NN#9: Organizing for Power

In NN#9, we welcome Steve McBee, founder of AMPED, “the political and cultural infrastructure the clean energy industry never built.” We discuss how the clean energy industry needs to organize to do battle with the fossil fuel industry and win on every level—from popular opinion to federal policy. Bio Steve McBee is a longtime energy strategist who previously served as CEO of NRG Home, which was a consumer product arm of NRG, a large utility serving the northeastern US. It included one of the largest retail energy providers in the US deregulated energy market and a portfolio of green growth distributed energy businesses serving solar, EV, and energy efficiency markets. Since then, he has been the founder and CEO of Huck Capital, a San Francisco-based investment platform financing and building sustainable energy businesses that accelerate the energy transition. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of McBee Strategic Consulting, an advisory platform based in Washington, DC. Sources AMPED Steve McBee’s profile page at Huck Capital Steve McBee, “Paying Our Way,” Amped, September 10, 2026. Steve McBee, “Building Clean Energy’s Powerbase,” Amped, September 8, 2026. Steve McBee, “The Messaging Gap: Building the Machine to Win,” Amped, August 26, 2026. Steve McBee, “Stuck in the Queue: Why Cheap Power Can’t Get Onto the Grid,” Amped, August 13, 2026. Steve McBee, “Clean Energy’s Missing Powerbase,” Amped, August 7, 2026. Steve McBee, “The Messaging Gap: Why Clean Energy Is Losing the Narrative It Should Be Winning,” Amped, August 3, 2026. Steve McBee’s post about launching AMPED, LinkedIn, May 19, 2026. Ingmar Rentzhog, “Why The 89% Climate Majority Keeps Losing,” Forbes, August 16, 2026. Debra Kahn, “New clean energy advocacy firm mounts ‘challenge to the groups in Washington’,” PoliticoPro, May 19, 2026. Debra Kahn, Jacob Wendler and Daniel Barnes, “A new player in clean energy advocacy,” Politico, May 19, 2026. Julian Spector, “Meet the super PAC working to crush clean energy’s political foes,” Canary Media, September 1, 2026. Anthony Leiserowitz’ research at the Yale School of the Environment