Letter to D.C. Council to demand an end to new fossil fuel infrastructure
RE: Washington Gas pipe replacement project and the climate emergency
Dear Chairman Mendelson,
You know the problem. For years, you have heard from victims, citizens, experts, and associations about the devastating impact that District of Columbia’s methane gas infrastructure is having on the lives of the district's residents.
These individuals and organizations have worked tirelessly to ensure the council understands the facts. They have held multiple meetings with you, released evidence-based research, and abided by the DC government's processes. They have repeatedly testified at hearings to explain the enormous health, safety and climate risks of methane gas. Each time they have called on the council to profoundly reconsider its relationship with Washington Gas, which is responsible for almost a quarter of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions.[i] Your government has repeatedly ignored their advice.
Instead, the Public Service Commission is allowing Washington Gas to spend $4.5 billion of ratepayer money on replacing the city’s methane gas infrastructure.[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.
Five years ago, the council promised to make the district carbon neutral by 2050. Washington Gas’ pipe replacement project 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.
On April 4th, 2022, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a clear video 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.”[iii]
It is time for the council 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.[iv]
Methane gas is also poisonous, causing severe health conditions that lead to early death. The most marginalized suffer the most.[v] They are more exposed to the dangers of gas leaks than more privileged communities, and leaks in their neighborhoods are often repaired last.[vi] These communities are also exposed to disproportionately high levels of ambient fine particulate air pollution—the largest environmental cause of human mortality.[vii] Gas stoves, which burn methane gas, are one of the primary reasons for this grave injustice.[viii]
Washington Gas continues to mislead the council 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.
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 the DC Council:
Make a public statement that Washington Gas’ plans to replace and use the capital’s methane gas infrastructure will make it impossible for the city to meet its goals to combat the climate crisis.
Direct the Public Service Commission to end the pipe replacement project, other than emergency repairs needed to protect the health and safety of residents.
Commit 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 by 2032.
The DC government’s failure to meet these demands would constitute a grave failure to protect the district’s residents from harm.
When a government fails to provide adequate protection and security for the people’s well-being, it becomes the right of every citizen to seek redress to secure the solutions needed to avert catastrophe and safeguard the future. To rebel becomes not only our right, but our duty.
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
[ii] https://edocket.dcpsc.org/apis/api/filing/download?attachId=105094&guidFileName=da84104f-469e-4aa6-b2b9-0d76a9fd9f66.pdf
[iii] https://www.un.org/press/en/2022/sgsm21228.doc.htm
[iv] https://www.eenews.net/articles/move-over-coal-gas-now-emits-more-co2-in-u-s/
[v] https://www.eenews.net/articles/smell-gas-getting-it-fixed-may-depend-on-race-and-income/
[vi] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421522000039