Oil and gas interests have waged a coordinated campaign to kill pro-electrification policies that ban gas connections in new buildings, putting the climate at risk, according to a new report.
Since 2019, utilities and fossil fuel trade groups, including the American Gas Association (AGA) and National Propane Gas Association (NPGA), have worked together to successfully thwart various local and state efforts.
The industry has launched similar efforts in the UK and Australia, the report from the London-based thinktank InfluenceMap says, drawing on their previous investigations.
These campaigns are imperiling the climate and public health, the researchers warn. Fossil fuel use in buildings accounts for nearly a third of all US planet-heating pollution, and top UN climate scientists say building electrification must be the “dominant strategy” for decarbonization. Gas usage in the home has also been linked to childhood asthma and an array of other health issues.
“The fossil fuel industry is maliciously trying to promote their corporate interests, to the detriment of the safety of our children,” Gaurab Basu, a professor at Harvard Medical School, who did not work on the report. “We must fight back.”
Reached for comment, Karen Harbart, CEO of the AGA, said climate advocacy groups were “willfully spreading misinformation on the safety of gas stoves and promoting ill-informed energy policy that would drive up prices and sacrifice environmental progress”. The industry would “continue to implement inclusive solutions to deliver life essential energy and reduce emissions for our customers and communities,” she said.
The Guardian approached the National Propane Gas Association for comment.
In July 2019, the city of Berkeley, California, became the first US city to ban gas hookups for heating and cooking in all new buildings. The groundbreaking policy inspired similar legislation in dozens of cities, including New York City and Los Angeles, as well as a 2023 statewide ban in New York.
These measures sparked swift – and often successful – backlash from fossil fuel interests, which lobbied policymakers, took to the courts, and coordinated “front groups”, to overturn and prevent them, the researchers write.
Within months of the Berkeley gas ban’s passage, the industry began lobbying for legislation in many states to pre-empt cities from enacting similar measures. The American Gas Association and its members appear to have played an early role promoting these bills, InfluenceMap says.
At least 26 states have now passed these policies.
In November 2019 – less than two months before the Berkeley gas ban was meant to be enacted – the restaurateur trade group California Restaurant Association also submitted a lawsuit against the policy. The AGA filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in support of the litigation.
A court ultimately ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor. Berkeley agreed last year to overturn its groundbreaking policy.
The National Propane Gas Association has also sued New York state over its gas ban, and both a utility and a trade group representing fossil fuel companies have filed a legal challenge to a similar measure passed in a Maryland county. And in October 2023, the National Propane Gas Association announced a legal action fund to fend off “illegal governmental overreach that seeks to eliminate energy choice”.
The industry has also funded pro-gas front groups for its campaigns, the researchers say. New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, which has fought city and state gas bans, for instance, counts utilities as members and receives funding from fossil fuel interests including a leading trade group. Coloradans for Energy Access similarly lists trade groups and utilities as members and in 2021 its board of directors was composed completely of utility representatives.
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InfluenceMap identified these industry campaigns in not only the US but also in the European Union and Australia.
“The scale and persistence of this worldwide anti-electrification campaign is alarming,” said Emilia Piziak, senior analyst at InfluenceMap.
In the EU, the authors write, utilities, energy companies, and trade groups since 2021 have worked to undermine requirements building electrification requirements in the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.
Meanwhile, in Australia, oil and gas interests worked to thwart the Victorian government’s planned transition away from fossil gas in buildings. The government last year rolled back a plan to phase out gas cooking; the announcement about the decision “seemed to directly mirror industry asks”, Piziak said.
The campaigns weren’t identical. In the US, industry press releases, public statements and court filings usually framed gas bans as threats to consumer choice, the researchers found. Pro-gas Australia campaigns mostly centered around the purported need for fossil fuels to maintain energy affordability and reliability, whereas in the EU, the most common talking point was the need for “technology-neutral” policies.
But the aims have been similar, and some actors may have even been involved in the pro-gas advocacy in multiple countries, the authors say. InfluenceMap compared the membership of the industry associations spearheading campaigns in the three regions and found at least one company, Shell, is a member key groups in the US, the EU and Australia. Several oil and gas companies belong to trade groups in two of the three regions. The true extent of this overlap is hard to determine due to lack of transparency from trade associations, the authors write.
The Guardian has contacted Shell for comment.
