Legislation passed in Louisiana last week effectively defined natural gas as clean energy, a contentious move that some experts are concerned about. Other states have passed similar laws too.
In Louisiana, the push to define natural gas as clean energy has been going on for some time. WWL’s Newell Normand spoke with former U.S. senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, around two years ago about work to convince Democratic voters that natural gas is clean energy. She was speaking on behalf of Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, a group that “was created by a half-dozen gas companies, with the explicit goal of convincing Democratic voters that gas is a ‘clean’ energy source."
According to the Associated Press, three Republican-led states – Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee – have also passed laws defining natural gas as clean energy and Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry was supportive of the bill there. Meanwhile, some Democrat-led cities such as New York, N.Y. and San Francisco, Calif., have tried to ban natural gas.
Outside of the U.S., the “European Union previously designated natural gas and nuclear energy as sustainable, a move that Greenpeace and the Austrian government are suing over,” said the AP.
Per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “natural gas has many qualities that make it an efficient, relatively clean burning, and economical energy source,” but is does come with environmental concerns and its primary component, methane, is a greenhouse gas linked with global warming. Conservation Law Foundation, a New England-based environmental protection group argues that “despite the fossil fuel industry’s greenwashing, renewable natural gas still pollutes the climate and hurts our health.”
Currently, natural gas has been the top source of electricity generation in the nation, the AP said. Around a decade ago it surpassed coal, which produces over twice as much carbon dioxide. Still, Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist, said that pretty much everything is better for the environment than coal.
Tim Donaghy, research director of Greenpeace USA, has also called efforts position natural gas as a clean fuel “pure Orwellian greenwashing,” per the AP. It also noted that Republican Rep. Jacob Landry, who runs an oil and gas industry consulting firm, authored the Louisiana law.
President Donald Trump has also supported a focus on natural gas, according to a Sunday report in The New York Times. That report said that the race “to define the future of energy” is being led by China with its investment into clean energy and the U.S. with its continued support of fossil fuels.
“Even as the dangers of global warming hang ominously over the planet, two of the most powerful countries in the world, the United States and China, are pursuing energy strategies defined mainly by economic and national security concerns, as opposed to the climate crisis,” said the Times. “Entire industries are at stake, along with the economic and geopolitical alliances that shape the modern world.”