Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Edison Electric Institute (EEI) engages with a mix of positive and negative positions on US climate policy. Although the group supported the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), it advocates for a long-term role for fossil gas in the energy mix and has been strategically opposing the ambition of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s power plant rules. Between January 2024 and October 2024, Dan Brouillette served as EEI's CEO and demonstrated vocal negative positions on climate policy.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: EEI appears to have broadly positive top-line messaging on climate policy. On its website, accessed July 2024, the group seems to support the need for government policy to respond to climate change. In a December 2023 interview with the World Climate Foundation, EEI Chair Pedro Pizarro emphasized “the increasingly urgent need to address climate change by decarbonizing and transforming our economies” and appeared to advocate for action at COP28. Previously, during New York Climate Week in September 2023, EEI signed a joint letter with the Global Renewables Alliance that called for policymakers to support climate action toward a 1.5°C pathway.
Engagement with Climate-Related Policy: EEI appears to take a mix of positive and negative positions on climate-related policy. At the federal level, EEI leadership has advocated for clean energy tax credits. Following previous advocacy, including a February 2022 roundtable with President Biden to support the Build Back Better package, then-Executive Chairman Warner Baxter pushed for the tax credits while speaking to US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm while at the EEI June 2022 annual conference, stating that they were “a way for us to become energy independent.” After the clean energy tax credits were repurposed into the IRA and successfully passed through Congress, then-President Tom Kuhn celebrated the legislation in an August 2022 press release. EEI is generally supportive of emissions standards for road transport in the US - it supported the EPA’s proposed standards for heavy-duty vehicles in May 2022 comments as well as the agency’s Phase 3 standards for heavy-duty vehicles in June 2023 comments, and was also supportive of EPA’s proposed standards for light- and medium duty vehicles in July 2023 comments. In Ohio, the group submitted May 2024 testimony against House Bill 197, which proposed to pilot a community solar program in the state.
Positioning on Energy Transition: EEI appears to demonstrate increasingly negative positions on the energy transition, with recent advocacy focusing on challenging the EPA’s power plant rules. Following August 2023 comments that suggested the EPA was acting beyond its legal boundary in proposing hydrogen and CCS compliance pathways for fossil fuel-fired power plants, EEI reiterated its oppositional position in November 2023 testimony at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s annual Reliability Technical Conference and in December 2023 comments on the EPA’s supplemental proposal; in the latter engagement, EEI urged the agency to consider withdrawing and re-proposing its draft rules on existing gas plants. In an August 2023 interview with the Los Angeles Times, then-EEI Chairman Pedro Pizarro reiterated the group’s arguments by stating that “we want a rule that actually withstands legal tests and the test of time.” Following the finalization of the rules for existing coal and new gas power plants, EEI filed a May 2024 petition for review against the carbon capture and storage compliance pathway. That same month, EEI submitted comments to the EPA that advocated for a flexible regulation for existing gas power plants did not place “restrictive limits” on the largest plants.
EEI also opposed the ambition of other recent federal policy proposals: for example, the group submitted February 2024 comments against the draft implementation guidance for the IRA’s clean hydrogen tax credit. In January 2024, following the Biden administration decision to pause new liquified natural gas (LNG) export permits until the Department of Energy updates its public interest approval process, then-CEO Brouillette made statements against the pause in both a LinkedIn post and a video appearance on Fox Business Live. In the same interview, Brouillette opposed zero emissions vehicle mandates.