SEATTLE -- The natural gas industry has launched a major campaign in the Northwest to tout the fuel source as a reliable way to fight climate change.

Environmental groups say it's as harmful as other dirty sources for the planet.

The Partnership for Energy Progress, made up energy companies and unions, is launching a $2.8 million campaign this year to promote natural gas as the energy source of the future.

Ingrid Archibald, safe cities field organizer for the group Stand.Earth contended even the word "natural" is misleading, since three-quarters of the fuel comes from fracking, nationwide.

"Burning gas is just as natural as burning any other fossil fuels," Archibald said. "And just because it comes from the earth doesn't mean that doing so is a good thing or that it's sustainable or good for our communities or for the environment."

The group pushing natural gas, the Partnership for Energy Progress, said natural gas is necessary to transition from coal to renewable sources like wind and solar.

The Partnership for Energy Progress includes the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters and energy companies Puget Sound Energy and TC Energy, which is behind the Keystone XL pipeline.

Jesse Piedfort, director of the Washington state chapter of Sierra Club, noted the fuel often leaks methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

He said we'll have to move away from natural gas if we want to stop climate change.

"They have a lot of money on their side and we have the science on our side," Piedfort said. "We know what the climate models show. We know what the truth is. We know where we have to start going on energy and natural gas."

The Partnership for Energy Progress has gone on the offensive in places like Bellingham, where the city is considering phasing out natural gas and electrifying homes instead.

Other cities are looking at the building sector as well, which is the fastest growing source of climate pollution in Washington state and up 50% since 1990.

Archibald said the natural gas industry understands the stakes.

"They know that electrification is a huge threat to their bottom line and their plan to frack and burn gas for as long as they can," Archibald said. "And we're calling that out and saying, 'We can't do that anymore. We need to stop burning gas. We need to move on to clean and renewable energy as quickly as we can.'"

The Partnership for Energy Progress notes natural gas is a cheaper form of fuel.

But Archibald doesn't believe the industry evaluates the full cost of gas, including its impacts on indoor air quality.

UPDATE: In statement from the Partnership for Energy Progress, the group said it will, "play a leadership role in communicating our progress toward advancing renewable energy and addressing climate change." It added that the industry captures organic methane that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and converts it to energy.

California lawmakers hold a hearing in Sacramento today on a bill to hold oil companies and gasoline refiners accountable for alleged price gouging.

According to the Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom, gas prices in California hit an average of $6.42 per gallon last fall, which was $2.61 more than the national average. And it happened even as crude oil prices dropped and state taxes and fees remained unchanged.

Farrah Khan, mayor of Irvine, said she supports Senate Bill 2, which would establish an independent watchdog within the California Energy Commission.

"It's going to establish a new division to provide independent oversight and analysis of the market," Khan explained. "This new division would have the power to subpoena information deemed necessary to root out and address any of the abuses of market power."

The Western States Petroleum Association said in a statement, "This new windfall penalty in this proposal is actually worse than the original bill. The Legislature would be giving away all its authority to a group of unelected bureaucrats who will have the power to set gasoline prices and impact fuels markets. [This] will likely lead to the same unintended consequences as his initial proposal - less investment, less supply, and higher gasoline prices for Californians."

Steven Hernandez, mayor of Coachella, said it is a matter of fairness to the families who live paycheck to paycheck.

"People struggle to afford gas and rent, and to pay medical expenses," Hernandez pointed out. "When we're mindful of the working class, I think we're better off as a society."

The California Energy Commission watchdog would analyze data to look for patterns of misconduct or price manipulation. The bill would also start a rule-making process at the Commission, to set a reasonable profit margin and impose a penalty for price-gouging above the margin. Any fines would be returned to taxpayers.


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A new report found forced power outages in this winter's extreme weather only added to "unreliability" in the fossil-fuel sector.

The PJM Interconnection is the electricity market including Pennsylvania and a dozen other states. Coal and gas plant owners' failure to honor their reliability commitments may cost them as much as $2 billion in penalties.

Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and the report's author, said some states saw rolling blackouts, and PJM used emergency measures to keep the lights on in Pennsylvania. Wamsted argued it all makes the case for renewable energy as an alternative.

"We are an organization that favors the transition to renewables," Wamsted explained. "We think renewable energies like solar, wind, battery storage, are here today. They are reliable today, they are cheaper than fossil fuels, and they also don't pollute the air, and solve, you know, a lot of our climate change problems."

The report noted in the PJM system, with more than 32,000 megawatts of gas and 7,600 megawatts of coal capacity, were offline at the height of the cold, despite substantial capacity payments PJM pays generators to be available at critical times.

Wamsted pointed out hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses were left without power because of the severe storm, and customers in the Carolinas and the seven states in the Tennessee Valley Authority service territory saw outages. He noted there were no rolling blackouts in the Keystone State, but notifications were sent to customers to prepare for the possibility of an outage.

"And so they didn't get to the point where they actually had to turn people's lights off," Wamsted recounted. "They were getting close to that in the sort of a warning structure, and they were appealing to customers to, you know, cooperate and help reduce demand. And that actually does work. "

The report showed the problems associated with the outages prompted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation to launch a joint inquiry into the events surrounding the December freeze and the performance of the nation's bulk power system.

Overseas markets could be harming forests in the U.S. Demand for wood pellets for biomass energy has increased dramatically around the world, especially in Europe where burning wood is treated as renewable energy and heavily subsidized.

The UK-based company Drax Group plans to build a 450,000 ton per year wood pellet plant in Longview.

Peter Riggs, director of the Washington state-based nonprofit Pivot Point, said the region has a productive wood sector.

"This new wood pellet plant proposed for Longview is very different," Riggs pointed out. "First of all, it's not for the domestic market, it's not making pellets for home stoves. It represents a substantial and entirely new source of wood fiber demand for export."

Riggs said much of the biomass would be bound for Asia. His organization signed a letter, along with more than 100 others in the U.S. and Canada, calling for the European Union to stop incentivizing wood burning as renewable energy.

Laura Haight, U.S. policy director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity, said despite its label as renewable energy, burning wood from forests one of the worst activities for the environment. It releases emissions when burned and removes trees that store carbon. Haight's organization also signed the letter to the European Union, urging it to no longer classify forest biomass as renewable.

"It's the money that's driving this system," Haight asserted. "If they change that policy, then this will no longer be subsidized, and we can see a better future for our forests and for our climate."

Riggs noted solar and wind energy were subsidized, and the costs have gone down dramatically. However, the same is not true for forest biomass. He emphasized plant operators have struggled to reduce the costs involved in sourcing, transporting and burning biomass fuels.

"If they're going to subsidize it, you kind of got to subsidize it forever," Riggs contended. "But with wind and solar, those are already cost-competitive."