Catherine Plume: Washington Gas owes DC a serious climate plan
Here in our nation’s capital, we are proud that our local policymakers are leading the fight against climate change, but we must also recognize that our commitments to reduce climate pollution require follow-through. The CleanEnergy DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018 launched the District on a pathway for 100% renewable electricity by directing our Public Service Commission to factor climate change impacts in its decision-making, committing the District to being entirely carbon-neutral by 2050.
After the District adopted these bold climate commitments, the commission approved the merger of AltaGas and Washington Gas on the condition that the combined company would deliver a plan to “evolve its business model to support and serve the District’s 2050 climate goals.” DC’s marquee climate goal is the mayor’s commitment of carbon neutrality by 2050. Unfortunately, the so-called “climate business plan” delivered by the gas utility in March can best be described as lip service to the District’s climate commitments.
Last month, the Sierra Club filed a detailed takedown of the gas company’s plan that included a report by independent energy expert Ezra Hausman. One of Hausman’s key findings was that the plan fails to achieve the District’s climate commitments as the company intends to continue to rely on climate-damaging fossil gas for nearly half of its sales — not in 2030 or 2040, but in 2050, the year that the District is supposed to be carbon-neutral.
Hausman’s analysis also finds that the plan relies on data that are either unsourced or are derived from biased industry sources like the American Gas Association, an entity whose sole purpose is to advocate and lobby for continued use of fossil fuels. Washington Gas also makes the wild assumption that no other jurisdiction in the DC region will take significant action to help drive a maturation of the clean-energy economy — ignoring, for instance, the landmark Virginia Clean Economy Act passed earlier this year that will decarbonize the commonwealth’s grid by 2045. The Washington Gas plan ignores current economic, technical and policy realities and implausibly asserts that continued dependence on fracked gas complies with the District’s commitments.
In addition, while the Washington Gas plan calls for reliance on expensive, dirty fuels like fracked gas, it also embraces the gas industry’s latest attempt to confuse the public about climate-polluting “biofuels” such as manure gas. Derived from unsustainable and sometimes unethical factory-farming practices, manure gas ends up polluting the atmosphere with large amounts of methane — a greenhouse gas 84 to 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide when measured over 20 years. Incorporating these biofuels would do little to achieve DC’s climate commitments.
There’s also an issue with indoor air-quality levels associated with gas stoves, which are frequently found to exceed outdoor pollution standards, threatening the lungs of our children and families. A recent study from UCLA and a joint report from Rocky Mountain Institute and Physicians for Social Responsibility both highlighted the significant health risks of gas stoves. When burned in people’s homes, gas emits nitrogen dioxide, which results in increased respiratory symptoms, asthma attacks and hospital admissions. Children living in homes with a gas stove have a 42% increased risk of asthma.
It’s critical that Washington Gas center its climate plan with public health and equity in mind, especially in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. Alternative technologies, such as all-electric heat pumps and induction stoves, exist, and Washington Gas can adapt its business model to help deploy them rather than remain entrenched in the fossil-gas infrastructure that is harming our planet and our health.
Washington Gas’s faulty assumptions and recommendations to continue dirty fuel consumption are especially disheartening as we begin to better understand the economic, health and climate-related benefits of moving away from gas and toward electrifying our buildings’ heating and cooking systems. Recent studies, for instance, have found that all-electric heat-pump construction as well as many retrofits cost less than fossil gas systems, reduce regional pollution and create jobs.
With its faulty “climate business plan,” Washington Gas deprived the Public Service Commission, community groups and consumers of the right to review a credible and realistic climate business plan. The Public Service Commission should reject this “plan” and work with stakeholders to finalize a real climate business plan that puts the District on the path to meet our 2050 climate commitments while providing a map for other municipalities and states to follow.
Catherine Plume is chair of the Sierra Club DC Chapter.
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