Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: WEC Energy Group (WEC) exhibits policy engagement that is oppositional to science-aligned climate policy. The company takes mostly negative positions on US climate policy, with evidence of advocacy at the federal level and across several states including Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. While the company supported federal clean energy tax credits, WEC leadership frequently advocates for a long-term role for fossil gas. WEC retains board-level membership to American Gas Association, which advocates for fossil gas infrastructure expansion.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: WEC has minimal top-line messaging on climate policy. While the company references IPCC pathways in its August 2024 corporate responsibility report and the Paris Agreement in its August 2022 climate report as benchmarks for its own operational plans and emissions reductions targets, it does not clearly advocate in favor of economy-wide emissions reductions or the Paris Agreement itself.
Engagement with Climate-Related Policy: WEC engages with a mix of positions on US climate-related policy, with mostly negative positions at the state level. For example, according to its Wisconsin state lobbying disclosures, the company pushed back on community solar legislation by opposing Assembly Bill 258 in May 2023 and Senate Bill 226 in April 2023. According to its 2023 Corporate Responsibility Report, published in August 2024, WEC opposed Michigan and Wisconsin community solar legislation].
Positioning on Energy Transition: WEC demonstrates mostly negative positions on the energy transition, with Executive Chairman and former CEO Gale Klappa, in particular, advocating for the long-term role of fossil fuels in the energy mix. For example, in a July 2022 interview with Annex Wealth Management, Klappa cited the crisis in Ukraine to justify maintaining a domestic energy supply that included coal and fossil gas. At the federal level, WEC pushed back on the Biden administration’s power plant carbon standards: in August 2023 comments with the Midwest Power Sector Collaborative (MPSC), the company advocated for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to weaken the draft rules by raising the capacity threshold for fossil gas plants. Previously, on the pre-proposal for the rules, WEC submitted January 2023 comments with the MPSC that appeared to advocate for compliance flexibility in the final proposal. WEC takes similarly negative positions on state-level energy policy, with a focus on promoting a long-term role for fossil gas. According to its Wisconsin state lobbying reports, WEC has been directly advocating to policymakers to support gas ban preemption proposals during the 2023 legislative session: in its February 2023 report, the company disclosed support for Senate Bill 1037, which proposed to prohibit any limit on fuel choice. WEC also advocated for gas ban preemption legislation in Michigan, according to its 2023 corporate responsibility report. In Illinois, subsidiary Peoples Gas opposed Chicago’s proposed clean building ordinance, as described by a January 2023 Chicago Tribune article, and subsidiaries Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas submitted multiple comments on Illinois’ Future of Gas proceeding, including January 2025 comments and May 2024 comments that emphasized concerns with reducing the role of fossil gas in the state.
Industry Association Governance: WEC published a review of its industry association memberships in August 2023, however without disclosing an account of each group's climate policy engagement activities. WEC serves on the 2025 Board of Directors for the American Gas Association, which strategically obstructs US climate policy. Although WEC disclosed in its CDP 2023 report that CEO Scott Lauber serves on the board of directors for Edison Electric Institute (EEI), it is unclear if WEC continues to hold this position in 2025. EEI advocates for a long-term role for fossil gas and persistently opposed the ambition of the Biden administration’s power plant carbon standards.
A detailed assessment of the company's corporate review on climate policy engagement can be found on InfluenceMap's CA100+ Investor Hub here.
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 2025.