When Fox News host Bret Baier listed his D.C. mansion for an eye-popping $31.9 million last week, some eagle-eyed observers noticed a surprising feature: Dozens of solar panels covered parts of the roof.
The listing agent, Daniel Heider of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, confirmed to The Washington Post that 86 solar panels were installed last year on a portion of the 16,250-square-foot French chateau-style home. This comes as Baier — who hosts the highest-rated cable news program in its time slot — has used his platform to amplify criticism of action on climate change, including the adoption of solar and other clean energy sources.
Some prominent conservatives — including Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine — have also privately embraced solar while pushing back against climate initiatives aimed at speeding the transition away from fossil fuels.
Despite their climate stances, all three men appear to have accepted a market reality: Solar panels increasingly make economic sense, especially for those who can afford the upfront costs. Although the average solar system costs between $4,600 and $16,000, the technology can help households save money on their energy bills in the long term. For the average homeowner in the nation’s capital, the panels pay for themselves in less than five years, according to the renewable energy marketplace EnergySage.
“Solar panels are a good investment in much of the U.S., regardless of politics,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at the energy research firm BloombergNEF. She said the clean-energy tax credits in President Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, make solar even more attractive across the country.
It’s unclear whether Baier claimed the subsidies, unlike in the case of Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who used the credits to buy 30 solar panels after voting against the climate law. A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to attempts to seek comment from Baier.
Baier, whose home sale would be the most expensive in D.C. history if it fetches the listing price, hosts a news show on Fox, and therefore approaches political stories with more balance than the network’s well-known opinion programming. Yet Baier’s show, “Special Report,” has consistently misled the public about climate change, according to a 2021 analysis by Media Matters, a left-leaning watchdog group. From 2009 to 2021, nearly 88 percent of the show’s climate segments either spread misinformation or perpetuated false or misleading narratives about global warming, the report found.
For instance, Baier has featured the views of Marc Morano, a prominent climate change skeptic, at least 10 times. Morano said on “Special Report” in 2019 that a major U.N. report on nearly 1 million species facing extinction was about “politics, not science.”
“The climate denial of the opinion hosts is more overt because it’s coming straight from their mouths,” said Allison Fisher, director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters. “But I think what Bret Baier is doing is more insidious because he’s inviting other people on [his show] to either deny or downplay climate change or challenge the efficacy of solutions.”
More recently, in a December 2022 episode of his podcast, Baier hosted Reps. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) for a conversation about energy policy. Johnson called for America to boost its exports of natural gas, incorrectly asserting that this would benefit the climate more than widespread adoption of solar panels and other green technologies.
“If we were to simply export four times as much natural gas as we are today ... it would have more of a carbon-emission-reducing effect than if we were to electrify every passenger vehicle in America, put a solar panel and battery backup on every home in America, and build 54,000 industrial-strength windmills all combined,” Johnson said.
Asked about his assertion, Johnson said he stands by it, noting that U.S. natural gas can be cleaner than gas produced in other countries. “The far-left environmental lobby can say whatever they wish, but it doesn’t make it true,” he said in an emailed statement.
Baier has given some airtime to advocates of climate action. In 2019, he hosted a conversation with Solar Energy Industries Association CEO Abigail Ross Hopper, who said the future of solar looked “bright.” In 2020, he co-hosted a town hall with liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who said that “climate change is an existential threat to this planet.” And in August, Baier co-moderated a Republican presidential debate where the candidates were asked whether human activity was contributing to climate change. (The overwhelming majority of scientists agree the answer is yes, but few of the candidates gave a straight answer.)
Mike Carr, executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition, which includes solar companies with U.S. operations, said he was not surprised to learn that Baier had installed solar panels. He noted that Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News, required employees to get coronavirus vaccines or submit to daily testing in 2021, even as several hosts criticized such vaccine mandates.
“I mean, they were all vaccinated. I would bet it’s a very high percentage of people there who have solar on their rooftops,” Carr said of Fox.
Massie, the Kentucky congressman, has been described as “one of the GOP’s most dedicated critics of liberal climate plans.” Even so, he lives in an off-the-grid home powered by solar panels and a Tesla Model S battery pack, which together produce all the electricity his family needs to run a cattle farm. At the same time, he drives a Tesla with a Kentucky license plate that reads “Friends of coal” and “Coal keeps the lights on!”
For the idiosyncratic lawmaker, solar panels are less about fighting climate change than about promoting a Jeffersonian ideal of rugged self-reliance.
“If Thomas Jefferson could have had solar panels at Monticello, he’d have had solar panels,” Massie told the libertarian economist and podcaster Matt Kibbe in 2019. “The less you have to go to the store and buy, the less dependent you are on Walmart — it’s not just that you’re greener, but you’re more independent.”
Massie’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
DeWine, the Ohio governor, had solar panels installed on the carriage house at the governor’s residence last year, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported. The new panels replaced an aging solar array and battery backup system installed in 2004, and the nonprofit group Green Energy Ohio helped pay for the installation using a $50,000 grant from the American Electric Power Foundation.
Since taking office in 2019, DeWine has promoted an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that calls for continued use of both fossil fuels and renewable energy. In January, he signed a bill that redefined natural gas as a source of “green energy” and promoted fracking in state parks, prompting outrage from environmentalists.
“Businesses and individual homeowners should look at whether installing solar panels is the right choice for them,” Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio governor, said in an interview. “It certainly has the potential to reduce energy bills.”
But, he added, “we are not in a position in Ohio to go 100 percent renewables. We have more energy needs than the current technology can meet. But we’ll see where we are in five, seven years.”
