22 August 20
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21 August 20
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Garrison Keillor | God Bless America, You Are My Sunshine
Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
Keillor writes: "I am of a bygone era, I write on yellow tablets with a rollerball pen."
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Employees at California postal facilities provide a glimpse of the chaos amid both the pandemic and widespread cuts imposed by the USPS. (photo: Eduardo Contreras/San Diego Union- Tribune
ALSO SEE: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Says USPS Won't Replace
Removed Mail-Sorting Machines
'Like Armageddon': Rotting Food, Dead Animals and Chaos at Postal Facilities Amid Cutbacks
Laura J. Nelson and Maya Lau, Los Angeles Times
Excerpt: "Six weeks ago, U.S. Postal Service workers in the high desert town of Tehachapi, California, began to notice crates of mail sitting in the post office in the early morning that should have been shipped out for delivery the night before."
At a mail processing facility in Santa Clarita in July, workers discovered that their automated sorting machines had been disabled and padlocked.
And inside a massive mail-sorting facility in South Los Angeles, workers fell so far behind processing packages that by early August, gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes.
Accounts of conditions from employees at California mail facilities provide a glimpse of what some say are the consequences of widespread cutbacks in staffing and equipment recently imposed by the postal service.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, responding to a national outcry over service disruptions and fears of voter disenfranchisement, said this week he would suspend many planned changes until after the election. But postal workers say significant damage has already been done, including the removal of mail-sorting machines, which may not be replaced.
While the long-term effect of the cuts on U.S. mail service is unclear, the evidence of serious disruptions appears to be mounting, according to postal employees interviewed by The Times as well as customers, lawmakers and union leaders.
Until this week, the postal service was implementing a sweeping plan to remove 671 mail-sorting machines, or about 10% of its total, from facilities across the U.S. — including 76 in California. Officials also slashed overtime pay and imposed a new policy that could delay outgoing mail.
The cuts have had a ripple effect in California, snarling the operation of one of the biggest mail-processing facilities in the country and delaying the delivery of prescriptions, rent payments and unemployment checks. Some people have complained of going days without receiving any mail at all.
At least five high-speed mail-sorting machines have been removed from a processing plant in Sacramento, said Omar Gonzalez, the Western regional coordinator for the American Postal Workers Union. Additionally, two of the machines have been removed in Santa Ana and six in San Diego, Gonzalez said.
Processing plants serve more than 1,000 California post offices, some of which deliver to far-flung, rural addresses that could be faced with high delivery costs if serviced by private mail carriers.
Inside one sprawling facility at Florence and Central avenues in Los Angeles, which serves 92 L.A.-area post offices, seven delivery bar code sorters were removed in June, leaving three, Gonzalez said.
Each of those machines, which would handle mail-in ballots, can process up to 35,000 pieces of mail per hour.
“A lot of the machinery has already been gutted. Some of it has been dismantled and relocated or trashed,” Gonzalez said. “Although we welcome the news of the suspension of these changes, it’s just that — a suspension. The attacks and undermining of our operations will resume, maybe at the worst possible time, in December, our peak season.”
Before the recent cuts, workers at the facility were working six days per week, and were still struggling to keep up with the volume of packages driven by an influx of online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, said mail handler Aukushan Scantlebury, 47.
When DeJoy restricted overtime two months ago, Scantlebury and other workers saw their schedules cut back to five days per week. Within days, he said, the facility was in chaos.
Packages piled up, blocking the aisles and the heavy sorting machinery. Boxes of steaks, fruit and other perishables rotted. Rats dashed across the floor. At one point, Scantlebury said, the “whole building was filled with gnats.”
The delays were particularly tragic for live animals, including baby chickens and crickets, that are transported through the U.S. Postal Service. Usually, mail handlers say, they can hear the birds peeping and rustling around in their boxes.
This month, one worker said, she found a box with air holes in a pile of packages. Instead of hearing the gentle sounds of baby chicks, she heard nothing.
Workers sometimes see shipments of crickets jumping around inside their packaging, said Eddie Cowan, a mail handler and the president of a local chapter of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Now, he said, “you can see in the packages those crickets are dead.”
Sumi Ali, the co-owner of the Yes Plz coffee subscription company, arrived July 25 to mail a batch of freshly roasted beans to customers. A frequent visitor to the complex, he was shocked at what he saw.
The parking lot was crammed with semi trailers piled high with unsorted mail; the warehouse-like facility was packed “wall to wall” with mail; and there were very few employees in sight.
“It was like Armageddon,” Ali said. “It was a total maze. You could not walk through the facility without having to move things out of your way. I don’t know how they got forklifts through there. There were only inches of space between containers.”
Since then, Ali said, the backlog of packages seems to have improved a little. But, he said, the chaos continues to be as bad, if not worse, than the usual holiday season.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said Wednesday that DeJoy informed her he did not intend to restore the sorting machines or blue mailboxes that have been removed in several cities, nor did he have plans to allow for adequate overtime for workers.
As for the November election — the spark that ignited a national firestorm over USPS cutbacks — postal service and California elections officials say there’s less concern here than in other states.
USPS spokesman David Partenheimer did not comment on the reductions, but referred to a statement from DeJoy that said the postal service is equipped to fully handle election mail this fall.
The postal service also said DeJoy was expanding a task force to strengthen coordination with election officials to handle mail-in ballots. The postal service had earlier warned 46 states, including California, that some ballots might not be delivered in time to be counted.
In June, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring that all ballots postmarked by election day and delivered by Nov. 20 be counted — five times longer than California’s normal grace period. Still, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the concerns raised in other states merit close scrutiny.
“Given this administration’s track record with the truth, seeing is believing,” Padilla said in a written statement. “My office will continue constant communication with the U.S. Postal Service, and will continue to monitor for any signs of disruption to service.”
At the Santa Clarita processing and distribution center, two delivery bar code sorters were padlocked and gutted of their cameras and computers in July so that workers couldn’t plug them in and start using them again.
For an unknown reason, the devices came back online Wednesday, but a third delivery bar code sorter was missing from the facility, according to a worker who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency.
Merchant Stephen Tu of Pasadena said in the past two months he has noticed his first-class packages have been getting stuck for as many as 10 days in the Santa Clarita facility, whereas normally they would pass through in one day. Tu, who tracks shipments of baby clothing and accessories he sells on EBay and Facebook Marketplace, said he’s never endured delays this long — up to 20 days for packages sent outside Southern California — in the 15 years he has been selling items online.
Tu said his customers sometimes ask him whether he has even shipped their goods at all. In order to guarantee on-time deliveries, he said, he’s considering switching to private services like FedEx and UPS.
About six weeks ago on a Wednesday morning, postal clerk Kenny Diaz, 35, showed up to work at the Tehachapi post office and saw something new in his nine years on the job: a plastic tub full of mail that should have gone out for delivery the night before.
Every afternoon, Diaz said, a truck driver picked up the post office’s outgoing mail and took it to a processing facility in Bakersfield. If the post office was running behind, the last driver of the day would wait to pick up every bill, package and letter, he said.
“They always waited — they always waited,” Diaz said. “Our No. 1 priority is getting the mail where it has to go. We’d rather delay the truck by two hours than delay the mail by a whole day.”
Now, Diaz said, the truck drivers have been instructed to leave on time, regardless of whether all the outgoing mail is on the truck. That means some mail is arriving a day later at the processing facility, where it could be delayed again, he said.
“Just think of our little town, times a million across the nation,” Diaz said. “You can see the domino effect that it’s going to have.”
An image of the group of Cuban asylum seekers and the letter they sent from the La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy. (photo: No More Deaths)
ALSO SEE: Trump Cabinet Officials Voted in 2018 White House Meeting to
Separate Migrant Children, Say Officials
Asylum Seekers Describe Self-Harm, Faulty COVID-19 Response at ICE Detention Center
Alisa Reznick, Arizona Public Media
Reznick writes: "A group of asylum seekers held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at a detention center in Eloy say conditions inside the facility have led to hunger strikes and a string of self-harm incidents since the COVID-19 pandemic began."
In an August letter shared with media by the advocacy group No More Deaths, 11 asylum seekers from Cuba say they are members of political opposition groups back home and came to the U.S. to seek protection. But awaiting immigration hearings at the La Palma Correctional Center, they've seen or experienced suicide attempts, self-harm incidents and mental health crises — and conditions are only getting worse.
"It seems that the country we have arrived to is not the free country the United States is supposed to be," the letter, originally written in Spanish, read. "La Palma Correctional Center has seemed more like a maximum security prison since we arrived."
The letter describes incidents in which detainees have swallowed razor blades, tried to hang themselves and had mental health breakdowns. The signers say they are some of about 300 Cubans held at La Palma, most of whom have been detained for more than a year.
They say about 140 detainees have gone on hunger strikes to protest conditions inside. Others have asked to be deported to Cuba and other home countries instead of waiting out trial dates long delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and changing asylum policies. In one incident, the letter describes a detainee whose attempted hanging was intercepted by staff.
"Instead of helping him, the guards sprayed him with a hose," the letter read. "There are others whose names I don’t know, and in truth, I can’t speak of the suicides anymore, it is too sad."
Jenna Johnson, an attorney who works with the legal aid group Keep Tucson Together, said this isn't the first letter with those details.
"We’ve received probably a letter a week from 10 to 20, 30, 40, 50 people who are really trying to have what’s happening to them acknowledged and heard," she said.
Johnson said her group has represented hundreds of people detained at La Palma and the Eloy Detention Center down the road. The facilities, both of which are owned by the private prison company CoreCivic, have had COVID-19 outbreaks in the last five months.
Immigrant advocates, lawyers and detainees have long decried conditions inside ICE facilities in Arizona. At the height of La Palma's outbreak, over 120 people tested positive for the virus, according to ICE data. The facility has a capacity of over 3,000 beds, but both ICE and CoreCivic have said the facility is under capacity in order to increase the ability to social distance. The letter says detainees worry contagion will continue because new detainees are still arriving. They say some come from other detention facilities like Eloy, others are newly detained. None of the new arrivals are being tested for COVID-19.
"COVID-19 continues because they continue to bring in more detainees from the outside, who have been living in the US," the letter said. "They mix them in with the rest of us as though nothing would go wrong."
In an email, ICE spokesperson Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe said the agency follows federal health guidelines for COVID-19 testing, and said transfers occur to keep detention center populations low for social distancing.
"All detainee transfers and transfer determinations are based on a thorough and systematic review of the most current information available," Pitts O'Keefe said. "As such, ICE takes into account important factors prior to the transfer, including the detention center and the health, safety, and welfare of the detainee, when determining if a transfer is appropriate. All decisions on movement, further isolation and monitoring are done in accordance with CDC guidelines."
ICE is required to report in-custody deaths in press releases. Pitts O'Keefe said the agency's Arizona branch hasn't had to report any this year.
In the letter, the asylum seekers say complaints about conditions in La Palma are not addressed by staff.
"This place has been like Hell due to the treatment of the detainees by the guards," the letter read. "ICE doesn’t listen to our demands or our complaints about the acts of racism, and never visits the center."
Nationally, ICE has been faulted for failing to adequately address complaints from its facilities, even before the pandemic began.
An August report from the Government Accountability Office found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn’t "comprehensively analyze inspections and complaint information," thus failing to identify problematic trends.
The report, based on 2019 data, says some form of inspection was carried out at all of ICE's 179 adult detention centers nationwide. But information from those inspections often failed to go anywhere. The report found in one instance field offices failed to address 99% of noncriminal complaints referred by an administration inquiry unit.
According to the letter, issues have worsened during the pandemic. The detainees said when COVID-19 began to spread at La Palma, many people refused to keep working in the kitchen. They said those who did were sent to solitary confinement as a form of punishment.
"If a detainee was ordered to work and refused, he was punished for disobeying orders and sent to 'the hole' for 30-60 days," the letter read. "Anyone who is punished for any reason or cause is treated this way, for reporting injustices that are committed here."
The detainees said COVID-19 testing is still low across the facility, and those with symptoms are sometimes still not given a test. Johnson said some clients report being sent to "isolation pods" for asking for masks, testing and additional soap.
"We have gotten reports that they've been sent to isolation pods for making those requests," she said.
The letter said those same pods are also used to quarantine people with COVID-19. Johnson said her clients have come across cells that are unsanitary.
"They’ve gone into cells that have what looks like spit up mucus on the floor, dirty sheets, toilets full of feces and urine, clothes from the person who was in it before, and they've been giving no cleaning supplies to clean those cells," she said.
In an email, CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin refuted the letter's claims. He said reports of self-harm incidents and possible fatalities were "patently false," and facilities, particularly in places where COVID-19 patients have been, are disinfected thoroughly before new uses.
He said detainee work programs are voluntary, and those who don't participate are not subject to disciplinary action.
"Our facilities do not have any form of 'solitary confinement.' We do have separate housing units that we use to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 when someone is confirmed positive for the virus, but whenever someone recovers from the virus their living area is completely sanitized and cleaned before it would be used again," he said.
Johnson said many of the complaints in the letter mirror those she hears from clients.
"People within ICE and CoreCivic have told me these things are exaggerated or not true," she said. "But to think of speaking out, in a public way, against the person that controls every minute of your day, over something that is untrue, that's really difficult for me to imagine."
At least 460 people detained in ICE facilities in Arizona have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Advocates warn a lack of testing means that number could be higher.
In the letter, detainees say they're writing to journalists because "there is no more coverage of La Palma." They say they want to be transferred to a different detention center or released to wait out court dates with family in the U.S.
ICE says it's released hundreds of detainees nationwide in the wake of the pandemic. Johnson said the agency has the power to release many more on humanitarian parole. But progress is slow.
"We've had very, very few people released on parole, which is ICE's discretionary release," she said. "Mostly we're having to fight tooth and nail to get a bond hearing set."
She said bonds can cost anywhere from $9,000 to $20,000. And as they wait to get released, clients are scared.
"I think they see people disappear and they don't know what happened to them," she said. "They don't know whether they're COVID positive and they're in isolation, or they passed away and no one is telling them."
Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)
Bernie Sanders: 'The Day After Biden's Elected, We're Going to Have a Serious Debate'
Max Greenwood, The Hill
Greenwood writes: "Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday reaffirmed his commitment to electing Joe Biden president, but said the Democratic nominee's victory in November would be followed by a 'serious debate' about the direction of the country."
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Police deploy smoke canisters in Portland. (photo: Dave Killen/The Oregonian)
Portland Protesters Clash With US Federal Troops at ICE Building
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Protesters in Oregon's largest city have clashed again with federal agents outside a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building that has become a new focus of the demonstrations that have gripped Portland for months, officials said on Friday."
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A U.S. armored vehicle drives past an oil field in the countryside of Al-Qahtaniyah town in Syria's northeastern Al-Hasakah province near the Turkish border, on August 4. (photo: Delil Souleiman/Getty)
Syria Says Donald Trump 'Stealing' Its Oil, After US Company Makes Deal to Drill
Tom O'Connor, Newsweek
O'Connor writes: "Syria has accused President Donald Trump of stealing the country's oil, after U.S. officials confirmed that a U.S. company has been allowed to operate there in fields under the control of a Pentagon-backed militia."
In remarks delivered Tuesday and sent to Newsweek by the Syrian permanent mission to the United Nations, representative Bashar al-Jaafari told the U.N. Security Council that "the U.S. occupation forces, in full view of the United Nations and the international community, took a new step to plunder Syria's natural resources, including Syrian oil and gas" through the recent establishment of a company called "Crescent Delta Energy."
This firm, "with the sponsorship and support of the US Administration, has entered into a contract with the so-called 'Syrian Democratic Forces/SDF' militia, an agent of the US occupation forces in northeastern Syria, with the aim of stealing Syrian oil and depriving the Syrian state and Syrian people of the basic revenues necessary to improve the humanitarian situation, provide for livelihood needs and reconstruction," he added.
The Syrian diplomat noted that Trump had made his intentions known earlier, such as in a late October press conference at which the president said he sought "to make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies" to take hold of oil in Syria. Trump has publicly professed "I love oil!" and that he was staying militarily involved Syria "only for the oil," even as his officials insisted the Pentagon's main focus was battling the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
"Removing Daesh fighters, weapons, and explosive material remains a top priority as Daesh continues to plot attacks against innocent civilians and our partners throughout Iraq and northeast Syria," the U.S.-led coalition said, using an Arabic-language acronym for ISIS, in a press release sent to Newsweek on Thursday.
But that same day, Trump again voiced his view on the Syria mission: "As you know, in Syria we're down to almost nothing, except we kept the oil. But we'll work out some kind of a deal with the Kurds on that. But we left, but we kept the oil."
News of an oil deal being struck between the U.S. and the SDF, a mostly Kurdish force tasked with fighting ISIS on the ground, first emerged late last month as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified before the Senate. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he had spoken with SDF commander General Mazloum Abdi, whose forces "signed a deal with an American oil company to modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria."
Asked if the U.S. was supportive of that arrangement, the U.S. top diplomat said: "We are."
"The deal took a little longer than we had hoped, and now we're in implementation, it could be very powerful," Pompeo said.
The following day, Al-Monitor cited anonymous sources revealing the name of the firm in question as "Delta Crescent Energy, LLC," which had the full support of the White House in its Syria dealings. Politico later confirmed the name based on multiple sources familiar with the agreement.
The subject came up again during a press briefing last Wednesday with James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative for Syria and special envoy for the campaign against ISIS. He declined to discuss the details of private business contracts as a matter of policy, but said the U.S. does have "a responsibility to consider whether licenses should be issued to allow American companies to conduct economic activities that otherwise might be sanctioned."
"That is something that we have done, including in this case," he said, denying that the U.S. was "involved in the commercial decisions of our local partners in northeast Syria."
"We have not done anything other than license related to this firm," he added. "Syrian oil is for the Syrian people, and we remain committed to the unity and territorial integrity of Syria. The United States government doesn't own, control, or manage oil resources in Syria. You have heard the President's position on the guarding of the oil fields. We don't go beyond that."
Newsweek contacted the Treasury Department in order to determine whether Delta Crescent Energy LLC, or any U.S. company, had indeed been granted an Office of Foreign Assets Control license to operate in Syria as Jeffrey suggested.
"Treasury does not generally comment on or provide details on license applications or specific licenses that have been issued as the information contained within these licensing applications and determinations may be protected by the Privacy Act, the Trade Secrets Act, or other regulations governing OFAC's licensing authorities," a Treasury Department spokesperson told Newsweek.
The U.S. has long faced accusations that its interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere were linked to the acquisition or control over energy resources. Comments sent by Syria's U.N. mission to Newsweek also included an accusation that the "US Administration had allowed US oil companies, whose work was supervised by former US Vice President Dick Cheney, to extract Syrian oil from the occupied Syrian Golan in a flagrant violation of the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions."
Shortly after the Trump administration announced last year he was repositioning U.S. troops to prioritize control over oil, Newsweek cited leading observers expressing concern over the optics and legality of the decision, and on arrangements reached between the SDF to provide oil to the Syrian government. The complex equation is one of many comprising Syria's multi-sided conflict, now in its 10th year.
\Washington initially intervened in Syria's civil war in favor of an insurgency that erupted in the wake of a 2011 uprising met with a government crackdown. Support from the U.S. and regional partners for the increasingly Islamist rebellion ultimately subsided as backing the SDF against ISIS became a priority. But Turkey continues to back the opposition and has mobilized it against both Syrian government and SDF forces.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, aided by Russia and Iran and accused by the West of war crimes, now controls most of the country and has vowed to retake its entirety through diplomacy or force. In his latest speech made to cabinet members, the Syrian leader accused Israel, Turkey and the U.S. of all trying to "implement one plan aimed at tearing Syria apart and plundering its wealth."
Both Moscow and Tehran have echoed Damascus' calls for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces responsible for the loss of an estimated $40 million in annual oil revenue. An even higher cost has been incurred by U.S. sanctions that seek to drain the Syrian government.
"The United States and its allies are united in continuing to apply pressure on Assad and his enablers until there is peaceful, political solution to the conflict. Assad and his foreign patrons know the clock is ticking for action," the State Department said in a press release Thursday. "In the meantime, the United States will continue to impose costs on anyone, anywhere who obstructs a peaceful political solution to the Syrian conflict."
A gas flare is seen in a field at dusk near Mentone, Texas, in August 2019. (photo: Bronte Wittpenn/Getty)
How the Gas Industry Is Waging War Against Climate Action
Emily Holden, Guardian UK
Holden writes: "When progressive Seattle decided last year to wipe out its climate pollution within the decade, the city council vote in favor was unsurprisingly unanimous, and the easiest first step on that path was clear."
In a nationwide blitz, gas companies and their allies fight climate efforts that they consider an existential threat to their business
About one-third of the city’s climate footprint comes from buildings, in large part from burning “natural” gas for heating and cooking. Gas is a fossil fuel that releases carbon dioxide and far more potent methane into the atmosphere and heats the planet. It is plentiful and cheap, and it’s also a huge and increasing part of America’s climate challenge.
So, a city councilman drafted legislation to stop the problem from growing by banning gas hookups in new buildings. Suddenly, the first step didn’t look so easy.
“From there, we just ran into a wall of opposition,” said Alec Connon, a campaigner with the climate group 350 Seattle.
Local plumbers and pipe fitters warned of job losses. Realtors complained their clients would still want gas fireplaces. Building owners feared utility bills could soar.
The effort died. The ban wasn’t politically tenable, it seemed.
But internal records obtained by the Guardian show the measure’s defeat and the “wall of opposition” that advocates experienced were part of a sophisticated pushback plan from Seattle’s gas supplier, Puget Sound Energy.
Seattle’s story isn’t unique. In fact, it’s representative of a nationwide blitz by gas companies and their allies to beat back climate action they consider an existential threat to their business, according to emails, meeting agendas and public records reviewed by the Guardian.
The documents show the multibillion-dollar gas industry has built crucial local coalitions and hired high-powered operatives to torpedo cities’ anti-gas policies – sometimes assisted by money those same cities have paid into gas trade associations.
In historically conservative states, the gas industry has convinced legislatures to pass laws prohibiting cities from following in Seattle’s footsteps and trying to ban new gas hookups. In the digital world, it has carefully cultivated the fuel’s image, paying Instagram influencers to cook with gas stoves. In the media, it has sought to be quoted in important stories in news outlets like Reuters, according to internal records. In Washington DC, where the industry has strong support from the Trump administration, it has lobbied the federal government on everything from environmental reviews to appliance standards.
“The gas utilities are facing an existential threat, and instead of approaching a decarbonizing economy as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, they’re digging their heels in and going back to the age-old tactics of [the fossil fuel industry],” said Charlie Spatz, a researcher at the Climate Investigations Center. “These public records show just a fraction of a much larger effort to slow down critical climate solutions.”
In the Seattle battle, Puget Sound Energy hired a lobbying firm that had previously defeated a proposed tax on sugary drinks.
The firm, CBE Strategic, was asked to “develop an action plan targeted at countering 350.org’s efforts” and “stopping local governments” from enacting restrictions on gas, according to a summary document of the work.
CBE’s responsibilities included “coalition building, lobbying strategy, communications, and research”.
“We have been able to stop the fast track the proposal was on by deploying a strong coalition of labor and business,” the summary said. CBE planned to “shape an alternative” to the ban. The firm would create an “inclusive stakeholder process” and analyze possible economic impacts on customers.
In other words, the opponents would band together and stall.
Other industry documents confirm Puget Sound Energy’s mobilizing efforts.
One document from a gas appliance industry group – the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association (HPBA) – noted that Puget Sound Energy and the local chamber of commerce had “formed a coalition to counter the Seattle City Council and similar efforts in Bellingham and Everett”, and would continue to monitor new anti-gas proposals.
Puget Sound Energy opposed the climate proposals despite its stated mission of “deep decarbonization and greenhouse gas emissions reduction” and goal of a carbon-neutral electric system by 2030.
Neither Puget Sound Energy nor its lobbying firm CBE responded to requests for comment.
After the gas ban was beaten back in Seattle, Caleb Heeringa, a spokesman for the Sierra Club in the city, said advocates saw coordinated industry and union pushback against gas-related climate efforts grow.
A new group called the Partnership for Energy Progress (PEP) was taking root. The partnership is an organization of western utilities, labor unions and businesses that plans to spend $2.8m in 2020 convincing consumers that “natural gas is part of a clean energy future”, and fighting state and local climate restrictions on gas, according to records reviewed by the Guardian.
The partnership’s target demographic, what it calls “flight risks” that could turn on the gas industry, is Democratic women between the ages of 35 and 54 who own homes and have college degrees, according to polling used by the group.
Unions are instrumental to the partnership, contributing about one-sixth of its budget. Leanne Guier – the political director of the Seattle plumbers and pipefitters union that opposed the gas ban – is the group’s president.
Advertisements from the coalition show photos of mothers with their babies next to gas stoves and fireplaces, with the words: “Reliable. Affordable. Natural Gas. Here for You.”
“It’s kind of unlike anything we’ve seen up here,” Heeringa said.
The partnership did not respond to specific inquiries about its work but said in an emailed statement from Guier that its goal was “to communicate the work we do to provide reliable, affordable energy to homes and businesses, and highlight the progress we’re making to address climate change”.
Puget Sound Energy and the Partnership for Energy Progress are using the same strategies that the gas industry and its trade groups are employing at the national level.
The group that represents gas fireplace and stove companies, HPBA, said in one document obtained by the Guardian that “it has become clear in the last six months that electrification is an existential issue that will be with the industry for a long time, often playing out in smaller communities and with very little advance warning”.
To “help address this growing threat”, HPBA said it would pay to join local coalitions, including the partnership in the north-west. HPBA has also connected with the midwest utility Dominion to fight electrification in Ohio and supported testimony about a pro-gas law in Arizona.
The American Gas Association (AGA), which represents mainly investor-owned gas providers, now convenes monthly calls “that bring together appliance, homebuilder, fuel, and other associations to compare notes and support efforts to push back on decarbonization and electrification issues”, according to the same document.
An April AGA meeting planned to feature officials from Puget Sound Energy and another power company, Dominion Energy, in a discussion of “activities underway at the state or regional level to combat attempts to remove natural gas from communities”, according to the group’s agenda, which was released as a state public record.
An AGA spokesman, Jake Rubin, said the group did not have state chapters operating at the local level, but “members present past and current opportunities and challenges so that other companies may learn from their experiences”.
As the public learns more about the harms of natural gas, the industry is playing both defense and offense.
Burning natural gas produces less planet-heating carbon dioxide than burning coal or oil. Gas advocates have positioned it as a smart alternative to those dirtier fossil fuels. Even the Obama administration backed gas as a “bridge fuel”.
But the extraction and transportation of natural gas leaks methane: a climate pollutant with a short-term warming potential far more powerful than carbon dioxide. Scientists are revealing we have greatly underestimated the methane emitted by the gas industry.
Fossil gas is responsible for 42% of the US greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels, according to data from the Department of Energy interpreted by Robert Howarth, who researches methane at Cornell University.
“Gas is one of the biggest drivers of emissions growth both in the US and globally, and the future trends for expansion on the system are really worrying,” said Sheryl Carter, director of the power sector climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The infrastructure investments that are being made right now … they last for 40 to 60 years. So that really locks in those emissions increases.”
Progressive local governments have recognized the significant impact of gas and are trying to phase it out, at the same time as the Trump administration has halted essentially all of the national government’s climate work.
More than 30 cities in California and a town in Massachusetts have pursued similar steps to discourage or eliminate gas use in new buildings.
\In San Luis Obispo, California, the city tried to disincentivize gas hookups, rather than ban them outright. The utility company there, Southern California Gas Co, hired consultants who helped postpone a vote on the measure, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In Sacramento, the city is trying to ban fossil fuel use in new buildings by 2023 and transition a quarter of residential and small commercial buildings away from fossil fuel use by 2030 but faces opposition from a gas utility group trying to “to push back against these with other trade associations”, according to a June email from the American Public Gas Association, which represents municipal utilities.
Fearing more local climate efforts, the gas industry has supported legislation in four states to ban cities from doing what Seattle, San Luis Obispo and Sacramento have tried to do, according to emails between trade group officials and companies.
These so-called “pre-emption laws passed in Arizona in February, in Tennessee in March, and in Oklahoma and Louisiana in May.
Similar bills were considered in Kansas, Minnesota and New Jersey. A ballot initiative was pursued in Colorado. Legislation in Mississippi and Georgia died early in the session.
There are at least 250 bills in state legislatures that a coalition of more than a dozen gas-related organizations are fighting because they “present threats to the industry involving electrification/decarbonization”, according to one document from the National Propane Gas Association. In a presentation in June, an official with the American Public Gas Association (APGA) said the group would “continue to monitor and engage” with legislation as appropriate.
APGA is funded with public money from the cities whose municipal gas utilities it represents.
So, ironically, the industry fight against electrification is often being paid for in part by progressive cities.
Members of APGA include utilities in cities pursuing climate action: San Antonio; Philadelphia; Tallahassee; Richmond, Virginia; and Palo Alto, California.
Philadelphia wants to cut city emissions 80% by 2050, yet its utility paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past few years to gas trade groups, according to invoices obtained by the Climate Investigation Center records.
Palo Alto has a climate goal that is even more ambitious than the state of California’s. It wants to slash greenhouse gases 80% by 2030. But its city utility paid APGA $20,902 last year, the Center found.
“If you have a climate policy and you’re serious about that in your city, you need to pull out because they are working to undermine it every day,” said Matt Vespa, an attorney for Earthjustice in San Francisco. “You can’t fund a fossil fuel advocacy group and claim climate commitments.”
APGA’s president, Dave Schryver, said the group was “a strong advocate for the key role its members and natural gas plays in a sustainable energy future”. He argued policy-driven electrification could increase annual energy costs by at least $750 per household, according to an analysis paid for by the industry.
APGA has been fighting electrification since at least 2013 when it established a taskforce to “counter the regulatory and legislative threats to the direct use of natural gas”, according to an internal presentation obtained with a public records request by the center.
This year, APGA is spending at least $127,000 on anti-electrification initiatives and $200,000 for media monitoring, engagement with reporters, letters to the editor, op-eds and social media efforts. It is also launching a $300,000 “gas genius” campaign to bolster public opinion of gas on social media. APGA declined to comment on its specific efforts.
The other gas trade group – AGA – is paying Instagram influencers to popularize gas stoves with a #CookingWithGas campaign. AGA declined to disclose its spending on the campaign but said it would “continue to share recipes and ideas from a variety of chefs and people who like to cook at home as this content is interesting and well received”.
The elimination of gas from buildings is just the first looming threat for the industry. To fight the climate crisis, the US will need to phase out the gas it burns for electricity and the petroleum it burns in cars – both of which are produced by the same industry.
Carter said the industry needs to prepare for the US to move away from relying on fossil gas as a “bridge”.
“Instead of continuing to build the bridge, which I think a lot of this new investment in infrastructure is about, we need to work to get off the bridge,” Carter said. “In order to create the net-zero carbon future we need to reach to deal with the climate crisis, it requires us to move away from fossil gas.”
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