Open Letter to DOEE Director Tommy Wells
From Organizations Concerned about the Climate, Health and Equity:
DCSEU Must Work to Speed DC’s Transition Off Fossil Fuels
By Ending Subsidies for Gas Combustion and Offering Robust Support for Conversion
VIA EMAIL
Tommy Wells, Director
DC Department of Energy and Environment
1200 First St. NE
Washington, DC 20002
Dear Director Wells,
The undersigned organizations represent a broad segment of DC’s climate, health and public advocacy communities. We are writing to ask that the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) require the Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU) to end its subsidies for gas-fueled appliances, while instituting increased support for home and building owners who wish to convert from gas to electric appliances, especially for low-income homeowners and property owners serving low-income communities.
The Mayor’s Clean Energy DC plan establishes DC’s most important climate commitments: greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 50 percent below 2006 levels by 2032, and carbon neutrality by 2050. The Clean Energy DC plan states, “Achieving its 2050 GHG carbon neutral target will require the District to eliminate fossil fuel use.”
DCSEU spends about $20 million a year in incentives for energy efficient light bulbs, appliances, and other efficiency measures, including millions of dollars on gas appliances, which – while they may be marginally more efficient – still depend upon the extraction, transmission and combustion of fossil fuels. This is incompatible with the need to end our reliance on fossil fuels to mitigate the climate crisis.
Transitioning off fossil fuels for building heat and hot water will require widespread electrification and adoption of highly efficient electric heat pumps. The millions of dollars DCSEU will save by ending incentives for gas appliances can instead be invested in the installation of highly-efficient heating and cooling technologies based on clean renewable energy sources. Other states are already doing this. Maine has set the target of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025, and New York's Clean Heat Initiative provides a rebate of up to $10,000 for heat pump installation.
DCSEU operates on a five-year contract with DOEE. The current contract expires next year, and DOEE is negotiating the contract renewal now. We ask that you guarantee the new contract prohibits the use of DCSEU funds to subsidize the purchase of fossil fuel appliances and instead sets targets for adoption of clean energy and highly efficient heat pump systems, especially for low-income households.
DCSEU’s $20 million annual budget alone will not be sufficient to fund the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. But it is critical that the DC government, through its contract with DCSEU, signal the intended policy direction, support building owners who are moving in that direction and curtail new investment in fossil fuel infrastructure and appliances that will soon be obsolete.
We appreciate DOEE’s hard work to make sure the District meets its 2032 and 2050 climate commitments. It is clear that if we are to achieve them and do our part to stabilize our climate, fossil fuels can play no part, and that is why we ask that DOEE take the important first step of ending all fossil fuel subsidies in the next DCSEU contract.
Sincerely,
Catherine Plume
Chair
Sierra Club DC Chapter
Chris Weiss
Executive Director
DC Environmental Network
Martin Thomas
Policy Lead
SEIU 32BJ
Neil Boyer
Chairperson
NAACP DC Environmental & Climate Justice Committee
Alexandra Wyatt
Policy Director/Legal Counsel
GRID Alternatives Mid-Atlantic
Barbara Briggs
Co-clerk
Friends Meeting of Washington Peace & Social Concerns Committee
Yesenia Rivera
DC Program Director
Solar United Neighbors
Ari Eisenstadt
DC Conservation Advocate
Audubon Naturalist Society
Tom Matzzie
Founder & CEO
CleanChoice Energy
Kathy P. Chiron
President
League of Women Voters of DC
Nicole Whalen
President
Green Compass LLC
Andrew Zimdahl
CEO
Honeydew Energy Advisors
Jonathan Lacock-Nisly
Director of Faithful Advocacy
Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA)
Anne Havemann
General Counsel
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Howard Crystal
Energy Justice Legal Director
Center for Biological Diversity
Stephanie Klein
Field Organizer
Moms Clean Air Force DC Chapter
Wren Patton
Hub Ops Lead
Sunrise Movement DC Hub
Marli Kasdan
Member
350 DC
Max Broad
Chapter Co-lead
Citizens Climate Lobby - DC
Mirele Goldstein
Director
Jewish Climate Action Network, DMV
Jim Walsh
Senior Energy Policy Analyst
Food & Water Action
Joseph Marhamati
Vice President
Ipsun Solar
Susan Stevens Miller
Staff Attorney
Earthjustice
Fran Teplitz
Executive co-director
Green America
Robert K. Musil, PhD, MPH
President & CEO
Rachel Carson Council
Robert Robinson
Chair
DC Consumer Utility Board
Marchant Wentworth
Principal
Wentworth Green Strategies
Victoria Boatwright
President
Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network (GREEN)
Janet Redman
Climate Campaign Director
Greenpeace USA
Holly Thompson
President
Catholic University Environmental Club
Dr. Laura Anderko, PhD, RN
School of Nursing & Health Studies, Georgetown University*
* Organization for identification purposes only
CC:
Bicky Corman, Chair, DCSEU Advisory Board
Ted Trabue, Managing Director, DC Sustainable Energy Utility
Mary Cheh, Chair, DC Council Committee on Transportation & Environment