Certified natural gas is ‘dangerous greenwashing scheme’, US senators say – By Dharna Noor (The Guardian) / Feb 12, 2024
Certified natural gas – or methane gas that is purportedly produced in a low-emissions manner – is a “dangerous greenwashing scheme”, a group of progressive senators wrote in a letter to federal regulators on Monday.
The letter, addressed to Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, comes as the agency prepares to release its updated Green Guides, which clarify when companies’ marketing claims around sustainability violate federal laws barring consumer deception, giving regulators stronger legal cases against polluters. Those guidelines should “crack down” on claims made by gas certification programs, the lawmakers, led by Massachusetts’s Ed Markey, wrote.
“The reality is that gas certification schemes allow the oil and gas industry to justify the continued expansion of methane gas use and undermine efforts towards a just transition to renewables,” says the letter, which was also signed by the senators Jeff Merkley, Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker.
The gas sector has long branded itself as climate-friendly, noting that when burned, the fuel generates less planet-heating carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels. But gas – called “natural gas” by fossil fuel interests – is made of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more planet-heating than carbon dioxide in the short term. Some research even indicates the fuel is worse for the climate than coal.
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