President Biden does not issue building permits, I do

An hour’s drive from Los Angeles, California, in the Mojave desert, is the city of Lancaster, with a population of 165,000 people.

In 2008, Lancaster elected a Republican Mayor, R. Rex Parris. 

When he was first elected, Parris says “I thought [climate change] was a Communist Chinese plot to seize economic advantages ….. because that's what the Republican mantra was, and I just believed it.”

But Parris had an epiphany after meeting a climate tech entrepreneur.

“I realised that if we didn't do something about [climate change], my grandchildren weren't going to survive when they reached adulthood,” says Parris.

The following year Parris turned on Lancaster’s first solar farm. Since then he has become a warrior for renewable energy who has used every council ordinance and statute to make his city net zero.

“The building codes and way things were done by the planning department made it difficult to convert to renewable energy,” Rex Parris told the SwitchedOn podcast.

So Parris streamlined and fast-tracked renewable energy developments. Lancaster now generates hundreds of megawatts of renewable electricity.

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In 2013 Lancaster made it compulsory for all new homes and businesses to install solar energy systems.

“We passed an ordinance that every house built in Lancaster has to be net zero. You have to produce enough electricity to run your house and store it at night,”says Parris. 

Lancaster has also put solar panels on all the city facilities – city administration buildings, schools, and parking lots.

“We started our own power company to buy and sell the power, and we buy green energy, and it's cheaper than the Southern California Edison rates.”

Parris also brought Build Your Own Dreams (BYD) bus manufacturers to Lancaster, which generated a thousand local jobs. They’re now the largest electric bus manufacturer in North America.

“Our transportation agency was the first one to convert to all electric buses, and we are also the only transportation agency in America that makes money.”

“The alternative energy companies like to do business with Lancaster because they don't have to sit around doing nothing for years,” says Parris. “I mean we fast track at all.”

As a local government Lancaster initially flew under the radar of the fossil fuel companies but Parris says “they're starting to wake up to the fact that President Biden does not issue building permits. I do.”

Parris now hopes they can use green hydrogen fuel cells to start disconnecting from the grid.

The plan is to put City Hall, the city’s new hospital, and the fairgrounds on to microgrids using solar panels, batteries and hydrogen cells.

Parris believes hydrogen will allow them to bypass the energy utilities that control the grid, and whilst this wasn’t the only reason for encouraging the development of green hydrogen, “it's the icing on the cake”.

“I think most of the regulations [for hydrogen] are going to be written by us because we're the first ones using it.”

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You can hear the full interview with R. Rex Parris on the SwitchedOn Australia podcast here.