Corporate Greed and DC’s Filthy Fossil Fuel Addiction

Now more than ever, it is clear that our current political and economic system is anchored on corporate greed. A corporate greed that is obsessed with short-term economic profit at the expense of people and planet. The fossil fuel industry is one of the pillars of this system, and has made our lives desperately dependent on fossil fuels. However, more and more of us realize that we need to free ourselves, as a society, from our fossil fuel addiction. We know now we need to change the rules of the game, both on the national and the local level. Here in DC, we know it’s time to get fossil fuel filth out of our city — and our lives — for good. But how can we do that when DC’s energy utility company is an investor-owned, for-profit fossil fuel corporation with a business model that relies on the expansion and entrenchment of fossil fuel infrastructure?

Extinction Rebellion DC launched a campaign in April 2022 to disrupt this status quo. The main goal is to stop Washington Gas — the only company in the city that pipes toxic methane gas into your home — from charging us $12 billion to rebuild the entire gas infrastructure in DC. Why does Washington Gas want to do this? Because it guarantees them profits on fossil fuels for the next forty years—past the time that DC has pledged to decarbonize. This  plan, previously called ProjectPIPES and now deceptively named “District SAFE,”, will keep us tied to—and paying for—fossil-fuel methane for years to come. Since the launch of our campaign we have been engaged in nonviolent direct action to put pressure on both the DC Council and the Public Service Commission (PSC), the two government agencies that have the power to stop this project. . We have staged disruptions at DC Council and PSC meetings and Washington Gas sites, held demonstrations, built coalitions, and raised awareness in conversations with countless residents.

As the elected officials who were supposed to protect the people continued to ignore our demands, we escalated tactics, and in 2023 we shut down a Project Pipes construction site. With this pressure coming from us as well as from a robust coalition of environmental organizations, the campaign has secured 2 major wins:

• In February 2024, 11 out of 13 council members signed a letter urging the PSC to stop the project.

• In June 2024, the PSC unanimously rejected Washington Gas’ latest plan proposal and instructed Washington Gas to propose something better 

These are groundbreaking wins, but the fight is not over. While ProjectPIPES has been temporarily halted, Washington Gas has submitted a “new” plan, now named “DistrictSAFE,” which unsurprisingly continues to have fossil fuel methane at its core. Furthermore, the PSC has recently (February 2025) given Washington Gas permission to continue the last phase of its replacement program that should have expired ages ago. With the PSC dragging their feet, Washington Gas can keep digging for another 10 months, charging customers $34 million  to do so. 

If Washington Gas continues, one way or another, with this pipeline replacement program, then DC will lock in planet-heating fossil fuel pollution for decades to come. Its methane pipes will continue to poison DC residents, exposing our children to a cocktail of toxins that cause severe illness and early death. Washington Gas is a direct danger to the safety of DC’s residents. Despite our campaign’s wins, the DC Government has not clearly and publicly rejected any version of this plan, even though it blatantly threatens its own climate goals of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

XRDC will continue to mobilize and disrupt to eliminate any current and future methane gas pipeline replacement project. In light of recent developments, our updated demands are:

1. The Public Service Commission (PSC) must fully reject Washington Gas’ “District SAFE” application.

2. The PSC must acknowledge that any present or future accelerated pipeline replacement program makes it impossible for DC to meet its goals to combat the climate crisis, and must be rejected.

3. The PSC and the DC Council must immediately start working on a just transition plan that phases out all fossil fuels, creates publicly-owned utilities, and prioritizes DC’s most vulnerable residents. 

Want to learn more about the need to ditch methane and its corporate sponsor? Read on for more detailed information about the health risks associated with methane gas, its environmental impacts, and the corruption that is at the heart of DC’s energy utility company.

 DC’s Toxic Methane Secret

A danger to the safety of DC residents

Few people know that the gas piped into your home is methane. DC has some of the oldest underground methane gas pipes in the country, and these pipes are leaking large amounts of methane throughout the city.

There are thousands of gas leaks in the District. Over 70% of these are at hazardous levels, meaning they could explode at any moment, posing a severe and immediate threat to the city’s residents. In March 2022, an explosion caused by a cut gas line destroyed a four-story apartment building in Silver Spring. In total, 14 people were hospitalized and more than 200 were displaced. And in January 2024, a gas explosion leveled a convenience store, injuring one person and forcing dozens of toddlers to evacuate a daycare next door.

Gas leaks are also a major environmental justice problem. Black, Indigenous and people of color are more exposed to the dangers of leaking gas pipes than white people. Gas utility companies also fix these leaks faster in white neighborhoods.

Even if all the leaks are fixed, more leaks will occur. The only true way to keep us safe from gas leaks and explosions is to stop pumping methane gas through our streets and into our homes.

A silent killer in our homes

Methane gas kills. It severely harms the health of DC’s residents, especially the most vulnerable — children, the elderly, and people experiencing homelessness. When you light your stove, it sends nitrogen dioxide into your home. That can cause cardiovascular problems, respiratory disease, and premature death.

A lit stove also produces a poisonous cocktail of other chemicals and gasses like formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide. Some of these can cause cancer and birth defects.

Children in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to have asthma than children whose families use electric stoves, a similar rate to children living with cigarette smokers. Indoor air pollution harms poor and Black children the most — children in Ward 8 are 10 times more likely to go to the hospital because of an asthma attack than children in wealthier parts of DC.

Outdoors, methane gas appliances drive poor outdoor air quality across the District and contribute to the formation of smog, which is linked to over 1 million premature deaths each year globally.

Racial-ethnic minorities in the United States are also exposed to disproportionately high levels of ambient fine particulate air pollution — the largest environmental cause of human mortality. Burning methane gas on gas stoves is one of the primary reasons for this grave injustice.

And stoves continue to leak methane into our homes even when they’re turned off.

So why do we think we love our gas stoves so much? Because the fossil fuel industry told us to.

Burning down the house

Methane is 80 times more powerful at heating our planet than carbon dioxide. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are so high that they’re now responsible for 30-50% of the global rise in temperatures. Leaking gas pipes, like those in DC, are a major source of US methane emissions. The amount of methane the fossil fuel industry releases is way worse than regulators think. And gas stoves release the same amount of greenhouse gas as half a million cars. 

 Gaslit - an industry built on lies

Washington Gas loves to tell you that its gas is “renewable,” “clean,” “natural,” “responsible,”  and “green.” This is a lie. Greenhouse gas emissions from the use of methane gas now exceed coal emissions in the United States. This gas is poisonous, non-renewable and highly destructive. And Washington Gas’ plan to replace DC’s methane infrastructure is deeply irresponsible, threatening the health and safety of every single resident in DC. 

SO WHAT DO WE WANT?

DC’s politicians cannot claim to be serious about tackling the climate crisis if they allow Washington Gas to go ahead with its plans. In 2022, DC pledged to become carbon neutral by 2045. Washington Gas’ plans make achieving this goal impossible.

We are living through a rapidly closing window of opportunity to address the climate and ecological crisis, and it’s never been clearer that those in power are committing us to global breakdown.

It is time to expose the lie and Tell The Truth.

Read our letter to Chairman Mendelson and the rest of the D.C. Council here.

 Join Us Today

These demands are winnable. But to win, we need an unprecedented level of resistance. We will train and bring hundreds of people into the streets in nonviolent civil resistance.

Here’s how you can plug in:

Get Informed: Watch this Heading for Extinction talk and learn about the current climate science, XR’s theory of change and why non-violent direct action works!

Get Involved by attending our next Intro to XRDC call and learn how you can plug in.

Get in the streets!

Together we can End Methane and Electrify DC!