Puget Sound Energy helps fund multimillion-dollar campaign with the Canadian tar sands industry
Join us to Stop Fossil Fuels!
By Jesse Piedfort, Chapter Director, Washington state Sierra Club
The fossil fuel industry is on the ropes: coal is permanently declining and oil companies are announcing bankruptcy left and right. But a third fossil fuel is still expanding into our communities every day: “natural” gas.
Now the industry has Washington state in its sights. It's spending millions of dollars on a public relations and political organizing campaign to convince Washingtonians to ignore climate science and make the next generation dependent on gas, three-quarters of which comes from the environmentally-destructive process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
Late last year, the Seattle Times reported on the planned launch of this fossil fuel campaign, which promotes fracked gas as part of our state’s clean energy future. Last month it finally launched, giving us a look at who is behind this disinformation effort.
Named "Partnership for Energy Progress,” this coalition is led by many of the usual suspects when it comes to fossil fuels in the Pacific Northwest, starting with Puget Sound Energy.
Washington state’s largest investor-owned utility continues to build a massive liquified natural gas facility on the Tacoma waterfront despite opposition from the Puyallup Tribe, which has tribal treaty rights in the area. PSE operates nine gas plants for electricity, and consistently calls for building more in its long-range plans. They also pump fracked gas into hundreds of thousands of buildings across Western Washington and have lobbied hard against measures in Seattle and Bellingham to move buildings towards cleaner, safer electric appliances.
Puget Sound Energy’s push for gas expansion is no surprise - it is majority-owned by Canadian pension funds that heavily invest in gas extraction and gas pipelines. Creating more outlets that burn fracked gas means more places to sell fracked gas, which means more profits for corporate shareholders and executives. PSE’s last CEO made $11.7 million in 2019.
Shockingly, PSE is teaming with some of the most powerful fossil fuel companies in North America for this campaign:
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TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada, is building the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline with the help of the Trump Administration. They’re also pushing the Coastal GasLink pipeline in British Columbia despite demands from indigenous leaders that it must stop to prevent COVID-19 ravaging underserved rural communities.
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Enbridge is also a “partner” - you may remember them from a British Columbia gas pipeline explosion that nearly led to brownouts in Western Washington. (Remember that when they tell you that fracked gas is “reliable.”) Enbridge is the largest pipeline company in North America and is also building the controversial Line 3 pipeline in Northern Minnesota.
Every major climate study — including the ones put out by Governor Inslee’s office, President Obama’s office, and the United Nations — shows that we need to move away from gas, whether that’s in our electricity grid or in the building sector, which is Washington state’s fastest-growing source of climate pollution. A growing body of research finds the total climate impact of "natural" gas rivals that of coal when taking methane leaks and fracking into account.
Making the next generation of Washingtonians dependent on a new fossil fuel would be a generational mistake. There is no future where we’ve avoided the worst impacts of the climate crisis by continuing to build out fracked gas.
And it’s not just the climate crisis - gas poses an immense threat to public health. A recent report found that gas stoves may be exposing tens of millions of people to levels of air pollution in their homes that would be illegal outdoors under national air quality standards. Numerous studies show children living in a home with a gas stove have a 42% higher chance of developing asthma, which disproportionately impacts low-income residents and communities of color who already live with more fossil fuel pollution.
Using gas increases the risk of household fires and explosions through methane leaks from pipes, meters, and appliances--a particular risk in earthquake-prone areas like Western Washington. Nationwide on average, every four days a gas pipeline incident killed someone, sent someone to the hospital, or caused a fire or explosion.
Washington has been a climate leader for decades - we defeated countless proposals for coal and oil exports and last year we passed one of the strongest 100% clean electricity bills in the nation. No amount of fossil fuel money is going to convince us to double down on fracked gas.