Bob Keefe

Fall was nearing, but the heat of yet another record-breaking summer had us baking that sunny September afternoon in Washington.

I was seated between a clean energy entrepreneur from Virginia, where I once lived, and an investor from San Diego, my adopted hometown. We were at the White House, a place I knew well from my time as the Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, to hear about the passage of game-changing climate and clean energy policies.

My worlds were colliding.

After the music, after the speeches, after the applause, I had a minute or two to talk to the president.

I thanked President Biden – on behalf of business leaders who belong to my organization, on behalf of my three daughters and all our children - for signing into law the most important climate and clean energy policy in the world, and the most transformative economic policy in America in generations.

His response surprised me.

“You did this,” he said.

“No, I really mean it,” President Biden said. “This only happened because you all kept pushing and pushing and pushing. You never gave up.”

Of course by “you,” he meant the thousands of environmental, business and social justice advocates who pushed so hard to pass the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate and clean energy policies we celebrated that September afternoon at the White House.

For more than a decade, I’ve been pushing for policies that are good for our economy and good for our environment as the executive director of E2, a national network of more than 10,000 environmentally minded business leaders from nearly every state and across nearly every sector of the economy.

Before that, I spent about 25 years as a journalist, as a national and Washington correspondent but also as a business and technology reporter and editor. Over the years, I witnessed and chronicled the rise of banking and biotech in the Carolinas; the real estate boom in Florida; the birth of the dot-com era and the hottest trends in technology in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin and elsewhere.

Nothing compares to what we’re now witnessing with the clean economy revolution.

I wrote Clean Economy NOW because deep in my bones, I knew it was too big of a story not to write about. The economic transition we’re now living through will forever shape America and its economy, but also the future of the planet we’ll leave to our children. The story behind the policies driving it – policies that almost didn’t happen - is compelling and instructive.

And the choice ahead is all ours. We can choose to reap the benefits of the biggest economic revolution in generations and move forward toward a stronger economy and a brighter future, or we can go backward and kill the jobs, investments, and emerging opportunities we’re just now beginning to see.

Like that day in September 2022 at the White House, my worlds collided while writing Clean Economy NOW. I’m grateful to have a job that lets me get up every day and advocate for the climate and clean energy policies now driving this economic revolution. I loved pulling out my reporter’s notepad again and interviewing business leaders and workers on the forefront of the new clean economy. And I’m blessed and fortunate to have the support of colleagues, friends and family and the opportunity to put words to paper and write this book.

I hope you like it.

I hope you benefit from it.

Most importantly, I hope after reading it you’ll realize we all need to keep pushing and never give up if we want to a healthier environment and a stronger economy.