This local election is now a battleground in the gas industry’s war for survival
This local election is now a battleground in the gas industry’s war for survival
A look at the six-figure sums turning a Washington state House race into a referendum on electrification.
This local election is now a battleground in the gas industry’s war for survival
Greetings from rainy Astoria, Queens, where I’m delightedly admiring the new art I hung next to my desk over the weekend. It’s a birthday gift from one of my best friends, Nate.
The political cartoon depicts Franklin Edson – New York City’s 85th mayor – being pulled in opposite directions by two hogs, one marked Tammany, the other County Democrats. The Democrat, who, like a few other recent mayors, hailed from New England, served only a brief single term from 1883 to 1884. His tenure was marked by tensions with the Tammany machine. But his legacy is defined by the largest purchase of public lands for parks in city history and big improvements to drinking water infrastructure. Not bad for a stint that brief.
I’m writing to tell you about a story I published over the weekend. The piece examines the unusual national relevance of the race for Washington state’s 40th legislative district, which covers the San Juan Islands and neighboring coastal communities.
The gas industry and its unions are pouring money into the election to defeat state Rep. Alex Ramel, a progressive who championed greener building codes and policies to push for more buildings to use electricity for heat.
Electrification has proven controversial across the country. It’s no surprise – swapping gas furnaces and stovetops for electric appliances puts businesses that drill, refine, and distribute gas to residential buyers at risk. But it’s no treehugger’s crusade, either.
Putting aside the increasingly well-documented ways using gas at home causes health problems, continuing to use gas the way we do is a huge climate risk. Methane, the main component in natural gas, traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide during the first two decades it’s circulating in the atmosphere. That means when it leaks, as it often does, it hastens catastrophe.
There are lower-carbon forms of natural gas. The industry has pegged hopes on renewable natural gas, a fuel generated from livestock manure or raw sewage – essentially waste that would emit heat-trapping pollution anyway, but could be diverted to eliminate demand for fossil gas. Another is synthetic natural gas, a version of the fuel made with captured CO2 and hydrogen made from cleanly-powered electrolysers. But those fuels are scarce and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. Even optimistic industry projections suggest there will barely be enough of these low-carbon gasses to make more than a single digit dent in current demand for pipeline gas.
Electric heating and cooking still leads to emissions if they’re using power from fossil-fueled generating stations. But electric appliances tend to be far more efficient, so even then the net energy use is lower.
All of that amounts to electrification needing to do the bulk of the work to eliminate the 13% of U.S. emissions that come from buildings.
Ramel’s early encounters with the gas industry proved rocky. By last fall, the incumbent heard rumors that the industry was shopping around for a candidate to primary him.
The industry found its guy in Trevor Smith, a rising star in the local labor movement and business agent at a union representing gas and construction workers.
Smith is a strong candidate, with some reasonable critiques of electrification. To Ramel’s supporters, however, the money industry is throwing into a series of PACs supporting Smith’s campaign is worrying. Gas companies and their unions pumped at least $150,000 into a PAC backing Smith, making this race a contender for one of the Evergreen State’s most expensive this cycle. Ramel said he’s gotten a big boost in local donations, but it will be hard to mount a similar counterattack.
The primary takes place Tuesday, Aug. 2. The results will be mostly symbolic. Since Ramel and Smith are the only two candidates, they will both advance to the general election. The outcome could influence a lot more spending on this race.
“There’s nothing secret about this, nothing sinister about this. We’re there on our own workers’ behalf,” Neil Hartman, government affairs director at one of the unions backing Smith, told me. “And we’re not going to just say, ‘Oh, we support Trevor’ and walk away.’ We want the guy to win.”
There’s a lot more detail in the full story, which first published on Saturday morning and can be read here on HuffPost.
Another story I filed last week, on fresh polling that shows a bunch of “dormant” green voters sitting on the sidelines in this year’s election, might offer hope or despair, depending on how optimistic you are about efforts to turn these voters out. You can read that story, too, on HuffPost.
In other news:
For the first time since the 19th century, the flow of palm oil around the world has slowed down due to pandemic supply chain issues. Which is as good an occasion as any to take stock of how this oil from a tree native to west Africa became a dominant commodity grown in Asia and used in foods around the world. And to ask, what is the better alternative? London Review of Books
How are the countries with the most debt and the least power over their economies supposed to pay that off and get above water when the seas are literally rising around them? Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley ignited what may be a revolution by posing that question hard before global financial institutions. While we are still far off from a paradigm shift, it’s almost impossible to escape the conclusion that the status quo cannot sustain. The New York Times Magazine
Resisting calls to keep it open, Canada is closing its Pickering nuclear plant on schedule, and plans to replace the low-carbon fission electricity with natural gas. The National Observer
The closure of New York City’s nuclear power plant means “more people will die” of pollution as fossil fuel use goes up. This piece gives a good history of the fight over Indian Point. Jacobin
India may soon surpass China as the No. 1 buyer of minerals, a development that could further complicate the scramble to diversify supply chains. The Financial Times
Experts say dumping radioactive waste off the coast of northwest England poses a huge risk to marine life there. The Guardian
Bad Bunny said Puerto Rico’s newly-privatized electric grid is so unstable, that his home island is the only place where he needs back-up generators to hold a concert. WPRI-12
Recommendations:
Some nice house music to work or exercise to.
“Things We Used To Do” by Tyde
“Dangly Panther” by Jimpster
“Passionfruit” by Justice Der
Thank you for reading.