California Billionaire Tom Steyer—A Crony Capitalist

by Jenna Bentley
September 20, 2018

After spending the beginning of his career amassing a fortune in fossil fuels, California Billionaire Tom Steyer changed course and started campaigning for renewable energy. If the story had stopped there, one could reasonably argue that Steyer’s only interest was advancing alternative energy resources for what he sees is the greater good. However, there is a bigger incentive behind Steyer’s push towards renewable energy: Tom Steyer is the financial backer of multiple clean energy companies who stand to make millions from states forced to comply with clean energy mandates. Steyer has been pushing clean energy across the nation, most recently in Nevada and Arizona. His energy mandates require states to produce at least 50 percent of their energy from specific renewable energy sources.

Steyer is one of the financial backers of EFW (Energy, Food, and Water), a company that funds solar companies that operate across the country, including Arizona. That’s right, the very state Steyer is pushing his clean energy mandate is the same state of a solar company he has financial interests in. Coincidentally, Steyer is also the manager of Kilowatt Financial, LLC, a solar company that happens to operate in Nevada, the other state in which Steyer is currently running a renewable energy mandate initiative. In both states, Steyer has spent millions running political ads to push his political agenda to amass a fortune for his own investments.

Steyer’s Prop 127 mandate will force Arizonans to rely on unreliable fledgling technology, “irrespective of cost to consumers” while he stands to profit. To make matters even worse, Prop 127 would require a change to Arizona’s Constitution. Because it is a constitutional change under Arizona’s Voter Protection Act, it would make it almost impossible for voters to go back and make any changes once enacted. Check out this new video from the Heartland Institute about how Steyer is trying to make changes to the Arizona Constitution:

Arizonans can look to Steyer’s home state of California to see how well these radical and poorly planned policies are playing out for electricity consumers. Arizona should not make the same mistake.

Jenna Bentley is the government affairs director at the Goldwater Institute.