From 2011 to 2023, U.S. electricity consumption was close to flat, despite substantial economic growth. Among the reasons for that steady rate of consumption: federal and state policies that encouraged energy conservation, including rules that led to a shift toward highly efficient light bulbs and tax breaks for reducing energy waste in buildings.
Steven Nadel played a big part in those policies as head of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the Washington-based nonprofit where he has been on staff since 1989 and executive director since 2001.
He announced in January that he will step down from his leadership role by the end of the year and focus more on research. He is making this change at a time when the return of President Donald Trump means supporters of energy conservation are playing defense, and when the period of flat growth in electricity demand is giving way to a new era of rapid growth due in part to data centers.
A good introduction to Nadel’s work is a 2007 Congressional hearing, viewable in the C-SPAN archives, in which he held up light bulbs to call attention to loopholes in a lighting efficiency bill, looking like a rumpled science teacher. That bill, which lawmakers later amended to remove many of the loopholes, got rolled into a larger energy measure signed by President George W. Bush—a landmark for energy conservation in consumer products.
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Along the way, ACEEE grew from four people in 1989 to about 80 today. It’s an impressive record, said Amory Lovins, the energy efficiency guru and cofounder of RMI.
“Steve Nadel’s decades of visionary leadership in energy efficiency, spanning all sectors and ideologies, has been a marvel and a national treasure,” Lovins said. “There is no end to the good that he has done and, in his next chapter, will continue to do for us all.”
Nadel, 68, lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with his wife, and has a grown daughter. In the coming years, you are more likely to see him backpacking, although he plans to continue his advocacy work, albeit at a slower pace.
I spoke with him about his career and how supporters of energy conservation are dealing with the return of President Donald Trump.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You started at ACEEE in 1989, so take me back to then. What were you like, and what was your organization like?
George H.W. Bush had just been elected president, had just gotten inaugurated, and ACEEE was a small organization. I was person number four and worked on federal and state policy, did a few reports. We weren’t that well known and we were trying to have an impact on energy efficiency programs and policies despite our small size.
Steven Nadel. Credit: ACEEE
What do you see as the first big thing that you were part of in your tenure?
First thing I’d mention is appliance efficiency standards. ACEEE, before I joined, had played a