Suffice to say there aren?t many billionaires crowding the podium at the Democratic National Convention this week to offer full-throated endorsements of President Obama while excoriating Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Then again, San Francisco hedge fund titan Tom Steyer, who addressed the convention on Wednesday, is not your typical billionaire.
The founder of Farallon Capital Management, Steyer, 55, had long been a high-giving Democratic donor and philanthropist who kept an exceedingly low profile, as my colleague Kerry Dolan wrote last year.? That changed in 2010 when he led a campaign that defeated a California ballot measure backed by the Koch brothers and the oil industry that would have gutted the state?s landmark global warming law.
Since then Steyer, who was 331 on the 2011 Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, has emerged as the anti-Koch, putting his money to work to support renewable energy and green technology.
?I think Mitt Romney and I share an income bracket, although I guess we?re never going to know for sure,? Steyer told the convention Wednesday evening, wearing his trademark red wool plaid tie. ?But the reason I?m here tonight is that Mitt Romney and I don?t share the same vision for the future, especially when it comes to energy.?
While Democrats have aggressively focused on social and economic issues at the convention in Charlotte, N.C., scant attention has been paid to climate change and energy, to the chagrin of some environmentalists and green tech entrepreneurs.
Steyer?s six-minute speech, delivered in the lull before network television coverage began in anticipation of former President Bill Clinton?s prime-time address, was designed to throw some red meat to the greens.
?Gov. Romney would do nothing to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and much to increase it,? Steyer said in his six-minute speech. ?He would gut President Obama?s investments in clean energy. He wants to keep giving $4 billion in taxpayer?s dollars to oil companies every year. The very same companies pouring millions into outside groups backing his campaign. ?
?Or we could follow President Obama?s long-term plan for the future, for an economy fueled by a safe, secure, sustainable energy supply,? he added. ?During the last several years we?ve seen tremendous progress on new technologies that can make us energy independent and create thousands of jobs. This is about investing for the long haul, not for a quick and dirty buck. This is about control of our destiny by doing what Americans do best ? by out-innovating, out-hustling and out-thinking our competitors.?
Keeping to Obama?s ?all of the above? energy strategy, Steyer stressed that oil imports were at a 20-year low and natural gas production at an all-time high. ?Natural gas, if developed safely and responsible, could help bridge our energy present to our energy future,? said Steyer, who has invested in solar and other green tech startups.
?Should we go back to the boom and bust, drill baby drill, polluting energy policies of yesterday or should we embrace an advanced energy economy that meets opportunity with innovation?? he said.
?Now I say this not as the head of Greenpeace or the Sierra Club but I say it as the head of an investment firm that has spent the last quarter century crunching numbers and making tough calls,? Steyer concluded. ?President Obama knows advanced energy is America?s future and my bet as a businessman is that he?s exactly right. ?
Steyer?s growing public profile ? he?s currently funding a California ballot measure to close a loophole that lets corporations lower their tax bill in the Golden State ? has sparked speculation that he?s positioning himself to run for public office himself one day, conjecture his convention appearance will not dampen.
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