Natural Gas Industry’s $1 Million PR Campaign Sets Up Fight Over Northwest’s Energy Future

SEATTLE (Oil Monster):  Washington and Oregon natural-gas companies, rattled by local proposals that could shift more buildings to electricity, will spend $1 million on a public-relations campaign to promote their fuel as part of the region’s clean-energy future.

The gas companies are forming a coalition of unions, businesses and consumer groups to tout the benefits of natural gas and to help “prevent or defeat” initiatives that inhibit its use, according to internal industry documents obtained by The Seattle Times. They’re calling the coalition “Partners for Energy Progress,” and a public launch is scheduled next year.

The planning documents provide a window into the industry’s broader effort to ensure that natural gas continues to be piped into American homes and other buildings, even as municipal and state governments grapple with how to combat climate change.

“This will play out on a national scale much sooner than a lot of us have expected,” said Seattle City Councilmember Mike O’Brien, who in September proposed banning gas from new construction. “I think it’s the right time for us to be having this debate.”

In Seattle, Bellingham and other Northwest cities, gas companies and their allies already have begun fighting policy proposals, like O’Brien’s, that would place new restrictions on natural gas use in buildings as a way to reduce climate emissions.

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) joined other opponents to halt the Seattle proposal, and Cascade Natural Gas has attacked recommendations by a Bellingham task force that include phasing gas out of all buildings.

Dan Kirschner, executive director of the Northwest Gas Association, confirmed the $1 million push, which he said would be launched with funding from association members, including Bellevue-based PSE.

PSE provides electricity to a wide swath of Western Washington residents outside Seattle, but also is a major supplier of natural gas.

“We should be using every tool in the toolbox,” including gas, Kirschner said.

Natural gas, when combusted, releases roughly 50% fewer carbon emissions than coal. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Natural gas vents and leaks release unburnt methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, and anxieties about that phenomenon are growing.

Unburnt methane can warm the planet 84 times more in the first 20 years than the same amount of carbon dioxide. A leak at an Ohio well that received scant attention last year released more methane than the oil and gas industries of countries like France emit annually, scientists said this month.

In Washington, natural gas already has been deemed to be part of the climate problem, as a generator of electricity. A law passed earlier this year says coal and natural-gas plants must be purged from the state’s power supply as renewable power sources such as solar and wind farms become more available.

Courtesy: www.seattletimes.com