Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: ALEC is an active and vocal opponent of climate policy, with significant influence at the state level. The group is clear in its opposition to government regulation, consistently communicating a preference for market-based approaches to respond to climate change. ALEC regularly publishes “model policies” intended for use by state legislatures that promote the ongoing role of fossil fuels in the energy mix.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: ALEC’s top-line messaging on climate policy is limited, but significantly misaligned with the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). ALEC’s Energy Principles, last updated in 2017 and current as of 2024, sow doubt about the role of anthropogenic emissions as the primary driver of climate change. ALEC has regularly communicated positions that are unsupportive of government intervention to respond to climate change on its website, accessed August 2024, using “model policies” to promote market-based approaches over other forms of policy, and suggesting government regulation should only be used as a “last resort.”
Engagement with Climate-Related Policy: ALEC engages with a range of climate-related policies with consistently negative positions. In a March 2024 blog, the group celebrated the House of Representatives’ passage of a resolution that labeled carbon taxes as “detrimental to the United States economy.” In its statement, ALEC wrote that “carbon taxes increase the cost of everything Americans buy, essentially lowering Americans’ effective take home pay.”
ALEC is also active on state-level policy, recently engaging in Virginia on policies related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regulation and emissions trading. In a June 2024 blog, ALEC praised “policy champions” within the Virginia state legislature that worked to repeal legislation aiming to match Virginia’s vehicle emissions standards to those set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), emphasizing “the pitfalls of blindly adopting another state’s policies without considering local conditions and capabilities.” In April 2023 comments to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board, ALEC called on the Board to rescind the state’s decision to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), arguing that participation “does not achieve its goal of limiting emissions,” but instead “provides a perverse incentive to use less efficient technology” to generate electricity.
Positioning on Energy Transition: ALEC’s recent slate of “model policies” published in July 2024 center on prolonging the use of fossil fuels in the energy mix. ALEC’s “Equitable Escalation of Electricity Demand Act,” for example, advocates for the continued role of coal and fossil gas, stating that “America’s coal and natural gas plants should not be recklessly decommissioned or regulated out of existence;” rather, “they should be kept online (readily available) to meet the projected rapid increase in electricity demand.” This language is also found in the group’s “Electricity Trajectory Management Act,” which encourages state legislatures to seek waivers from federal mandates designed to phase out coal plants. ALEC’s “Act to Define Clean Energy” provides for flexibility in policies that aim to decarbonize energy supply, calling for legislative language to be modified from “renewable energy” to “clean energy,” in a move that appears to promote nuclear energy over a transition to renewable energy sources. Similarly, ALEC’s “Affordable, Reliable, and Clean Energy Security Act” directly supports the continued use of fossil gas in the energy mix, promoting the idea that it constitutes “clean energy” as it “releases reduced air pollutants, thereby reducing cumulative air emissions.” The statement disregards the distinction between GHG emissions and general air pollution, and contrasts with IPCC guidance on the need to phase out fossil gas.
Beyond publishing these “model policies” which are designed to provide frameworks for state-level climate policy, ALEC has vocally opposed measures to phase out fossil fuels at the federal level, including in a September 2023 blog criticizing the Biden Administration for its cancellation of oil and gas leases in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, and a May 2023 blog criticizing the EPA’s authority to regulate coal and fossil gas plants under the Chevron Doctrine.
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.