I spoke to Cheddar‘s Alan Neuhauser about the simmering effort to attach renewable energy incentives to Congressional Covid response legislation.

Until this week, renewable energy and electric vehicles had not been seen as a stimulus priority among Democrats in either the House or the Senate. When senior lawmakers last week hastily appointed “task forces” to negotiate different aspects of expected stimulus measures, none of the groups focused on the issue of energy. “That told you that anything energy-targeted was not being given front-burner consideration,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist specializing in tax policy and energy at Bracewell. 

However, the topic burst into public view late Monday morning, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)., vented frustration with Democratic opposition to Republican-backed stimulus proposals. McConnell took to the Senate floor to lambaste efforts to insert provisions for solar and wind energy, among other green initiatives, in exchange for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve funding.

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Green energy and EVs advocates and trade groups have been taking a “two-tier” approach to the negotiations: Solar and wind developers are looking for immediate assistance for current projects, namely an extension to collect crucial tax credits that will otherwise expire as the projects are delayed due to restrictions imposed as a result of the coronavirus or from the financial crisis. They hope to push Democratic lawmakers to condition their support for funding of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on support for renewables.

“Even though it’s not on paper anywhere, these are being talked about in the room. And the way they came up is that there’s money in there for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so Democrats are trying to leverage something out of that,” Donovan said.

The effort, though, faces significant headwinds: A chorus of industries from restaurants to retail to airlines are seeking federal support. A roughly 1,100-page stimulus package shared Monday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), notably makes no mention of renewables or EVs — indicating that, even among Democrats, even rudimentary measures to aid green businesses are not yet a priority issue.

“When that leaked out without any clean energy provisions, that told me that that wasn’t in play,” Donovan said. 

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to POLITICO‘s James Arkin about President Trump’s intentions to barnstorm key battlegrounds, and what his presence on the campaign trail means for in-cycle GOP Senators.

Strategists focused on Senate races largely agree. In 2016 many Republican senators outpaced Trump. In some cases, Republicans won by keeping the then-nominee at arm’s length, especially after the widespread condemnation of Trump for his comments in the “Access Hollywood” tape.

But none of the vulnerable incumbents are running that way now.

“This isn’t 2016 anymore. You’re not going to walk the tightrope of running far enough ahead of the president that it makes sense to shun him,” said Liam Donovan, a veteran GOP strategist. “Particularly in states like Arizona and North Carolina that the president needs to win — and you need him to win if you want to keep your job — they’re inexorably tied, and you need to embrace that for all it’s worth.”

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Cheddar‘s Alan Neuhauser about green energy advocates’ efforts to identify GOP champions in the US Senate.

The Iowa senator, once a reliable partner for renewables like wind energy, is now off the market. That’s left green groups scrambling to find a new champion to help secure much-needed GOP votes – with remarkably slim pickings.

“He was very reliable,” a renewable energy lobbyist said. “Now, I don’t know. The House has been a lot easier to identify Republicans who are interested and willing to go to bat for clean energy.”

Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist specializing in tax policy and energy at Bracewell, offered a similar assessment:

“On Senate Finance, where are your natural allies? No one obvious jumps out,” Donovan said.

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Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Elaina Plott of the New York Times about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his improbable path from mild-mannered establishmentarian to “Cocaine Mitch,” rock-ribbed base icon.

It is difficult to overstate the political currency of being labeled a “fighter.” As Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, put it, the only thing more universal than a party’s desire for fighters is the belief that only the other side has them. This was particularly true for Republicans in President Barack Obama’s first term, even after they installed John Boehner as speaker.

“At that time, you started to hear grousing about how weak Republicans were, particularly Boehner,” Mr. Donovan said. The prevailing line of thinking, he explained, was that “G.O.P. leadership is always weak, and we need someone like Harry Reid who’s willing to be strong.”

Perhaps no leader in recent memory has haunted the Republican Party quite like Mr. Reid, the Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015. Here was a man who appeared to heed Mr. Obama’s call during the 2008 election, when he reminded supporters of “the Chicago way,” as immortalized by Jimmy Malone in “The Untouchables”: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

For Republicans, the assumption of a knife may have seemed generous. Lawmakers like Mr. Boehner rose on the promise of legislative victories, only to have Mr. Reid ensure that most House spending bills never saw the Senate floor. While Republicans did manage to secure the occasional half-loaf, be it an extension of Bush-era tax cuts or the imposition of automatic budget cuts, it was never enough to dispel an underlying sense of futility. As conservatives saw it, government-funding negotiations inevitability ended in spending packages that largely took care of Democratic priorities, coupled with the image of a Republican Party that had yet again capitulated.

All of which may have fueled the party’s deep “resentment” for Mr. Reid and the left writ large, Mr. Donovan has written. But those feelings, he noted, were “often tinged with envy, if not begrudging admiration.”

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News about Mike Bloomberg’s money and its implications for 2020.

Liam Donovan, a Republican consultant, said that “money is always going to matter at the margin,” before ticking off a string of caveats.

For instance, if Bloomberg is not the Democrats’ choice for president, will his spending reinforce or clash with the nominee’s message and strategy? What if the nominee is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., whose campaign is all about challenging the power of billionaires like Bloomberg?

Is there even a way to effectively spend another billion or $2 billion in a money-drenched election year? “There’s only so much airtime you can buy,” Donovan noted.

Read the full piece here.