FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2021
Contact:
Collin Rees, collin@priceofoil.org
Ellen Sciales, press@sunrisemovement.org
Oil Change International and Partners Launch ‘Gas Is Not Clean’ Campaign
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Oil Change International, Sunrise Movement, Evergreen Action, Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Greenpeace USA, Indivisible, People’s Action, and other partners launched a joint Gas Is Not Clean campaign aimed at strengthening a potential Clean Energy Standard (CES) — also known as the Clean Energy Payment Program (CEPP) — by ensuring that gas is prohibited. The Gas Is Not Clean campaign will build pressure on politicians to commit to prioritizing truly clean, renewable energy and definitively excluding gas by making clear that gas is not clean, and that every stage of its production — from extraction to processing to transport to combustion — generates toxic air and water pollution.
The groups and their allies on Capitol Hill are demanding members of Congress make it clear they will fight to keep gas out of a CEPP. The campaign website will track which members of Congress are supporting this priority, and will serve as a resource for House and Senate Leadership to see the broad support among their caucus for excluding gas from any definition of clean energy. The groups behind this campaign will be engaging members of Congress through digital amplification, email and social media campaigns, and local organizing efforts in-district.
This campaign comes ahead of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s anticipated September 13 mark-up session, in which the House committee will advance language for a new clean energy standard to constrain emissions.
“With climate disasters coming at us from every direction, the stakes of the reconciliation bill could not be higher. This is our moment to turbocharge the transition to a green, just economy, and the Clean Energy Standard can play a key role – but it needs to be as ambitious as possible on renewables, and it needs to exclude gas. This is not complicated, and we can’t allow the gas industry to confuse the issue. No fossil fuels, period.”
— U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman, NY-16
“The evidence is clear: Gas is a deadly fossil fuel that’s a disaster for the climate and communities. Any clean energy standard or payment program that allows gas would fly directly in the face of President Biden’s commitment to decarbonization. Clean energy means no gas and no other fossil fuels, period.”
— Collin Rees, U.S. Campaign Manager, Oil Change International
“We’re making our politicians pick a side — are you with us or fossil fuel executives? The science is clear: there is nothing clean about gas. It’s a potent fossil fuel that pollutes the air we breathe, the water we drink, and is the reason Hurricane Ida intensified to the point of fatality and utter destruction. A CES that includes investments towards gas does not meet the scale of the climate crisis, and is a slap in the face to communities across the country who are facing climate disasters. We deserve a liveable future free of toxic pollution and catastrophic climate disasters. We will continue to pressure members of Congress until they exclude gas from the CES.”
— Lauren Maunus, Advocacy Director, Sunrise Movement
“Natural gas is a dirty fossil fuel. Just like oil, it pollutes the air and water wherever it is extracted, produced, and burned. The fossil fuel driven climate crisis is already bringing record heat waves, massive storms, and crippling droughts that are killing people and destroying communities across the country. Natural gas is nothing more than corporate PR and marketing teams trying to rebrand fossil fuels — if oil is Coke, natural gas is New Coke. We can’t afford a Clean Energy Payment Program that pays the fossil fuel industry to continue to destroy our planet and our communities.”
— Ashley Thomson, Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace USA
“At a time when we have unprecedented wildfires, hurricanes, and devastating extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis it is well past time to listen to the science — gas is not clean. Indivisible demands a Clean Electricity Payment Program explicitly excludes gas. Anything less than that sanctions the pollution of our air, water, and communities.”
— Ann Clancy, Senior Climate Policy Manager, Indivisible
“A Clean Electricity Payment Program has the potential to displace polluting fossil fuels, secure pollution reductions in overburdened communities, and achieve a 100% carbon pollution-free electricity grid by 2035. Yet we can only achieve these goals if a CEPP does not incentivize or credit gas power generation, which would eliminate any possibility of reaching our GHG reduction commitments and avoiding the worst effects of climate change. In addition to emissions at power plants, when methane leaks are accounted for across the gas production, transmission, and distribution systems, the total GHG impact of gas power is nearly doubled, and the toxic waste left behind from the fracking process continues to harm communities across the country. Continuing to rely on gas will only further the environmental injustices faced by communities of Black, Indigeneous, and other people of color who already disproportionately bear the effects of pollution and climate change.”
— Kass Rohrbach, Acting Director – Ready for 100, Sierra Club
“Trying to stop the climate crisis with gas is like trying to put out a fire with gas. It will only make the problem worse.”
— Jamie DeMarco, Federal & Maryland Policy Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
“We must ban all fossil fuels and greenhouse gas pollution immediately to mitigate the unfolding planetary disaster which Congress shamefully has failed to address.”
— Todd Fernandez, Executive Director, Climate Crisis Policy
The full list of groups joining the Gas is Not Clean campaign for today’s launch include:
- Chesapeake Climate Action Network
- Climate Crisis Policy
- Earthjustice
- Elders Climate Action
- Evergreen Action
- Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility
- Greenpeace USA
- Indivisible
- Interfaith Power & Light
- NDN Collective
- Oil Change International
- People’s Action
- Sierra Club
- Sunrise Movement
- Working Families Party
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Stupid is as stupid does.