry from energy,
• 22:52
  even AI, and as a communities we can carry forward that can help
• 22:59
  breakthrough what has been a very partisan battle to to
• 23:04
  elevate these topics in the public narrative as something
• 23:08
  that is good for the general good rather than using them as
• 23:12
  the whipping post for for political gain.
• 23:15
  You know, when when Governor Cooper nominated me As for
• 23:19
  secretary, there was a Republican super majority in the
• 23:25
  North Carolina General Assembly and I got a unanimous
• 23:28
  confirmation. Senator Richard Burr and Senator
• 23:32
  Thom Tillis introduced me to the Senate when I was nominated for
• 23:36
  EPA administrator for President Biden and I got a more than 60
• 23:41
  plus vote from the United States Senate.
• 23:45
  I've always understood that Republicans and Democrats are
• 23:48
  people and most people want similar things.
• 23:53
  And so I believe that in our conversations, we have to talk
• 23:57
  about the benefits of what we're doing to all sides.
• 24:01
  When I think about clean energy, I think about national security
• 24:06
  just as much as I think about global competition, just as much
• 24:09
  as I think about public health and protecting communities.
• 24:12
  We want a competitive America. We want an America that works
• 24:16
  for everyone. And we all know that the best
• 24:19
  technologies tied to our markets, tied to American
• 24:25
  ingenuity, we cannot run anyone in the world.
• 24:29
  And we can do that without sacrificing our community.
• 24:32
  So when we talk to Democrats and Republicans and we talk about
• 24:36
  energy and infrastructure, I think we have to talk about the
• 24:40
  fragility of our energy grid, our water infrastructure, and
• 24:43
  what that does to us as a nation.
• 24:46
  And then we have to think about what are the solutions.
• 24:48
  And if you look at the cost effective solutions, the most
• 24:52
  efficient solutions, the solutions that are winning the
• 24:55
  data around the world, they're the solutions that just happen
• 24:58
  to fall into our category of being called clean.
• 25:03
  You can have that as a lead headline for climate, you can
• 25:07
  have it as a lead headline for communities, or you can have it
• 25:10
  as a lead headline for global competitiveness.
• 25:13
  I believe it's all three. Well.
• 25:15
  Thank you for being here, your moral clarity is truly
• 25:19
  inspiring, so such a pleasure to have you.
• 25:21
  Thank you. Thanks, Michael.
• 25:24
  Thank you. That was Michael Regan, recorded
• 25:33
  live at the UNC Clean Tech Summit.
• 25:36
  One more episode left in this series.
• 25:39
  Dan Sugar, founder and CEO of Next Power, one of the people
• 25:44
  who has done more to scale solar development globally than almost
• 25:48
  anyone alive. And don't forget, if you want to
• 25:52
  hear our conversations with John Shoka and Ahmad Shatila from the
• 25:57
  same summit, those are on Suncast.
• 26:00
  Go find Nico wherever you get your podcasts.