Letter to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to Demand an End to Methane Now
RE: Washington Gas pipe replacement project and the climate emergency
Dear Mayor Bowser,
The District of Columbia’s continued reliance on methane gas and investments in new methane gas infrastructure are incompatible with residents’ vision for a healthy and livable future. Extinction Rebellion DC, in solidarity with community groups and the majority of DC’s residents, demands that you, the Mayor:
Make a public statement that DC must phase out methane gas in order to meet its goals to combat the climate crisis, as outlined in your Carbon Free DC plan, and that Washington Gas’ plans to replace all of DC’s methane gas infrastructure through Project Pipes will make these goals impossible to meet.
Commit to immediately begin work on aligning the agencies in your administration on supporting a managed, just transition off methane gas that prioritizes DC’s most marginalized people and ends the city’s reliance on gas by 2032.
You know the problem. For years, you have heard from victims, citizens, experts, and associations about the devastating impacts the District of Columbia is already experiencing from a changing climate driven by the burning of fossil fuels. You have spoken about the need to take immediate action to address the climate crisis, and you have passed legislation that commits DC to becoming carbon neutral by 2045.
You also know that there is a major gap between the District’s climate goals and its actions to meet those goals. There is a glaring lack of scrutiny of the fossil fuel interests that are manipulating DC leaders and the public in order to undermine the goals you helped establish and to keep the District hooked on fossil fuels for decades to come. The methane gas industry, monopolized in DC by Washington Gas, demonstrates this manipulation as clear as day.
You have heard and even witnessed firsthand the devastation that methane gas infrastructure is having on the lives of District residents. You have responded to gas explosion after gas explosion, and your very own Carbon Free DC plan acknowledges the risks that methane gas poses to residents’ health and our climate.
Individuals and organizations across DC have worked tirelessly to ensure your administration understands these facts. They have held multiple meetings with you, released evidence-based research, and repeatedly testified at hearings to explain the enormous health, safety and climate risks of methane gas. Each time they have called on the DC government—your administration—to profoundly reconsider its relationship with Washington Gas, which is responsible for almost a quarter of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. [i] On this matter, your government has repeatedly ignored their advice.
Instead, the Public Service Commission (PSC) is allowing Washington Gas to spend what is now estimated to be $14 billion of ratepayer money on replacing the city’s methane gas infrastructure through its “Project Pipes” program. [ii] The company’s death project will lock in planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come, setting us further along the path to climate chaos, societal collapse, and mass extinction.
For too long, DC’s leaders have looked the other way while the PSC rubber stamps Washington Gas’ disastrous plans. But earlier this year, 11 of 13 Councilmembers publicly called out the incompatibility between Washington Gas’ plans and the District’s climate goals. [iii] DC residents need you to leverage your influence as mayor and do the same.
Just last year, while halfway across the world in Dubai, you reiterated your commitment to make the District carbon neutral by 2045. Washington Gas’ pipe replacement project, Project Pipes, makes this climate target impossible to achieve. If DC’s government is serious about tackling the climate emergency, then it must immediately end the company’s costly pipe replacement project. If we want a shot at a liveable future, then there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure, starting today. That’s the message from renowned scientists, senior government advisors, the world’s energy tsars, and the head of the United Nations. Half measures simply won’t cut it. Looking the other way is no longer an option.
In April 2022, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a clear message on the launch of the third Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. He said: “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But, the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” [iv]
It is time for the DC government and your administration to stop supporting an industry that has lied to the public and officials for decades. Washington Gas likes to present methane gas as “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 is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at heating the planet. [v]
Methane gas is also poisonous, causing severe health conditions that lead to early death. The most marginalized suffer the most. [vi] They are more exposed to the dangers of gas leaks than more privileged communities, and leaks in their neighborhoods are often repaired last. [vii] These communities are also exposed to disproportionately high levels of ambient fine particulate air pollution—the largest environmental cause of human mortality. [viii] Gas stoves, which burn methane gas, are one of the primary reasons for this grave injustice. [ix]
Washington Gas continues to mislead the DC government and the public. Its climate business plan is riddled with accounting errors, according to the DC Department of Energy and the Environment. Nor is the plan compliant with DC’s emissions reduction goals. It is naive and irresponsible of the DC government to pretend otherwise. Further, Washington Gas is failing to reduce gas leaks despite its greenwashed claims to the contrary, raising legitimate concerns about the company’s mismanagement of its gas infrastructure. [x]
Extinction Rebellion DC, in solidarity with community groups and the majority of DC’s residents, demands that the DC government change direction immediately. Specifically, we demand that you, the Mayor:
Make a public statement that DC must phase out methane gas in order to meet its goals to combat the climate crisis, as outlined in your Carbon Free DC plan, and that Washington Gas’ plans to replace all of DC’s methane gas infrastructure through Project Pipes will make these goals impossible to meet.
Commit to immediately begin work on aligning the agencies in your administration on supporting a managed, just transition off methane gas that prioritizes DC’s most marginalized people and ends the city’s reliance on gas by 2032.
Your failure to meet these demands would constitute a grave failure to protect the district’s residents from harm. DC residents need you, as their mayor, to be a champion for their health, safety, and futures—futures free from the dangers of methane gas.
We ask that you publicly respond to these demands by April 19th. We would love to be able to applaud your climate leadership on Earth Day.
We act in peace, with ferocious love of this city and its people in our hearts. We act on behalf of life.
With Love and Rage,
Extinction Rebellion DC
Footnotes:
[i] https://doee.dc.gov/service/greenhouse-gas-inventories
[iv] https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/sgsm21228.doc.htm
[v] https://www.eenews.net/articles/move-over-coal-gas-now-emits-more-co2-in-u-s/
[vi] https://www.eenews.net/articles/smell-gas-getting-it-fixed-may-depend-on-race-and-income/
[vii] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522000039
[viii] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf4491