Eric Hovde didn’t say people who believe in transitioning to clean energy are smoking crack cocaine

U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde has an evolving relationship with clean energy. 

The Republican businessman, who will face incumbent Democrat U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin on Nov. 5, has embraced solar energy tax credits for his Sunwest Bank clients in recent years. That’s a flip from his 2012 campaign for the Senate, during which he said he was "wholeheartedly" opposed to tax credits for green energy. 

He listed low costs for solar power and improved solar technology, as reasons for his change of heart. He still expresses doubt, however, about tax credits for other forms of clean energy, such as electric vehicles and wind turbines. 

Climate Power, a strategic communications group focused on electing politicians who care about climate change, picked up on Hovde’s stance — particularly a fiery comment he made during Sunwest Bank’s Economic Forum Nov. 17, 2022. 

"Hovde claims anyone who believes in transitioning to a clean energy economy is ‘smoking crack cocaine,’" the group wrote in an Oct. 18 email previewing Hovde and Baldwin’s debate later that night. 

But that phrasing leaves out a part of his comment that significantly changes what Hovde was saying. 

Let’s take a look. 

Hovde was remarking on pace of U.S. energy transition

Asked for evidence to support the group’s statement, Climate Power spokesperson Christina Polizzi pointed to the YouTube recording of the Economic Forum, and the Journal Sentinel’s mention of Hovde’s "smoking crack cocaine" remark, and news articles where he was quoted on the same issue. 

Polizzi also sent links to other comments by Hovde deriding clean energy mandates and tax credits. 

But here’s Hovde’s full quote from the forum, where the remark Climate Power picked up on comes from: "To think that we are going to move an economy the size … any economy from its existing energy sources in a matter of a decade? You are smoking crack cocaine." 

The key part Climate Power omitted is the time element — Hovde cast doubt on a quick transition to a clean energy future, not the transition itself. 

That takes the group’s claim from spot-on to off-base. 

In more recent interviews, Hovde has extended the timeline for a clean energy transition that he believes people are kidding themselves on. 

"To think we’re going to move off gas, (natural) gas, oil, in the next 50 years — you’re living in la la land," he said during an Oct. 8 luncheon cosponsored by the Milwaukee Press Club and Rotary Club of Milwaukee. 

And he told the Cap Times in August that the push to end fossil fuel use before the next half century is "delusional." 

Still, his point is clear — he’s arguing the clean energy transition is unlikely to happen in the coming decade or decades, not that people are wrong to believe it will happen at all, as the Climate Power claim makes it seem.

How fast could the clean energy transition happen?

It’s Hovde’s opinion, of course, that people who believe in achieving 100% clean energy in the U.S. in the next few decades are "living in la la land," "delusional" or "smoking crack cocaine." 

Energy experts point out there are already several states moving toward that benchmark by way of executive order or legislation. According to the Clean Energy States Alliance, there are currently 24 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, that have set 100% clean energy goals. That includes Minnesota, which in 2023 passed a law requiring the state’s electricity to be carbon-free by 2040, and Wisconsin, which aims to achieve the same by 2050. 

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Those aren’t "pie-in-the-sky figures," said Chelsea Chandler, Clean Wisconsin’s climate, energy and air program director. 

"All of the science points to the clean energy transition being absolutely technically feasible," Chandler said. "It’s not a technical problem, it’s a political challenge." 

Although more than 100 countries have adopted pledges to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to the United Nations, the world is not on track to reach that goal because "commitments made by governments to date fall far short of what is required." 

Some people say comments such as Hovde’s take away from the energy transition’s urgency. 

"It’s like firefighters showing up to a burning building and saying, ‘If you think we can put this out in an hour, you’re smoking crack cocaine,’" Clean Wisconsin communications director Amy Barrilleaux said. "The point is to try to put out the fire as fast as possible, not sit on the sideline coming up with excuses." 

Our ruling

Climate Power claimed Hovde said anyone who believes in transitioning to a clean economy "is smoking crack cocaine."

What the group brushed over is that his remark was about the pace of the energy transition. In the "smoking crack cocaine" example in particular, it’s "in a matter of a decade." 

Hovde has criticized clean energy initiatives in the past, and energy experts critiqued the usefulness of Hovde’s overall point. But it doesn’t change that he did not say what the group says he did. 

We rate this claim False.