Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: The American Gas Association (AGA) strategically obstructs US climate policy at the federal, state, and local levels. The group continues to advocate for measures that facilitate fossil fuel infrastructure buildout while coordinating efforts to weaken or preempt building electrification mandates. CEO Karen Harbert, who joined AGA in April 2019 after serving as CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute, openly calls for policy measures to protect a long-term role for fossil gas.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: AGA demonstrates negative top-line messaging on climate policy. In its Climate Change Position Statement, last updated in January 2020 and current as of August 2024, the group does not fully support climate policy and instead states that any national policy to reduce GHG emissions must be flexible and allow for sectoral differences. Following the Supreme Court decision on West Virginia vs. the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), CEO Harbert published a press release in June 2022 emphasizing that “innovation and technology produce results, not outsized government regulation.” In a November 2022 blog on COP27, AGA specifically celebrated the final agreement that included a role for “low-emissions energy” alongside renewables by stating that COP27 recognized the “essential” role of fossil gas.
Engagement with Climate-Related Policy: AGA engages with negative positions on US climate policy, particularly on federal energy efficiency standards for gas appliances. For example, the group filed an April 2024 joint brief against the Department of Energy (DOE)’s rules on furnaces and water heaters. This legal action followed AGA’s October 2022 individual and joint comments opposing the proposed rules around gas and propane furnaces, in which it criticized the agency’s push toward electrification and emphasized that it would “eliminate an entire category of gas furnace.” In January 2024, following the DOE’s finalized scaled-back gas stove rule that affects only 3% of gas stove models as opposed to the original proposal which affected 96% of such models, CEO Harbert published a press release that celebrated the reduced ambition of the rule and cited AGA’s active engagement “to flip that ratio to keep 97% of natural gas stoves on the market.”
AGA takes similarly oppositional positions on federal methane policy and has fought iterations of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s methane fee. Following September 2021 joint letters to Senate and House leadership opposing the Build Back Better’s methane tax, AGA appeared to advocate for clear language to exclude certain fossil gas facilities from the IRA’s fee in January 2023 individual comments, followed by March 2024 joint comments . AGA also pushed back on the EPA’s methane standards, submitting January 2022 comments, later followed by February 2023 comments that criticized the ambition of the rule, which was finalized in December 2023.
Positioning on Energy Transition: AGA strategically advocates for fossil gas infrastructure and opposes decarbonization policies. CEO Harbert and AGA at large continue to call for increased domestic fossil gas production, often citing the crisis in Ukraine as a reason to invest in fossil fuel expansion; for example, following the DOE’s pause on pending liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permits, Harbert published a January 2024 press release that called for the Biden administration to reconsider the pause as it “could push American allies further into the hands of America’s adversaries, including Russia and Iran.” AGA has leveraged other federal proposals as an opportunity to advocate for fossil gas infrastructure buildout, including in February 2024 comments on the IRA’s clean hydrogen tax credit, September 2023 comments on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Phase 2 revisions, and direct engagements in March 2022, April 2022, and May 2022 against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s gas pipeline policy update, which was subsequently relegated to a draft policy and not revised since.
According to reporting by E&E News and others, AGA has taken a leading role in organizing efforts against building electrification for several years. AGA’s efforts to reverse the country’s first ban on gas in new construction in Berkeley, California, including by submitting a March 2022 amicus brief in support of the California Restaurant Association’s case against the city, were successful: in March 2024, Berkeley agreed to halt enforcement of the ban, an outcome which CEO Harbert welcomed in a press release as “a significant step towards safeguarding energy choice.” In another March 2024 press release, Harbert celebrated the 25 states that, in response to city-led electrification mandates, have passed preemption laws to prohibit such restrictions on fossil fuels. According to September 2020 reporting by S&P Global, AGA developed this model preemption legislation. Other examples of AGA’s opposition to building electrification include an April 2024 statement from Harbert against the DOE’s National Blueprint for the Buildings Sector, its successful January 2024 appeal of the International Code Council’s model building code, and November 2023 comments against the IRA’s home electrification rebates.