By Ryan Koronowski | ClimateProgress
Barry Goldwater Jr., son of the conservative senator, is fighting to keep solar energy in Arizona. [Mother Jones]
The name Barry Goldwater is practically synonymous with conservatism in America. That’s even more true in the late politician’s home state of Arizona, which he represented for five terms in the US Senate. Now his son, Barry Goldwater Jr., is putting the family name behind an effort to protect solar energy’s growing share of the electricity market—a struggle that has pitted him against entrenched utility interests and a right-wing dark-money group.
Goldwater, 74, is the chairman of Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed (or TUSK, for short), a group launched in March to fight the state’s largest electric utility, Arizona Public Service, on solar power. APS has been campaigning to get the state utility commission to change regulations dealing with net metering, a policy that allows homes and businesses with their own solar power systems to send excess energy they generate back to the grid and make money off of it. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have a net-metering policy in place.
Arizona has had net metering since 2009, which has helped make it the second-ranked state in the country in installed solar capacity. But APS has called for an overhaul of the state’s net-metering policy and plans to unveil its proposal to the regulators on the Arizona Corporation Commission this Friday.
Related: Here Comes the Son: Barry Goldwater Jr. Fights for Solar Power in Arizona
