Welcome to The Energy Optimist, a monthly podcast brought to you by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). Each episode, we tackle a thorny energy policy challenge in bite-sized interviews with leading experts. We start with the bad news and end with what increasingly feels like a radical idea: that there are reasons for optimism. If you're new to how we regulate the energy system, we'll demystify it for you. If you're a seasoned practitioner, we'll hopefully leave you with renewed optimism to keep doing the work to improve our energy system.