"Bold Pragmatism" Featuring Josh Freed, Third Way

Welcome to another week of COBT! Today we had the pleasure of visiting with Josh Freed, Senior Vice President of the Climate and Energy Program at Third Way. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Third Way is a public policy think tank with a global presence focused on advocating for policies that represent modern center-left ideas. Josh is the founder of the organization's clean energy and climate program, which launched in 2009, and oversees strategy to accelerate policy in the US and Europe to create energy that is clean, affordable, secure and reliable.  To help frame the discussion, Josh first provides background on the Energy and Climate team at Third Way and their focus on ensuring the conversation around clean energy includes every technology that could help with decarbonization. From there, we touch on the organization's presence in Washington, their centrist ideology, the current state of pragmatism in Washington and areas for bipartisan support, permitting reform and the importance of a can-do spirit. We also discussed technologies that Josh and his team are working on including sustainable aviation fuel and carbon management technologies, Josh's view on the future of natural gas, addressing transmission issues, Josh's view on the biggest areas of opportunity for classic energy companies and what he says is the transformative challenge of the 21st century, and more. We wrap with Josh's view on the energy mix in ten years. We greatly enjoyed the fulsome discussion! The Veriten team kicked off the show: Mike Bradley shared his thoughts around Thursday's December CPI print and key themes from the recent Goldman Sachs Global Energy and Clean Technology Conference. He also highlighted the Fed's statement on climate change, proposals in New York to ban natural gas heating and appliances in the state, and flagged the upcoming World Economic Forum Meeting in Davos as well as OFS earnings kicking off in two weeks. Brett Rampal shared interesting data from the Energy Information Agency on their predictions for 2024 and noted we can expect lots of regulatory engagement in 2023 for nuclear projects around the world. Thanks to Josh for a fantastic discussion and thanks to you all for your support and friendship!