Charleston's biggest Dutch Dialogues funder is a GOP climate advocate

An influential Republican donor who spent much of last year arguing for a sea wall in Charleston hasn't stopped there. 

Jay Faison, a Charlotte entrepreneur, has continued to play a hands-on role in trying to fix flooding in Charleston, even though many people working on that issue say they hadn't seen him since last year.

An advocacy group he founded is paying for almost half of the city's signature flooding study known as the Dutch Dialogues, and emails show Faison communicated directly with study leaders about that funding. He's part of a statewide commission on flooding, as well.

Some think Faison is trying to reclaim the issue of climate change, and its impacts, such as flooding, for the GOP. Faison is a lifelong member of the Republican Party and has donated both personally and through political action groups to support vulnerable Republicans who also back clean energy initiatives. 

Faison said he's "been painted by the left as a guy who cares about Republicans and not climate," and by the right as an agent of environmentalists.

He said neither is right.

"Unfortunately, we live in a world where there’s the blue and the red team, and if you want to make a difference, sometimes you have to choose sides, if you want to get policy done," Faison said.

He said it was that desire to make a difference that led him to a hands-on involvement in Charleston.

Faison and groups he's founded have also been active in Florida and Virginia, but he said the less-complicated political landscape of Charleston and personal connections to the city led him to test what could be done to battle flooding on the local level.

Through the non-profit American Flood Coalition, Faison pledged $200,000 to the Dutch Dialogues, a study of water management in four sections of Charleston with different landscapes. The Dialogues are a key part of Mayor John Tecklenburg's efforts to tackle the city's longstanding flooding problems, and several others have donated to the project. But Faison's donation is the largest.

The Post and Courier first highlighted Faison's foray into local flooding issues last year when he and groups he funded pushed leaders in the Lowcountry to support building a sea wall along Lockwood Drive. The road along the western side of the Charleston peninsula partly borders the city's medical district and is vulnerable to tidal flooding from the Ashley River.  

Faison said he took on Charleston as a project partly because he had connections in town and partly because of his fondness for the city. He spent his childhood hunting in the Lowcountry. 

He also said he had come to view the flooding vulnerability of downtown Charleston as a statewide threat because of the tax revenue generated there. He said the peninsula's southwest corner could be considered "the most vulnerable area of the country."

"I think people underestimate that the peninsula is really the jewel in South Carolina's crown, and to not support the peninsula and what they need to sustain themselves, I think, is very short-sighted," Faison said.

'Your funding proposal'

A records request to the city of Charleston confirmed a flurry of activity last year as Faison traveled to Charleston and met with elected officials and local resilience groups. It also showed he set up a meeting with Dale Morris, an economist who is leading the Dialogues. 

"I and our team understand your funding proposal," Morris wrote to Faison in a July 2018 email. "In good faith we are coming to Charleston because we think this effort is serious and the work is important." 

Morris told The Post and Courier those requirements were that the Dialogues focus on the medical district, but Faison came to understand the study's broader approach. It has focused also on Charleston's East Side, the suburban Church Creek area of West Ashley and Johns Island, which remains rural in parts but is being developed into housing tracts in others. 

"I think Jay was interested in funding a focus on the medical district, and we were interested in that but not only that," Morris said. "We were interested in doing other (landscapes)."

Faison, meanwhile, said his only requirement was that there was a public relations campaign around the Dialogues so the results would be widely disseminated and actually reach the public and decision-makers.

"I generally try to fund things that are going to be used and that are made for the press to use," Faison said.

Faison's commitment has provided much of the financial backbone for the program and the public events and marketing around it. The Nature Conservancy, MUSC, Charleston Water System and Historic Charleston Foundation each pledged $25,000. 

The city of Charleston originally allocated $225,000 toward the effort, but when it came time for City Council to approve the expense last spring, several council members argued there had already been several flooding studies in the city and pushed back against allocating the full amount. 

Charleston will now pay up to $175,000, said Winslow Hastie of HCF, which has led the fundraising.

'Painted by the left' and right

Faison made his fortune as a former owner of audio-visual supplier Snap AV, and he is also the son of the late Henry Faison, a successful real estate developer in Charlotte.

In recent years, Faison has tried to convince fellow Republicans to deal with the warming planet. In a 2015 interview with The Charlotte Observer, he said his efforts stem from a desire to safeguard the future for his own children. Morris said Faison told him something similar in their meeting.

Faison's American Flood Coalition is bipartisan — its members include Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham, of the coastal 1st District, as well as Republican Gov. Henry McMaster. 

A separate group funded by Faison, called the ClearPath Foundation, has in the past focused specifically on convincing Republicans to support clean energy. In 2016, a ClearPath super PAC spent $4.3 million to back several GOP congressional candidates. In 2018, it spent $2.1 million, again only in support of Republicans. 

Fix Our Flooding, an offshoot of another Faison nonprofit, ran an ad last year featuring Cunningham's Republican challenger, Katie Arrington. The ad is the subject of a Federal Election Commission complaint, which has not been resolved. 

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Former South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis said that among conservative circles, Faison's voice is an influential one. Inglis, who represented an Upstate district for two stints between 1993 and 2011, is also committed to convincing fellow members of the GOP to address climate change through his RepublicEn group. 

"(Faison is) a guy who’s politically conservative, (a) very successful entrepreneur and that makes him a very credible voice for Republicans looking for solutions on climate change," Inglis said. "Jay has had a lot of success in getting the ear of decision makers in Washington."

Faison's effort has a deadline in mind. According to its incorporation records, the ClearPath Foundation is taking on a new name: the 2040 Foundation.

"The name 2040 is because I think that we have to be on different paradigm in all sorts of industries by 2040, and my commitment to climate ends in 2040," said Faison, who will turn 73 that year. "If we’re not well down the road here, this kind of work won’t be needed after 2040."

Climate scientists have said the deadline to shift the world economy away from planet-warming fossil fuels is even earlier. The worst effects from global warming will be avoided only if carbon dioxide and other emissions are drastically cut by 2030, a panel of UN scientists said last year.

Broader SC influence

Aside from its involvement in Charleston, the American Flood Coalition commissioned a poll this summer of likely voters in South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary.

It asked 400 respondents how worried they were about addressing flooding and sea level rise, and it tested whether certain facts might make them more likely to support fixes. Among those facts were statistics on the frequency of tidal flooding in Charleston and the cost of damage from recent tropical cyclones.

Faison has also been named to the governor's Floodwater Commission, a group investigating several possible flooding fixes around the state, ranging from improved oyster beds and wetlands, a man-made engineered reef to slow down waves, and a new lake to store floodwaters that rush out of rivers.

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South Carolina's Floodwater Commission is puts forth suggestions long made by environmentalists: that planners should work to preserve wetlands and prepare for flooding on a watershed level.

Brian Symmes, spokesman for McMaster, said Faison and the governor met in 2017 and quickly recognized they had shared interests. Symmes said Faison was "a natural fit" for McMaster's commission, a volunteer-based effort of scientists, politicians and military leaders. 

Faison hasn't attended the group's quarterly meetings but has kept up with its work through conference calls. He also helped fund at least one scientist, Rob Young of Western Carolina University, who did research for the commission. 

Young said the funding was a few thousand dollars that was spent on background research at his center, which studies shoreline development, and collected vulnerability assessments from around the state. 

It's the only known instance of someone being paid for work they do on the commission. 

"Those who are serving on the floodwater commission are doing it on a voluntary basis, and should someone involved or someone not involved contribute their own resources … that’s certainly more than welcome," Symmes said.

Faison said he thought the work of the flood commission, which has so far focused on the symptoms of climate change — fending off rising water — and not the causes, is a good first effort. 

"I think the report was a step in the right direction," Faison said of the commission's preliminary findings, released in August. "Would I like to see more clear definition of the problem and the costs and the strategy? I would, but I think it's a step in the right direction."