For Release: January 18, 2023
MEDIA CONTACT: Emily Moore, Director, Climate and Energy Program, Sightline Institute, emily@sightline.org
SEATTLE, WA – As public concern grows over the health dangers of gas appliances in homes and the impacts of climate-warming fuels on their economies, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia should look to a future energy system that is gas-free. To get there, leaders in the region should stop subsidizing the buildout of new gas pipe infrastructure and explore alternative energy systems like “GeoNetworks,” neighborhood-wide ground source heat pumps. That’s according to new analyses from the think tank Sightline Institute.
“Gas utilities continue to perversely incentivize building new gas infrastructure that will pollute our homes and climate for decades, and gas customers are paying for it—likely without knowing,” says Emily Moore, Director of Sightline’s Climate and Energy program and author of the articles. “Regulators should eliminate these subsidies and hold the gas industry accountable to realistic climate strategies, not the faux solutions they are peddling today, like hydrogen for home heating,”
Read Moore’s full analyses, coauthored with Sightline fellow Laura Feinstein:
- It’s time to stop subsidizing new gas pipes
- Is there a future for gas utilities? It could be heating and cooling your home (from the ground)
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Emily Moore, Director of Sightline Institute’s Climate and Energy program, leads Sightline’s work transitioning Cascadia away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner and greener energy sources. Emily holds her Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and her Bachelor’s from Brown University. Find her latest research here, and follow her on Twitter at @_enmoore_.
Sightline Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of housing, democracy, forests, and energy policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.
