SAN FRANCISCO – There is a part of the climate world that isn’t panicking about newly elected President Donald Trump.
The California tech bros who have taken on one of the state’s most intractable and dramatic problems—catastrophic wildfires—see an opportunity in a Trump 2.0, even as their climate-focused allies fade.
“Maybe there’s a little less focus on climate, whatever, but I think the value proposition for fire technology will remain as strong as ever,” said Matt Weiner, the CEO of the nonprofit Megafire Action. “It’s not one of those areas where partisanship is completely baked in.”
The niche firetech industry has grown rapidly over the past five years since the orange smoke-filled skies shocked the tech capital of San Francisco. Customers for its drones, artificial intelligence and smart grid software include utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric, which wants to prevent more bankruptcy-inducing fires, and the state of Texas, which is considering building out a fleet of firefighting aircraft after record are located. burn this year.
The entrepreneurs have also attracted interest from both Democrats, who want to fight climate change, and Republicans, who want to promote private sector alternatives to government and protect rural communities from destruction.
Over the past year, a group of mostly California-based CEOs have met several times with members of Congress, including Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), who will be key to forestry financing in the upcoming Farm Bill negotiations as the leading Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and on staff for Chairman Mike Johnson (R-La), who is poised to secure his speakership in the next Congress.
Weiner filed paperwork Tuesday to form a trade association for fire technology companies to lobby state and federal governments for more funding and better purchasing policies. He unveiled the Association for FireTech Innovation at the annual Red Sky Summit in San Francisco, which brought together startup founders, firefighters, utility executives and government officials.
Not everyone at the summit quickly saw opportunities in Trump’s rise. A half-dozen business owners declined to speak on the record, citing their personal political allegiances to liberal causes. Others cited concerns that Trump’s threats to withhold federal aid for the California wildfires, claw back Biden’s climate spending and dismantle government bureaucracy could wreak havoc on potential clients like the US Forest Service.
But at least one acknowledged he is adjusting his message to appeal to Republicans. James Brooks, CEO of Fire Aside, which sells software to digitize home inspections in preparation for wildfires, said the D.C. trips have changed his approach.
“The perception we got out of some of those meetings was that tax cuts are going to be a very important part of their agenda, so however we can position resilience work to be packaged into tax credits would be important ” he said. . Anticipating a possible trifecta of Republican power, he has already started building more mentions of potential home-hardening tax credits into his software.
Its efficiency sales pitch is also gaining traction in both red and blue districts: Berkeley’s fire chief endorsed Fire Aside, saying it has reduced the time spent on follow-up questions after home inspections by 90 percent.
The message is likely to resonate with Trump, who on Tuesday named tech CEO Elon Musk to lead a new government efficiency review panel. Musk also has some direct FireTech connections: One of the new trade group’s founding members is Muon Tech, which is partnering with Musk’s SpaceX to launch a constellation of climate monitoring satellites.
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