Eversource left the American Gas Association. These other “climate-friendly” utilities haven’t.
Eversource left the American Gas Association. These other “climate-friendly” utilities haven’t.
Self-proclaimed climate champions are paying hundreds of thousands every year to help AGA push climate delay
If we want to achieve real climate action in the United States, we have to do something about trade associations.
Over the last two decades, trade associations for fossil fuels and other industries have spent billions obstructing climate policy and spreading climate misinformation. They spent $3.4 billion on political activities related to climate change from 2008 to 2018, according to a study released last year.
One of the most obstructionist associations is the American Gas Association. One of two major trade groups for utilities—aka, the companies you pay your electric bill to—AGA is currently fighting climate policy and pushing misinformation throughout the country.
For example: In an effort to prolong the use of methane gas—a major contributor to climate change—AGA is successfully campaigning for laws that prevent governments from moving away from fossil fuels. These so-called “pre-emption” laws “strip cities of basic powers to set greener building codes and help phase out fossil-fuel pollution,” and are now in place in 20 states.
AGA is also attempting to undercut the federal effort to make electrification more affordable for families; launching advertising campaigns that falsely claim no association between gas cooking and asthma; and hiring influencers to promote gas appliances across social media.
All of this has been made possible by the millions in annual membership dues AGA receives from its power utility members—many of which claim to be climate champions themselves.
Why the time is ripe to pressure power utilities
Activists have long considered it a losing battle to try and get power companies to pull their money from AGA for its aggressive climate delay tactics. AGA has been a powerful trade group for decades, and members have said they need the resources and educational materials AGA provides.
Until this week. On Tuesday, WBUR reporter Miriam Wasser broke some major news: for the first time, a major utility company has left AGA because of differences over climate change.
The company is Eversource, the largest gas utility in New England. Eversource, which operates in states with strong climate laws, regularly touts its commitment to decarbonization, and claims to be working toward carbon neutrality by 2030.
Spokesperson Chris McKinnon told Wasser that Eversource left the group last year because they wanted to “redirect costs to more targeted associations and memberships with a focus on decarbonization.” While far from a barn burner, the implication of Eversource’s statement is clear: AGA is not focused on decarbonization.
The impact of Eversource’s departure is even clearer: AGA has lost what is likely hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual membership dues that would have been used for climate obstructionism. (Eversource’s dues have not been made public, but other major utilities pay anywhere from $300,000 to $800,000 per year.)
To be clear, Eversource has a long way to go to become a truly climate-friendly power utility. It’s still pushing methane gas development, and it’s an active member of another trade group opposing electrification.
But pulling money from one of the country’s most climate obstructionist trade groups is a no-brainer for a utility to prove it is engaging in good faith. So we wanted to know: Why are other big, self-proclaimed climate-friendly utilities still members of AGA? And given Eversource’s departure, will they consider leaving too?
Here’s who we reached out, why we reached out, and what they said.
Con Edison
As New York’s largest power utility, Con Edison has pledged to be a good-faith partner to the state’s ambitious climate goals. “Climate change, I think, calls for them,” Con Edison CEO Tim Cawley recently told City and State. “We are really supportive of helping the state achieve these goals.”
Con Edison has also publicly pledged to move away from fossil fuels. Its Clean Energy Commitment promises the “advancing electrification of heating and transportation, and aggressively transitioning away from fossil fuels to a net-zero economy by 2050.”
In an email to HEATED, ConEd spokesperson Jamie McShane reiterated that promise to “transition away from fossil fuels and toward heating buildings with electricity that will increasingly come from renewables.”
However, McShane also confirmed the utility is still a member of AGA—which ConEd pays upward of $800,000 in dues to every year. McShane did not express disagreement with any of AGA’s political activities.
McShane also said that ConEd “reevaluates its participation” in membership organizations “on an ongoing basis.”
National Grid
One of the largest utility companies in the Northeast, National Grid has called climate change “the greatest challenge facing the world, our country, and our region.”
Not only has the utility, which serves more than 20 million customers across Massachusetts and New York, committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050—it has also committed to completely abandoning traditional methane gas by 2050.
National Grid also seems to understand the importance of walking the talk politically. Earlier this summer, the utility committed to conducting a review of its lobbying activities, including “the membership of all our trade associations and their alignment with our decarbonization targets.”
But National Grid still appears to be a member of AGA. It paid $385,000 in membership dues in 2022, according to WBUR.
National Grid did not respond to HEATED’s questions.
PG&E
PG&E provides gas and electric service to approximately 16 million people across California, and publicly portrays itself as a climate leader.
“Sustainability and climate action have long been core parts of PG&E's DNA,” says the utility’s website.
Pattie Poppe, PG&E’s CEO, spoke strongly about the company’s climate efforts in its Climate Strategy Report last year. “California is not just on the front line for taking action on climate change, we're also at the front line of its destructive effects,” she said.
“We need to put that climate machine in reverse and begin undoing the damage.”
But PG&E is actively contributing to the damage: it pays more than $800,000 a year in dues to AGA. It doesn’t appear they intend to stop, or demand changes from the trade group, either.
The utility did not respond to HEATED’s questions.
Xcel Energy
A major utility operating across 8 states, Xcel made history in 2019 by becoming the first large utility to commit to 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2050, and 80 percent carbon-free by 2030.
In 2021, it extended that net zero by 2050 promise to its methane gas operations, becoming “one of the first major American utilities to include in its net-zero target emissions from the natural gas it sells to customers,” according to Xcel.
But Xcel’s historic climate promises don’t extend to anti-climate policy lobbying. Every year, Xcel pays upwards of $500,000 in dues to AGA.
And if Xcel’s lack of response to HEATED is any indication, it doesn’t appear they disagree with AGA’s political activities.
Catch of the day: But if climate delay has got you down, just look at this precious face! Marvel is a Boston terrier who loves to nap on reader Dennis’ lap while they learn more about the climate crisis and what they can do.
It truly is a marvel how much better we feel looking at this pup.
Want to see your furry (or non-furry!) friend in HEATED? It might take a little while, but we WILL get to yours eventually! Just send a picture and some words to catchoftheday@heated.world.
Excellent article! I want to add one more example of the American Gas Associations tactics here related to the preemption stuff, which you probably already know about but maybe others don't.
Essentially trade groups, including the AGA, have major influence over the organization that sets the building codes used widely around the entire world, the International Code Council. And over the past decade plus, they have used their weight to ensure new building codes only have marginal increases in energy efficiency, and no major electrification provisions that remove fossil fuel usage entirely, mainly gas.
But it turns out cities and towns have the ability to vote on codes, and as climate became a larger concern there was an effort to use that power to have a substantial increase in energy efficiency and lower methane gas usage.
So trade groups did the "reasonable" thing and eliminated the ability for cities and local governments to vote on the building codes they have to implement and have expertise in. Which may have been useful because it could have possibly made the problem of states preempting local city councils from greener codes moot, if the state base building code was already greener.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/climate-green-building-codes_n_60381e23c5b60d98bec8dc7d
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/building-codes-international-code-council_n_603fd6b4c5b682971504df8e
This may sound terrible but I do have to admit I laughed at this. Fossil fuel trade groups complaining of others of manipulation by special interests.
"Among the organizations that have backed the voting change are some of the nation’s largest and most powerful industry lobbies, including Leading Builders of America, the American Gas Association and the National Association of Home Builders. They say the get-out-the-vote campaign that led to the biggest turnout in ICC voting history amounted to “manipulation” by “special interests.”"
I also think stories like this speak to what I believe you emphasize as a theme in all of your writing. That the climate crisis touches so much of society that no matter the profession or interest, one can make a difference. Architects and city council officials aren't usually seen as the front line people for climate action, but in this instance there was the potential to really change a key source of emissions, and the issue isn't resolved so there may be hope there.
Maybe I missed it in the article, but here's a link to all the municipal and public utilities who are AGA members: https://www.aga.org/research-policy/resource-library/annual-report-of-volumes-revenues-and-customers-by-company-2002-2020/ I found this information really helpful in the electric utility association you previously published--thanks for all the great reporting!