Ten years ago, in the summer of 2009, the U.S. House passed a landmark cap-and-trade bill. Then it died in the Senate a year later.

The politics of climate have been completely frozen ever since.

The rise of the Tea Party, Republican anti-Obama sentiment, and an influx of money against pro-climate candidates derailed the issue. Republicans stopped engaging — and the ones who did believe in finding solutions were either "primaried" out of office, or just fell silent. 

One group, RepublicEN, has been working hard to rally grassroots support in Congress for conservative, free-market climate solutions. It's a small organization looking to influence a party in the midst of a tumultuous transition. But Alex Bozmoski, the group’s managing director, thinks it's still possible to move the needle on climate in Congress.

In this week's episode of The Interchange, we'll talk with Bozmoski about how to reach conservatives, how to categorize Republican lawmakers on climate, and why convincing politicians may not be as hard as it might seem.

 

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