EXTINCTION REBELLION TARGETS DISTRICT’S “DEPARTMENT OF CLIMATE CHAOS” OVER BILLION DOLLAR FOSSIL FUEL PIPELINE

21st September, 2022, Washington DC - Extinction Rebellion today targeted the government agency that has the authority to stop the construction of $4.5 billion of new fossil fuel infrastructure, marking a new phase in a months-long campaign to end the deadly pipeline project.

Early this morning, rebels with the global climate movement painted a large street mural with the words “End Methane, Electrify DC” outside the headquarters of the Public Service Commission, which it renamed the “Department of Climate Chaos” for its failure to stop Washington Gas’ $4.5 billion death project.

XR, as well as other environmental and social justice groups, want DC’s public utilities regulator to use its authority to stop Washington Gas’ pipeline project, which will lock DC into decades of greenhouse gas emissions, putting the city’s climate targets out of reach while endangering the safety and destroying the health of DC residents.

“The Public Service Commission has been tasked with ‘providing climate leadership,’ not climate chaos. Their hands-off approach to this toxic pipeline project has given the oil and gas industry a key to our city and our future. This obscure, unelected body is failing the city’s residents,” a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion DC (XRDC) said.

XRDC wants the PSC to use its regulatory authority to immediately start working with the city’s administration on a just transition plan that prioritizes DC’s most marginalized people and ends the city’s reliance on gas. This transition is not only possible, but necessary for the health and well-being of current and future generations.

Quick facts about the PSC:

  • The PSC is an obscure, unelected, unaccountable body that is supposed to regulate utility companies like Washington Gas. Despite the egregious errors in Washington Gas’ climate business plan, the PSC has remained silent.

  • The PSC receives its funding from the same utility companies it is supposed to regulate. Little wonder it is allowing Washington Gas to spend $4.5 billion on new fossil fuel infrastructure that will devastate the health and safety of residents in our beloved city.

  • The Council of the District of Columbia requires at least 1 of the 3 PSC commissioners to have experience with renewable energy and grid modernization. Both current commissioners have legal backgrounds and are not qualified to lead on climate. With the final seat vacant, the third commissioner may as well be Washington Gas itself.

Note to editors:

  1. For more information about Washington Gas' toxic pipeline project ad XRDC's campaign to stop it visit https://www.xrdc.org/gas

  2. Methane is the gas piped into your home to cook your food and heat your house. 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 more than 6,000 leaks in the district — more than twice the average US city. Some of these leaks are so dangerous that they could explode at any moment, posing a severe and immediate threat to the city’s residents.

  3. 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.

  4. A gas stove also releases chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects.

  5. A lit gas stove also produces a poisonous cocktail of other chemicals and gasses like formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide. 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. Stoves continue to leak methane into your home even when they’re turned off.

  6. Washington Gas will tell you methane gas is “renewable,” “clean,” “natural,” “responsible,” and “green.” In fact, greenhouse gas emissions from the use of methane gas now exceed coal emissions in the United States — and methane heats the planet up to 80 times faster than carbon dioxide.

  7. 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 far worse than regulators think. And gas stoves in the United States release the same amount of greenhouse gas as 500,000 cars.

  8. In December 2017, DC pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050. Washington Gas’ plans make this goal impossible to achieve. The Department of Energy calls Washington Gas’ business plan “technically deficient with significant errors.”

About Extinction Rebellion

Our leaders are failing to address the climate & ecological crisis, including the sixth mass extinction, global pollution, and abrupt climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices if rapid action is not taken.

Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with the criminal inaction of their Government.

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Miles Amoore2022