Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Kinder Morgan engages negatively on climate policy in the US. The company opposes climate regulations and advocates for a continued role for fossil gas in the energy mix, often undertaking advocacy for new gas infrastructure.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: Kinder Morgan appears to have limited top-line messaging on climate policy. The company has supported the transition to a “lower carbon future” in the 2023 ESG Report, released in July 2024. However, it does not appear to have explicitly supported the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5/2°C or the 2050 net-zero target, in line with the latest IPCC guidance. While the company has supported “reasonable regulation” that considers “technical feasibility and cost effectiveness” to reduce emissions in a May 2024 submission to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it is unclear how these conditions could impact the design of stringent regulations.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Kinder Morgan undertakes negative engagement with specific climate regulations. The company has opposed GHG emissions regulations and often contests the legal authority of the US EPA to regulate emissions in its engagements. For example, in May 2024 comments Kinder Morgan opposed the US EPA's proposal to regulate ozone-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides from power plants and industrial facilities, stating that EPA's proposal to adopt a Federal Implementation Plan to regulate emissions is "unlawful."
Similarly, while the company states in its 2023 ESG Report, released in July 2024 that it supports "flexible" and "performance-based" US federal regulations for methane, InfluenceMap has found multiple instances of oppositional advocacy on methane regulations. Kinder Morgan opposed the methane fee in March 2024 comments and in earlier comments in January 2023. The company’s comments on the 2022 Methane Regulations for the oil and gas sector did not support EPA’s proposed standards, stating that they are not “economically reasonable”. Additionally, in this submission, Kinder Morgan endorsed Interstate Natural Gas Association of America’s (INGAA) comments that appeared to contest the legal authority of EPA to regulate methane emissions.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Kinder Morgan appears to be unsupportive of a transition to zero-carbon energy mix, and advocates for continuing thermal energy pathways reliant on fossil gas and renewable natural gas (RNG). In the 2023 ESG Report, the company advocated for fossil gas, hydrogen, and RNG and appeared to downplay zero-carbon renewables, stating that the “world has yet to identify fuels and technologies that are both completely carbon-free and equally economical.” Kinder Morgan’s website, accessed in August 2024, contains several documents that reinforce the need for fossil gas and advocate against a predominantly renewables-based energy mix.
Kinder Morgan calls for policies to expand fossil gas production across the US. The company advocated for new fossil gas infrastructure in comments to the Texas Public Utility Commission in July 2024. In March 2022, following the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Kinder Morgan sent a joint letter to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) advocating for expedited approval process for fossil gas pipelines.
Kinder Morgan opposes policies that target the decarbonization of the building sector: the company’s comments to the New York State’s Climate Action Council Draft Scoping Plan in June 2022 opposed the proposals to limit the use of unabated fossil gas.
The company is also engaged on emissions abatement technologies and alternative energy sources such as CCS and RNG. However, it appears from the website that Kinder Morgan advocates for CCS applications for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) – a process that stores carbon dioxide underground while extracting fossil fuels. Kinder Morgan frequently advocates for increased RNG production in the website, and the 2023 ESG Report, published in July 2024, disclosed the company’s advocacy in support of US Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credit for biogas production from the processing of landfill methane.
Industry Association Governance: Kinder Morgan has disclosed its memberships to industry associations and has undertaken a review of alignment and misalignment with these groups in its 2023 ESG Report, published in July 2024. However, the company has not provided an account of indirect climate policy engagement undertaken through these groups. Kinder Morgan is a member of the American Gas Association and Texas Oil and Gas Association. Both of these groups undertake negative lobbying on US climate policy.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information, see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically.
This summary was last updated in Q3 2024.