When you take a major pay cut to work in government, you don't expect unceremoniously fired by the Department of Government Efficiency with a change in administration. But it happened to friend of the show, Grant Faber.
Grant Faber was the United States Department of Energy's Direct Air Capture Hubs Program Manager until he was let go as part of the recent firing of probationary federal employees.
In today's episode, Grant explains what he was working on, what it was like being at the DoE during this turbulent time of Trump 2 & DOGE, and what it means for carbon removal, the climate, and the United States moving forward.
Resources
Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change
Listen to The CDR Policy Scoop episode with Noah Deich
Grant's recent RCC episode on coproduction and additionality
Don't make me link to the ASMR deportation video
There are a bunch of episodes I've made with thoughtful conservatives. Poke around the catalog if you'd like. I'll add some more links later if I have the heart to do it.
Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (I mistakenly say OEM in the show):
"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected... When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so...We want to put them in trauma."
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m the host of the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m a longtime climate tech and carbon removal entrepreneur, and this is a very important episode. I have an alumnus of the show on today. Grant Faber was the Direct Air Capture Hubs Program Manager at the US Department of Energy until very recently, when he was let go as part of the mass firing of probationary employees in the federal government. Grant walks us through what this process has been like for him. And I think it’s a really important episode because of how little time there is to deal with climate change, how much time we’re likely to lose in scaling carbon removal during an unsupportive policy period. We just don’t have a lot of time to lose right now. And for those objective climate outcomes that we need, this is bad news.
But moreover, we talked about the method in which this has been carried out, and it’s frankly disturbing. We discuss it in the show. I typically am not someone who gets rattled, perhaps nearly as much as I maybe should, by changes in politics. I tend to see a lot of continuity rather than discontinuity in changes in administration, especially in the US. So that being said, I do not feel that way right now. I am deeply concerned, to put it lightly, from various directions. I’m more concerned than average. I’m angrier than average, and I’m more despondent than average with the direction that the country has been going.
My friends at the CDR Policy Scoop have a show that’s coming out tomorrow, Tuesday, February 25th. The link will be in the show notes once it’s published. And you should absolutely check out that show. It’s with Noah Deich. And that’s going to be a really important one to listen to as well. I’d love to hear Noah’s story that I’m sure is parallel in some ways to Grant’s, but also different in other ways. And I think it’s a really important time to be listening to people who are actually working in government and what their experience has been like.
So I won’t say enjoy the show, even though Grant and I do have fun and it starts off a little bit of fun. But we’re also dealing with really serious subject matter. We’re concerned about the state of the country and its direction. And I’m not feeling super hopeful right now about the United States of America nor carbon removal and its ongoing growth and development. So thank you for listening.
And then just briefly, if you love the show, if you could please become a paid subscriber, it’s $5 a month. It really helps me to keep publishing these and making it worthwhile to do so. But if you could please become a paid subscriber, it’s $5 a month. Not a ton of money. The link is at the top of the show notes. Thank you so much for being a supporter. Really appreciate you. Here’s your show.
You’re going to have to fumigate or something. Grant, I can’t keep you off of this podcast.
Grant Faber: Yeah, you’ve got a great infestation here.
Ross Kenyon: Thanks for coming back. I — well, starting with a joke, but I’m really sorry to hear of what happened at the Department of Energy and your role. And I think I speak for everyone in CDR when I say how disappointing these moves have been. And I’m really sorry this happened to you.
Grant Faber: Oh, thank you, Ross. Yeah, it means a lot. And yeah, I’ve been humbled and honored by all the people reaching out to me offering support in this time. It’s definitely, yeah, very frustrating. And it could very well be a big setback for carbon removal and other efforts across the federal government, for everyone who’s laid off. So, yeah, it’s tough, but there is a great team of folks still in place, you know, among national labs and in different parts of DOE, who I hope will be able to carry the mission forward to some extent. But it’s difficult to say how many reductions in force and other measures like that will be coming down the line.
Seems like such a loss to me because I don’t know exactly how it works with government salaries. I imagine one could probably look it up if one were very determined, but you probably could have made more money working in the private sector. You’re very well known, people respect you. I think you probably could be employed quickly and at a higher rate than the government would pay you. And you are a very thoughtful, meticulous person. It just seems — why shed you? There’s no non-flattering way to say it. It just seems like a loss for the entire organization to lose you and people like you.
Oh, for sure. And, you know, I did take a substantial pay cut relative to my previous consulting work to go work at DOE. But for me it was, you know, totally worth it because I frankly loved the work. It was definitely a little bumpy at first, you know, just adjusting to being on my own, doing the consulting, to being part of one of the biggest bureaucracies on the planet. But yeah, so it wasn’t just me. It was a little bumpy at times. But yeah, I just came to absolutely love the work.
The team at Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, that I had the great fortune of working with, were just some of the, I thought, you know, top leading experts in the world on all things DAC and carbon removal. And so it was just such an honor to work there, and being able to wake up every day and think at the ecosystem level, think super strategically and think, OK, how are we going to do this in a way that benefits most Americans? ’Cause, you know, obviously we’re responsible to Congress, which is in turn responsible to their constituents across the country. To be able to think at that level and to do that work — I mean, it was certainly an honor. So, yeah, I loved it. I would have stayed, you know, for as long as I could have, had I not been laid off.
But it’s sad, you know, these layoffs are impacting folks across the federal government, and they’re hitting vital services at places like the VA, the CDC, the FDA, the FAA, and the list goes on and on and on. And yeah, they just came through with a cudgel just saying, OK, anyone who’s probationary — which, you know, we affectionately call probies — all probies are gone, just because it’s relatively easier to lay them off. They have fewer protections, fewer appeal rights, less of a need for notifications beforehand.
So yeah, it’s very sad. And I don’t personally think it will actually accomplish their mission really of saving much money, because less than 10% of federal spending is on compensation for federal employees. And they’re probably realistically only going to be able to get rid of, you know, 10%, maybe 20% in a vicious scenario, of those employees. So we’re talking, you know, very small percentages of savings that would actually be generated. But there will certainly be a disproportionate impact on the services that these agencies provide to Americans from these layoff events. So very difficult times. You know, people there are veterans, people with disabilities, people with mortgages, people with kids being just put on the street unnecessarily. So yeah, it’s a very sad time for sure.
Ross Kenyon: If it’s less about the direct monetary, budgetary, fiscal effects of labor cuts, what is it actually about?
Grant Faber: I think it’s about a lot of things. I think obviously it’s about politics and signalling. I mean, you know, this misguided Department of Government Efficiency is coming through and they want to show results, I think early on in the Trump administration, to say, hey, look at this headcount we cut. Hey, look at this budget. And some of the values could seem somewhat large on paper, like, oh, we cut, you know, $10 billion worth of compensation or whatever. And maybe they conveniently ignore the value of services to Americans that are lost, or they ignore other inefficiencies that will be created as a result of this. But yeah, they can just parade those absolute numbers around and make it seem like, hey, we’re making massive and rapid progress. We’re being responsible. We’re keeping our campaign promises in these things. So I think it’s about politics.
I’d also think it’s about a broader desire among some ultra-conservative groups to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. And I think there’s different drivers of the urge to do so, one of which is to reduce any kind of federal expenditures to ultimately pass the so-called savings on to, you know, corporate and billionaire cronies in the form of tax cuts and lower taxes. So, you know, I think that’s a part of it. I think they want to hold up what they view as the administrative state because they think it holds back progress of some of their favored interests. So that’s a part of it.
I think, you know, there is a false vision that folks throughout the bureaucracy are like ultra-woke DEI liberal people. And I can say that’s certainly not the case. I mean, most people I worked with were just regular Americans from all walks of life, you know, who really, truly do just get up every single day, and who could make more money in the private sector but choose public service. You know, they’re not trying to leech off the system or anything like that, but there’s this perception that, yeah, they’re just these ultra-liberal deep state folks. And so they just want to come through with that hacksaw and just get them out of there. So, yeah, I think there are different reasons. They’re all kind of related to one another. But yeah, the outcome of this — I do not see any way, any world in which this is going to be positive for the well-being of most Americans.
Ross Kenyon: Grant, let’s take this chronologically and go back to how you got involved, what you worked on at DOE, and maybe, insofar as you can, explain how this process went down with your termination. Are you willing to do that?
Grant Faber: Oh, sure. Yeah, so I can start at the end there and just say how it went down. I mean, so it kind of started, I guess, with election night, you know, and waiting to see the results come in. And, you know, we stayed up late — I was probably up until two, three AM that night, just kind of watching things roll in. And it was like, OK, you know, we kind of had a sense that Trump was going to have it there. And so I think when it started there, it was like, OK, we’re kind of in for a lot. We need to spend the next few months working where we can, just trying to ensure that we can get done what we can get done, you know, before Trump comes in, before everything changes over.
And so we had a couple of pretty wild months, I would say, just trying to do our work, you know, and just try to make sure that things were in place, that everything was kind of set up properly so that the transition would be smooth and hopefully we could protect our awardees. And then the changeover came, you know, on January 20th. And I’d say the anxiety kind of, you know, is ramping up through that date because we just didn’t know what was going to happen. And immediately after that, you know, all the top leadership was removed from the agency. And I mean, that’s, you know, conventional for any kind of administration changeover. And so then we had a bunch of acting folks, and there still are in many roles some acting folks, while you wait for Senate confirmations or other appointments.
And, you know, during that time, everything was frozen. And it was like Bipartisan Infrastructure Law money was frozen, Inflation Reduction Act funding was frozen. And then other kinds of base appropriation spending is just freeze, freeze, freeze, you know, everything’s frozen. And again, not totally unexpected for an administration changeover — they want to freeze things and start, you know, reevaluating priorities. But it was an aggressive freeze that came quickly. And then there was a communications embargo. You know, we weren’t really able or allowed to meet with outside entities to communicate about things until we had new leadership in, new priorities in. And that also applied to our awardees.
And so, you know, I was the Direct Air Capture Hubs program manager in the Office of Carbon Management. And yeah, we had a bunch of DAC projects that are under award that were doing work, that we met with on a fairly regular cadence to track their progress, to see what’s going on, answer questions and those kinds of things. And yeah, we just couldn’t even hold those meetings. And so, you know, there’s just a lot of nerves, a lot of like, OK, where’s this going to go? How long is the freeze going to last? And there were court orders flying back and forth, lawsuits, and there was just widespread confusion. You know, what’s going to fly? What can’t fly?
And then, yeah, last — I think it was about a week ago, on Thursday — there was a Politico article and some other articles saying, like, you know, all probationary employees at DOE and other places will be terminated, you know, by the end of the day. And so it’s like, OK, you know, I had started in April of 2024. And so I was in that boat, along with many other folks hired on relatively recently as carbon removal work was ramping up at the agency. And, yeah, I didn’t get the email by 5:00 or 5:30. So I thought I was in the clear, and had a very strange evening feeling like, am I going to be one of the few, if any, probies who’s left?
And there was, like, a really weird form of survivor’s guilt that I was, you know, feeling in advance of that, and like, I’m going to feel so bad if all these other people get terminated and I don’t. But I want to hold on for as long as I can to, you know, do my duty. And if they want me out of here, then I don’t want to leave. It’s like I don’t want to play into Elon Musk’s, you know, madness. But then, yeah, I woke up Friday morning to find myself locked out of everything. And then I had to get my termination letter sent to my personal email address. And it was just all over. So yeah, they really just ripped the Band-Aid off, I guess, there.
And so I wasn’t, I guess, totally shocked, but I was definitely saddened by the broader situation. And as I said before, I mean, my heart goes out to all those who were terminated, who, you know, have a variety of circumstances that make their terminations a lot more of a difficult situation. And there’s definitely some dark times going on for everyone. So yeah, I think that’s a decent overview of those things.
I will also note that there was a lot of — anything related to community benefits planning, DEI, Justice40, I mean, that stuff was completely censored. And just anyone involved with that, regardless in many cases of their probationary status, was just asked — you know, these people were put on leave and are just ultimately going to be fired. And ultimately the censorship was kind of bad too. I mean, there was fear of using even the word “diversity” or the phrase “climate change” or “greenhouse gas” or anything like that, just for fear that you would get tagged in some control-F, you know, sweep. And so it’s a little, you know, dystopian. And that’s definitely a problem for carbon removal, for carbon dioxide. And, you know, it’s like in the name. So definitely some tough times.
Ross Kenyon: When administrations change, as you know, it’s common for leadership to change, and new appointees to get approved by the Senate and go through that whole process. But once it’s below that, I associate this with the late 1800s and civil service reform, where there used to be strong Tammany Hall–type effects, where if you were elected, you got to, you know, through patronage, invite all of your friends in, everyone’s cousins that you owed a favor to. They would get their job in the various departments. And that was part of the spoils of winning a big election. And then that was done away with and is no longer the case.
And granted, it’s different. It’s not quite like Tammany Hall, what happened here. It’s not nearly as self-beneficial in this way. Or maybe you would disagree with that. But I don’t think we’ve seen this level of replacement or dismissal. Has there been something like that that I’m just not aware enough of how the administrative portion of the state operates to know, or is this as uncommon as it seems to me?
Grant Faber: So there is some reporting going around about, under President Clinton, there being a termination of hundreds of thousands of federal employees. And I believe President Reagan had a similar kind of commission that was looking — supposedly looking — for waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government, trying to eliminate it. I’m not overly familiar with either of those efforts beyond that. In Clinton’s case, there was more congressional support and buy-in for that activity, which is, yeah, normally how these things are supposed to go.
So, yeah, I mean, at DOE, or for any government agency, it’s in their right to do a reduction in force. You can do widespread, you know, layoffs. But the challenge is Congress has the power of the purse, is supposed to sign off on spending. They have control of that. And yeah, the administration has to comply with that. I mean, it’s just part of how our system functions under the Constitution, that Congress determines, you know, how much gets spent and how it should be spent. And then the executive comes in and implements that.
And so, yeah, when you’re talking about widespread reductions in force and layoffs particularly, that can affect the rate at which those funds can be spent, or however much can be spent. I mean, there needs to be more widespread buy-in across the government. And there probably needs to be closer coordination with the unions as well, who have collective bargaining agreements that lay out very specific provisions and rules for when you go about doing these layoffs — kind of what you need to do in terms of giving folks notice, or perhaps having exceptions or other relevant considerations.
So, yeah, now of course, in my personal case, as a probationary employee, I didn’t have as many of those protections. And what the Trump administration appears to be doing is they have kind of like a multi-step process for reducing the federal bureaucracy. The first step was the deferred resignation program, where they offered people this — what amounted to be, and for many kind of is, a very shady offer to resign and be put on administrative leave. And you can still get paid through September. But yeah, there’s all sorts of provisions, exceptions and other kinds of unsavory aspects to that deal.
And ultimately many of the folks who took it were going to either retire anyway, seek other jobs anyway, or perhaps in some cases were folks with disabilities who were afraid of the return-to-office mandate and would not have been able to comply with that. So they preferred to take this and perhaps search for new work anyhow. That program got maybe 70 to 80,000 people who took it, out of about, say — I think it’s about 2.3 million federal employees. So that was kind of the first step. You know, it got about 3% of the workforce was culled, or will be culled, through this program.
And then the next step in this multi-step plan was, hey, let’s get rid of the probationary employees because they have fewer protections, fewer appeals rights. Right now there are lawsuits flying back and forth. You know, it’s uncertain how any of them will be resolved, if it’s going to go to the merit review board, and you know what the merit review board’s probably going to say. And of course there’s some executive influence over that. So we’ll see how that turns out. But personally, I’m not holding my breath for anything like reinstatement or anything like that. I mean, from my perspective, it’s over, but it is worth, you know, exercising your procedural rights to dispute it.
And so, yeah, then I would say that there’s also other non-probationary folks being laid off through various means, and then who knows who’s next. I think a lot of people expect widespread reductions in force and other kinds of means, the widespread return-to-office mandate, which for many folks is completely absurd given their line of work. And they may have to — even if they work for, say, the Department of Transportation, they might have to go be stationed at a VA office or something, because they just live in a different locale and can’t move, but just need to report to work at a federal building. So yeah, I think they’re also just going to try to put people through a lot, vilify people, abuse people, to drive them to voluntarily quit. And then also do widespread termination. So it’s kind of a multi-step plan, I think, to drive out people from across the federal government.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I saw the famous Vought quote that’s making the rounds from the OEM about essentially traumatizing people, making their lives miserable in an effort to do reduction in force in a quasi-voluntary way. I don’t know if there’s more context to that that makes that quote less unsavory, but I found it to be frankly ominous.
Grant Faber: Certainly, yeah. And yeah, folks from places like the Heritage Foundation and other similar ultra-conservative groups — I mean, this in many cases is a multi-decade plan that they’ve had to, yeah, just reduce the size and scope and powers of what they view as the administrative state for their, you know, ends. And it’s scary, it’s unfortunate. Many of these provisions are from Project 2025, which, yeah, are now coming to fruition. And so we’ll see how far they’re able to go.
It’s going to get increasingly difficult as they spend down their political capital, as approval ratings drop, as folks start to know other folks who were terminated or who are personally affected due to the terminations. And frankly, as Congress starts to get a little frustrated as their districts start to be impacted. But it’s difficult because there are many people who are willing — whether, you know, regular citizens or those in positions of political power — who in some cases are willing to put aside their personal pain in favor of what they view as a broader political cause. And yeah, the kind of, you know, cult-like adoration of Trump and Musk and those involved in their group is, unfortunately I think, going to drive a lot of pain forward. And I think, yeah, we could be heading for some very dark times.
Ross Kenyon: One thing I hope for on that is, as you allude to, the famous first 100 days of any presidency is often the honeymoon period, and then reality sets in and things are disappointing in predictable ways. I’ve also been having hope for — I mean, surely you’ve seen the pictures and the videos of Elon standing and Trump sitting, and Elon dominating interviews and Trump almost being pushed into a corner. And I can’t imagine that for a psyche like Trump’s, that can feel very good. And everyone interprets it as being somewhat humiliating, that he’s clearly not the alpha that he presupposes himself to be in that duo. And I’m hoping that tension — if you poke at it enough, maybe that tension will start to break some of this down. I don’t think that could last for long, with egos that big in the same room. I have some amount of hope. And I don’t know if that’s naive or not, but I hope for it.
Grant Faber: Yeah, I think folks have been predicting that ever since their quasi friendship, partnership, whatever it is, began, that this kind of —
Ross Kenyon: Kind of buddy-in-chief, by the way.
Grant Faber: Yes, the buddy-in-chief, or the first buddy, or whatever. Yeah, I don’t know how long it’s going to last. I don’t know how long it can last. We’ll see. But as long as it does, you know, I think we’re in for some tough times. But yeah, even if it doesn’t, I mean, you never know what stooge they bring in next. And that’s kind of the concern with any appointee. You know, it could be the case for anything, if we look to Trump’s first administration as precedent for that. It’s like, hey, maybe an appointee gets in there who’s actually not so bad for whatever issue, you know, you might care about. But that person could be gone in three months. And so, yeah, there’s just no stability, no consistency. And we live in very volatile times.
Ross Kenyon: Why didn’t you take the voluntary buyout?
Grant Faber: So I mean, I think for a lot of people who received it, it was on their mind. And it’s interesting because I’ve, you know, said this to several folks, that I think there was almost a mob intimidation tactic that was being used in the deferred resignation email, because they sent us a bunch of different emails. But basically it was a threat. It was like a carrot and a stick. You know, they were saying, like, if you take this, you can have the vacation of your dreams, you can get paid and just sit on your couch until September. How great will it be — almost assuming that, yeah, federal employees are these lazy people who are just gonna take that. But if you don’t take this, you’re just gonna be terminated, laid off. Otherwise, you’re gonna have to return to the office, and all these things.
And so in my mind, it was like Tony Soprano, you know, threatening to break your legs if you don’t do something, but offering you 10 grand if you do it. And so it just had an icky kind of tactic. And I was like, OK, yeah. And the fact that they want me to take this, they want me to buy into this — I was like, I don’t want to, because they want me to, you know. And frankly, even before I got the email — and I think many federal employees were in the same boat — before I got the email, I was thinking like, how bad is this going to get? Should I get out now? Should I just go back to consulting, or do some private sector thing, whatever? But when I got that email, it pissed me off.
And there were follow-up emails to that saying things along the lines of, you should leave your lower-productivity public sector job to go into a higher-productivity private sector one. And that’s an insult. I mean, that’s a brutal insult. And so, even though morale is, you know, sinking across the entire federal government, for me personally, it was like, I’m going to get up and I’m going to work even harder. I don’t care that I’m being vilified or abused. It’s like, I’m going to hold on for as long as I can. And I have a duty to my team, to our awardees, to the carbon removal industry, and ultimately to the American people to, you know, responsibly carry out the duties of my federal job. And maybe this all sounds way too grandiose or whatever. Maybe I was naive.
There were also more tactical considerations of, are they even going to pay? Even if you took it, are they going to pay you? And I think there are cases I’ve read of folks who took it and then got fired anyway. And so it’s like you kind of then had to give up your dignity, but then they just boot you out anyway. They just say, oh, no, you’re not eligible for that. Sorry. Bye. And so it’s just — and then there’s broader concerns as well. There’s again lawsuits flying about the viability of the program, but also Congress hasn’t passed a budget. Yeah, we’re still in a continuing resolution for fiscal year 2025. And it’s not clear how that’s going to be paid for.
And in some ways the whole program may have been illegal, and perhaps a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which is essentially an act that says that as a government agency, you can’t spend more money than you’ve been given. And there can actually be criminal implications of doing so. So you need to be very conservative with that. But yeah, there was just so much uncertainty, distrust. And yeah, that’s why I noted that, from what I’ve heard and read, most of the folks who took it were either going to leave anyway, or felt like their job was going to be so untenable that, hey, I might as well just take this because the expected value is positive, even if I don’t necessarily expect to get anything out of it.
Ross Kenyon: Wow, it’s a bit quixotic, but I like quixotic in times like these. Another tactical consideration, I imagine, is that if you vacate your role, they might fill it with someone whose ends are antithetical to the office, the chair, your role. And there’s also a sense of protecting whatever you can for as long as you can, even if it means some very unpleasant working conditions.
Grant Faber: Certainly that was, you know, another consideration, although as a potential counter to that — and I’m not certain about this, but I did hear some rumors — that for those who take the deferred resignation, they may just eliminate those positions outright and not backfill them. And so, yes, you’re definitely right that there may be some cases where they’re trying to backfill with loyalists or stooges or other, you know, kinds of henchmen. Or they may be permanently eliminating those positions, because that’s kind of the supposed, you know, cost-cutting goal. And so they may not want to backfill it, or maybe, you know, it’s years before it gets backfilled.
And, you know, in my case, I tended to think that, hey, having someone at the Office of Carbon Management looking at DAC hubs, like, that’s probably something that is important. I was hired on for a reason. So if those rumors were true, I would not have wanted to saddle all my, you know, coworkers with that position being eliminated should I leave. And so that was definitely a concern as well. I didn’t want to let down anyone I was working with. So there were a lot of reasons. But yeah, the big one is I just wanted to keep doing the work. I just thought it was important.
And in no way do I want any of this to be construed as, oh, I was trying to work against the Trump administration or something like that. Like, I think when you’re a civil servant, you need to honor the wishes and orders of the new administration as long as they’re constitutional. You know, like I took, as all civil servants do, you take an oath to the Constitution when you start the job. And as a civil servant, particularly one with maybe some subject matter expertise, you kind of need to balance your oath to the Constitution, the need to follow orders and to honor the chain of command in the administration. You need to honor Congress’s wishes, because they also represent the people. And you need to honor your subject matter expertise and the knowledge and skills in your space. And that’s kind of the fun, challenging, exciting, scary part of being a civil servant, is you need to balance all of those things. And so, yeah, I was trying to. But it just wasn’t in the cards.
Ross Kenyon: I know you as a careful person and careful with your words, and yet you use terms like “stooge” and “henchmen,” which have very strong pejorative connotations here. What I’m trying to ask is, how bad do you think all of this actually is? Is it as nefarious as your word choice presupposes, or can maybe people exhale a little bit? How do you feel?
Grant Faber: It’s a challenging question to answer because I am trying to balance myself — and maybe this relates to our last podcast episode, which if you haven’t listened to, listeners, you should go listen. But, you know, especially the stuff about open-mindedness — like, I appreciate and respect those who have different opinions and perspectives than I do, but who approach it in good faith. But I think there’s a lot of folks who are not doing that right now, and are trying to achieve, in some cases, vicious political ends using beliefs that they don’t really believe in.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think there is a chance I could just be this disgruntled kind of, you know, laid-off person who’s just really angry and just wants to point fingers and, you know, point blame and accuse. And maybe I’m just, you know, some rabid person who’s inhaling liberal media, you know, 16 hours a day, and is just angry and scared. But I do think there is objective, like, reality, or just like there are truths. There are things that are happening that are deeply, deeply concerning that are — I don’t know if I would say unprecedented, but things that we haven’t seen in a very, very long time.
And there are major risks that we’re running. And one of those is this flippant attitude about court orders and following what the court says. And you know, I’ve been thinking very seriously in the past couple of weeks about, man, it really is odd that we concentrate all military and law enforcement under one branch, under the executive branch. And it’s like, how does that not result in this tyrannical situation where the Congress says one thing or the courts say one thing, but the executive branch just doesn’t do it and then just dares the other branches to enforce? And yeah, the only guard really against that is the goodwill of the individual, and like the individual people’s oaths to the Constitution and to follow the laws that we’ve all kind of implicitly agreed to by living in this country.
And the fact that we even have to think like that, that we have to ask these kinds of questions, is terrifying. And it’s really scary. And it could portend some very — I’ve probably said this three times already in our show here — but they could portend dark times ahead. So I just think that the risks are really high. But I do think that it is very important to distinguish between things that are awful but lawful, and things that are truly, you know, violating the law and the Constitution and threatening the very fabric of our democracy. So I think both of those kinds of things are going on right now. And it behooves us to understand the difference between them and how we should collectively respond.
Ross Kenyon: Very measured response. I think you are like me in this way, that we are probably — let me know if you identify with this statement at all — I’m a very annoying silver lining finder. Things can be pretty bad politically and I’ll be like, I kind of like that thing, and that’s OK. Are you like that, by the way? Are you able to find those sometimes, or no?
Grant Faber: Yeah. OK. Sometimes.
Ross Kenyon: I haven’t really had that luxury with Trump. And I find many of the things that you named to be extremely concerning. I respect a lot of the conservative tradition. I’ve done a lot of shows about the conservative intellectual tradition. I’ve learned a lot from conservatives. Some of them are extremely well read and smart and have interesting counterintuitive things to add to the conversation. I think that tradition should play a role. And yet I watch what’s happening now and I don’t see any similarity between many of those ideas and what’s happening now. And I find some of the expressions of political power to be downright nauseating. The high watermark for me so far was the ASMR deportation video. I think that might be —
Grant Faber: Oh. Wow.
Ross Kenyon: Do you know about that? Have you seen it? There was an officially released video that had sort of ASMR — if you’re listening and you don’t know, it’s a common YouTube thing where you’ll put on headphones and it’ll have, you know, some people like to hear the sounds of a barber shop, and that’s a relaxing set of sounds. And the Trump administration put out a video for the soothing sounds of deporting undocumented immigrants. And I find it to be entirely inappropriate, not funny.
I have a hard time imagining even someone like George W. Bush or his father, or Mitt Romney or John McCain — I think John McCain would find that to be as nauseating as I do, and just not stately, not presidential, not appropriate, to say the very least. I think someone who has that sort of relishing cruelty on an official level like that, and the fact that people are cheering it on, I find to be probably as concerning as anything that I’ve ever seen in my entire adult life. And I’m a very careful person about how and when I weigh in on political matters like that, and am an annoying silver lining finder. And yet I think the threats of authoritarian virtues being celebrated, and people not finding that universally disgusting and inappropriate, to be as concerning as anything I’ve seen in my entire life. Do you agree that it is as concerning as I do, Grant? I’m fairly freaked out.
Grant Faber: Oh, for sure, no. And yeah, it’s very unfortunate that we found ourselves in this situation. And it is challenging because we do live in this time of constant news and updates, and everything’s breaking news and everything’s a crisis. And it’s like, or, in a polycrisis and all this stuff. And so it can be easy to feel like, well, is this just us being, you know, overly dramatic? Are we just taking things too seriously and just everything’s got to be the end of the world? But that attitude, that belief, means that when these things really do come along that are like true crises, where things really are at stake, it’s just too easy to write them off as, oh, that’s just us being, you know, hyperbolic.
And so, yeah, I mean, I would agree that there’s very scary things that are happening right now, and just the probability of how bad things could get being like way higher than it should be is terrifying. But yeah, I definitely — on the ASMR deportation thing, I mean, it’s like, look, you can, and are allowed, and should, in the United States, have your own perspective, your own thinking on what immigration policy should be, based on your experiences, based on evidence, based on data, based on precedent, based on what other countries think and do. Like, OK, you can have that thought. But we need to approach that debate, and whatever we end up doing about it, as adults, and to respect the dignity of human beings who are being denied access to the country, who are given asylum, who are deported, whatever. I mean, just basic respect, basic human dignity. And yeah, when those things aren’t respected, it’s unconscionable.
Ross Kenyon: And I’m usually hanging out in nuanced land, and I’ve read a lot of the histories of Timothy Snyder. You ever read his stuff? Do you like this stuff at all? Great histories of Eastern Europe. Bloodlands is a great book about just being caught between Stalin and Hitler, and Black Earth is a really interesting book about the Holocaust. He wrote a lot about nationalism in Eastern Europe, but in recent years he’s focused much more on authoritarian trends around the world. Kind of like Anne Applebaum — she’s great too. And also a Never Trump conservative that is at The Atlantic and has a number of very fascinating books. But them, and then someone like Madeleine Albright.
And as we’ve talked about previously, I’m a very first principles oriented person, and democracy is challenging for first principles type people because it’s always about compromise. You never quite get what you want if you’re a first principles person in democracy. But reading these people, and the context has changed around me, to the point now where I’m like, yeah, I do need to stand up for just the most basic level of decorum and democracy now. Whereas if you talked to me three months ago, I would have expressed an entirely different state of dissatisfaction. That would have been much more in the nuance, slicing the tiniest little line where I feel comfortable with how I’ve characterized everyone. And the actions of the last month have been very radicalizing for me. It doesn’t feel like the same country to me anymore. I’m not even speaking carefully. If you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time, I think the fact that I am speaking this way should tell you about how severely I view this.
Grant Faber: Yeah, 100%. It is scary. And I think we should take it seriously because, yeah, it could affect the American experiment, which I like to think that many people of all political stripes have benefited from — you know, an environment where we can and should, at least in many cases, where we should be allowed to express our views and our perspectives and advocate for the things that we want to see. And if those things are at risk and under threat, it’s scary times.
And so I think we all have a duty. You know, a phrase I read in a book recently — it was called Getting Big Things Done in Government, which I highly recommend if you, you know, still work in government. And hey, I guess that proves I was a good civil servant because I was reading on my own time to try to better my work. But anyway, there was a line in there: democracy is not a spectator sport. And that stuck with me. And I think there unfortunately is maybe a lack of respect for things like civics education, and for just doing the basic functions that we need to do to maintain our democracy.
And it’s just another one of those things where it’s easy to take things for granted, to become complacent. But you know, we should take pride in things like voting, or doing jury duty, or researching a political candidate, or speaking to your representative. And I will say that that’s something I have, through working in government, actually developed a much deeper appreciation for — was the importance of calling your representative, regardless of your political affiliation with them or not. But I actually do believe now pretty strongly that most politicians in Congress do really care about their constituents and fight for their constituents. And there truly are in many cases just split interests and incentives that cause some of the divisions that we see.
But putting that aside, I think, you know, before I started working in government, I was just like, oh, you know, it’s a nice thing to do to sign a petition or whatever, send an email, maybe give a few calls. I had only ever called my representatives to advocate for the Inflation Reduction Act. Hadn’t really ever done it before. But now I’ve come to appreciate just how important that is, and how just several phone calls, especially on like slightly less politicized issues, can really change the course of things. I mean, these individual stories, people being willing to take time out of their day to contact their representative and share their story and their perspective — I mean, that’s just so powerful. And so, yeah, I think that that’s another type of thing that we all need to do to help protect our democracy, is to get involved. And it sounds trite, but any of these kinds of things that could even be considered as organizing, it makes a difference, and it helps sustain what I hope we all respect as the American experiment.
Ross Kenyon: Honestly, if you had said this to me even a couple months ago, it sounds Mr. Smith Goes to Washington cheesy, naive, super basic, boringly basic. Turns out that actually it is the fundament upon which all else rests, I guess. Now, Grant, I want to take us back to your specific role, and I’m going to present you an opportunity to reveal me as naive, because I had expected the DAC hubs were relatively safe. If oil and gas companies spend any amount of money putting steel or concrete in the ground, I imagine they fight for it, and maybe they’ll fight for it after the fact — now it’s trying to claw back some of the money from the now frozen funds. But I thought that if you worked in direct air capture you were relatively OK. It turns out — am I naive? Essentially, was I wrong?
Grant Faber: Ross, you’re never naive. You’re always —
Ross Kenyon: Not even. Let me have it. Let it rip.
Grant Faber: Yeah, I would say how I think about it is that there’s a hierarchy of positions that different programs are in — and I guess hierarchy is a strong word, maybe just like a chronology, or just like different categories. And depending on what category you’re in, that affects the risk of whether you’re going to basically just get your money or not. I’d say that if the money has already been given to you, is already in your bank account, or you’ve already spent it, OK, you’re probably safe. They’re probably not going to claw it back. If you have been awarded the funding and you’ve gotten like some of it, but you’re awaiting like, oh, we’ve got to review the results of your first budget period before we unlock more funding for you — OK, that increases the risk a little bit.
I’d say if you’ve been awarded the funds but, you know, nothing’s been paid out yet, OK, that increases the risk a little bit further. If you’ve been selected for an award but not awarded yet — which those aren’t equal either, there’s an important difference between those. Like, a lot of times projects will get selected, like you make this big announcement, hey, we were selected for $10 million in cost share, you know, this kind of thing. But it can take, you know, up to a year, sometimes even longer, to actually negotiate the terms of that award before the funds could start flowing, before the work can start. So if you’ve been selected but not awarded — which there’s a good number of, you know, companies in that and other projects in that category — OK, that increases the risk even further.
If there’s an active funding opportunity that has not made selections yet, it’s just there’s companies applying, or you’ve already submitted your application, whatever — OK, then the risk is even higher. And then basically it just keeps going. Like if Congress has appropriated the money but no funding opportunity has been developed yet, OK, that raises the risk even more. And we’ll have to see what happens pending budget negotiations this year. If Congress has authorized the funds to be spent at some point but has not specifically appropriated them, saying specifically this is, you know, when and how they should be spent, OK, that raises the risk even further.
And then the final kind of category here is, OK, the funds haven’t been authorized yet. Like, we’re just advocating for new policies to spend more money. OK, I don’t know if in this Congress you’re going to get that. Maybe someone’s going to slide something in some way, or maybe people can make some deals, whatever. But I would say, yeah, like as you go along that spectrum from, like, the money is literally already in the pocket of the company doing it, already in the bank account of those doing it, all the way through, you know, we’re waiting for more funds to be approved — I’d say the risk shoots up as you go down that line.
Ross Kenyon: Don’t oil and gas want to do this? Or were they just playing along because they thought this is going to happen under Biden one, potentially Biden two, and they were just trying things out? I thought the convictions maybe ran deeper. We saw the Shell CEO recently came out for climate change and thinking that’s a serious threat and is concerned about it. And everyone knows about Oxy’s commitment to CDR and climate change broadly. Even if it isn’t the exact formulation that they would like, they’re actually leagues ahead of a lot of people who don’t say anything or are actively critical of it. I thought there was like more thoroughgoing concern. We’re gonna change this into energy companies rather than fossil fuel companies. We’re gonna run the system in reverse. All the cliches you’ve probably heard 150 times since starting in carbon removal. What happened to that? Was that all just window dressing?
Grant Faber: You’ll have to get them on the show and ask them.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I don’t want to force you to speak for them. But I thought they kind of thought this was a transition that was coming, and if there’s money to help them transition, they’ll take advantage of it. But it seems like the world has changed around them, and are they more OK with it? Actually I am asking you to put words in their mouth, but maybe you can speculate. Are you willing to? I can skip this if not.
Grant Faber: No, we can think about it. I mean, I think it’s challenging. I think, as many people will say, with any kind of large either individual corporation or set of corporations in an industry or something, it’s not a monolith. And I think there are a lot of people, a huge number of people really, who work for oil, gas and even coal companies who know climate change is a thing. They believe something should be done about it. And yeah, I think there are challenging, you know, broader macro trends that prevent the transition. But we don’t have to get into talking about that.
It’s challenging because I think a lot of, say, oil companies in particular, they are interested in getting into direct air capture. It could represent a new business line for them that helps them maybe transition some jobs and some areas where, even climate legislation aside, they might, you know, run out of oil and gas, but you still want to employ people in certain areas where the wells run dry. Well, you know, carbon management, direct air capture — these are ways you can do that. And you don’t even need to believe in climate change to understand that. Well, if other people do, and other people are willing to pay me for carbon removal and [unclear] credits, well, I can make money. So you don’t even need to believe in climate, or to bandy on about, oh, how bad it’s going to be, and the IPCC and all this, to make money from doing something.
So I do think there are overlapping skill sets. I do think there’s interest. I do think there are existing investments that they don’t just want to give up right now. But you also have to ask, you know, if you were in their shoes, do you want to fight the Trump administration for a few million dollars for a DAC project? Do you want to potentially risk getting on their bad side, which could perhaps threaten other business lines that you have, or other kinds of projects or permits that you’re seeking? You know, it starts to be a calculation. And fundamentally, I mean, these companies — yeah, maybe in the future they’re going to make more money from like lower-carbon business units. But right now, oil and gas keep their lights on. That’s what pays the investors. That’s what these companies do.
And that’s why there’s kind of maybe a little — I don’t want to say a fundamental disconnect, ’cause I don’t know, a lot of them are — ideally, yeah, we would want to see them transition for the good of the climate. But yeah, they’re going to pick their battles. And I just don’t know if things like DAC are going to really fall on the positive side of that. So we’ll have to see. But I don’t know, for some of these larger projects, particularly Project Cypress and the South Texas DAC Hub, these are substantial projects. And those projects were awarded, and there needs to be successful down-selection, and it goes into that category I was talking about before about meeting all the objectives of your first budget period and kind of negotiating additional funding. That isn’t like the highest risk possible thing, but there’s still risk, whether those will actually go through or not. And so, yeah, it’s just to be seen. And I think that’s just a theme of uncertainty that we all need to deal with.
Ross Kenyon: Do you have a prediction for what will happen with the DAC hubs like Cypress, or 45Q? I think 45Q in its current state — and this is all, you know...
Grant Faber: Yeah, if I had to bet — or, like, you know, it’d be fun, we should probably do a thing where we get like a bunch of people from across the carbon removal industry to do like a superforecasting thing. And I’ll put like, oh, what probability do you think, you know, this will be protected? I think 45Q’s relatively safe. I mean, I think the American Petroleum Institute has even come out and said like, oh, you know, we’re hoping to at least preserve 45Q. Because, yeah, I mean, 45Q in its current way — like, if you dig into who’s really making money from it, you see, OK, yeah, it could stay in place. Now there’s a chance it could be modified in some, you know, new tax package or something.
Ross Kenyon: Like, is it impossible that they keep the point source capture stuff in and they edit out the DAC part of the credit?
Grant Faber: I hope not.
Ross Kenyon: I hope I didn’t just give someone that idea, but you know.
Grant Faber: They’re not listening to this show, I don’t think.
Ross Kenyon: I think you’re — yeah, probably not. Or at least not this far into the episode.
Grant Faber: But yeah, like, I don’t know, something like that could happen. In terms of the hubs, I mean, I think it’s important to differentiate between the 21 hub projects from the first funding opportunity and this upcoming round. I would say, and sincerely hope, that the projects from the first round — because the vast majority of them have been awarded — that they’ll be able to hopefully continue at some point.
As for the second round, you know, the funding opportunity is out, the deadline for concept papers and pre-applications had passed, but there’s going to supposedly be this period where there’s an encourage or discourage notification sent to those who sent it in. And then, you know, the ones who are maybe encouraged or whatever submit full applications for that second round of the DAC hubs funding. I would say that, yeah, just with that sort of typology I was talking about before, or different categories of different projects, there’s just higher risk there. So I don’t know if I would personally bet on those coming to fruition, but I sincerely hope that they do.
Ross Kenyon: What’s next for you, Grant?
Grant Faber: I’m not sure. I guess I’m going to be a frequent guest on the Reversing Climate Change podcast.
Ross Kenyon: You’re going to take over for me.
Grant Faber: Yeah, I’m not quite sure. I think it’s prudent to take some time. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the website called 80,000 Hours by any chance?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you know, a fun effective altruist resource.
Grant Faber: But yeah, they’re kind of high-level pitches. Well, if you’re going to work for 40 years, you know, 2,000 hours a year, your career’s going to be 80,000 hours. So it makes sense to spend a few hundred hours as an upfront investment thinking about the ideal way you want to spend your career to maximize — in their case, it’s, you know, positive altruistic impact on the world, but it can really be whatever you’re trying to optimize for. So I do think it’s prudent for me to take a breath and see what’s up. And then we’ll go from there. But I certainly love working in carbon removal. I love our community that we have. Sometimes I refrain from even calling it an industry. I still like to think of it as a community. Maybe that’s naive, but —
Ross Kenyon: I love it too. It is. I’ll let you do it.
Grant Faber: Thank you. So yeah, I’ll figure it out.
Ross Kenyon: Thanks for being here, Grant. I appreciate you being able to share so openly your experience, and I know it’s probably not the easiest thing to do, but I think it’s important that you were on and were able to share as much as you did. Thank you.
Grant Faber: Yeah, thank you, Ross, for having me back on. You know, it’s always a pleasure chatting with you. And I know we were talking about some tough topics today, but hopefully there’s some kind of hope, maybe some kind of optimism somewhere sprinkled throughout our conversation that people can take with them. But one way or another, I think we have to get to work.
Ross Kenyon: I agree with that.
