Mogul dangles dollars to lure GOP to clean energy agenda

WASHINGTON — Entrepreneur Jay Faison, who has plunged $165 million of his fortune into the fight against climate change, said Tuesday his foundation is launching a $1 million Internet campaign to sway fellow Republicans to join in a conservative clean energy agenda.

Faison also moved to raise his profile.

Appearing at the National Press Club, he said he had opened a Capitol Hill office, put $1.5 million of his money into a newly formed super political action committee and is raising millions of dollars more to back congressional candidates who support clean energy alternatives.

He laid out more details of his one-man crusade to change the way conservatives approach the national energy debate, voicing support for new nuclear and hydroelectric power plants that don’t release greenhouse gases.

Support for clean energy, Faison said, is “critical for the longevity of the Republican Party.”

He cited polling commissioned by his organization that he said showed 72 percent of Republicans thought the United States should accelerate a shift to clean energy sources and away from coal-fired power plants, whose emissions are at the center of the global warming debate.

“The left has owned the clean energy debate for too long, and it’s time to go on offense,” he said. He eschews President Barack Obama’s approach of imposing sharp emissions curbs on power plants, which stirred fierce Republican opposition and has been frozen by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Faison has taken positions that might differ from many in the environmental community. His website, for example, argues in favor of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, known as fracking, saying it has lowered carbon emissions because natural gas burns more cleanly than oil or coal.

Faison initially rolled out his ClearPath Foundation last summer as a vehicle for transforming Republican policymakers’ attitudes about climate change.