Green factories are changing minds in more conservative U.S. states
In Dalton, Georgia, green energy hasn’t been a priority. Its congressional representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has said that “Earth warming and carbon is actually healthy for us.” But a new solar-panel factory is changing minds in the city of 34,000. Indeed, the presence of new jobs is transforming solar power into a tangible community benefit. Analysts say there’s a lesson in that: The new jobs at these green factories may function as a political game-changer. “That may be an implicit long-term strategy for the Democrats: With domestic manufacturing likely in traditional Republican districts, the partisan split may soften on renewables,” said Timothy Fox, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners. While some Republicans in Washington, D.C., have long backed wind power, the party’s embrace of clean energy is still limited. Not a single Republican member of Congress suppod the Inflation Reduction Act, which features $374 billion in climate-related spending, including the perks for domestic clean-tech plants. And Herschel Walker, Georgia’s Republican candidate for Senate in a December runoff election against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, has opposed the law.