TODAY’S ISSUE, IN BRIEF…

• Al Sharpton invited paid fossil fuel industry representatives to speak at his annual civil rights conference.

• Sharpton’s group did not disclose representatives’ deep financial ties to the fossil fuel industry. Representatives characterized themselves as former lawmakers speaking “truth to power.”

• Representatives argued that expanding methane gas is a civil rights issue; that methane gas is clean energy; and that methane gas is more affordable than renewable energy.

• Climate justice advocates, who were not represented on the panel, balked. “The fossil fuel industry puts Black lives in danger,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali. “Energy affordability is a serious concern for communities on fixed budgets, but it should never be a higher priority than our lives.”

When attendees of Al Sharpton’s annual civil rights convention showed up for a panel on clean energy, the famed minister and TV personality promised them a "stellar" talk about the energy transition and racial justice. 

What they got was four paid members of the methane gas industry—who described themselves as Democrats speaking "truth to power"—telling them that phasing out fossil fuels is not in the best interest of the Black community.

A very curious “civil rights” discussion

The panel, titled “Affordable energy is a civil rights issue,” was hosted on Thursday by the National Action Network. Deemed “our nation’s most important civil rights organization” by President Joe Biden, the multi-million dollar non-profit describes itself as “an activist social justice organization that works within the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” 

Sharpton said he convened the panel because “There’s controversies that I think need to be dealt with, discussed.”

Then, four members of the gas industry front group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future—moderator Donald Cravins, former Senator Mary Landrieu, former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and former Congressman Kendrick Meek—walked on stage. 

Related reading: Landrieu paid over $200,000 per year to shill for methane gas group  

Against a backdrop reading "No justice, no peace," the panelists falsely told attendees that methane gas is a “clean” fuel. They said that access to methane should be seen as an issue of civil rights, and that the idea of net-zero emissions is primarily being pushed by rich people who do not understand the struggles of affordability.

“You have folks of wealth and good intention, who say ‘Oh, we need zero emissions, we need to do away with quote unquote fossil fuels,’” said Meek. “Well natural gas is a clean-burning fuel. And affordable.”

The statements were striking, given that scientists, climate justice and civil rights organizations have long argued that gas is a dangerously volatile fuel, both economically and environmentally.

”The fossil fuel industry puts Black lives in danger. It’s really that simple,” said Mustafa Santiago Ali, the EPA’s former chief environmental justice official and longtime climate justice advocate.

“We know that the fossil fuel industry has played a significant role in many of the public health impacts in our communities, in the shortening of our lives, and in limiting other types of economic opportunities,” he added. “So when we embrace fossil fuel industries playing a role in our education and decision-making, we continue to hold onto the frame of surviving instead of thriving. They keep us in survival mode, and we’re trying to break that.”

”A flagrant denial of both science and reality”

The NAACP has said that methane gas “poses significant damages to the health and well-being of frontline communities” and “is not a climate solution.” 

The NAACP has also warned against these exact rhetorical tactics from the fossil fuel industry targeting Black communities, noting that the industry creates “deceptive alliances with local churches, non-profit organizations, and other groups” to downplay the environmental and economic harms of their products.

(The fifth member of the panel was NAN Chief Operating Officer and Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion church’s senior pastor Reverend Malcom T. Byrd. HEATED has no evidence that Byrd is paid by the fossil fuel industry.)

The panel did not feature any rebuttal or representation of other perspectives, which confounded climate justice advocates like Anthony Rogers-Wright. He called the discussion “a propaganda panel.”

“You invite Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, but you don’t invite Sharon Lavigne from Cancer Alley?” Rogers-Wright said. “She would speak to the need to get off fossil fuels as a means of survival.” 

“Any claim from the fossil fuel industry that expanding its products will promote civil rights is a flagrant denial of both science and reality,” said Kathy Mulvey, accountability campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The science is clear: a just transition to clean and renewable energy sources is the only way to guarantee equitable and affordable energy access.”

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Panelists downplay their financial ties to fossil fuels

NAN also did not disclose to attendees that the panelists were paid fossil fuel industry representatives. The only disclosures came from the panelists themselves, more than halfway through the event. 

Some of the disclosures were misleading. For example, former Sen. Landrieu told attendees that Natural Allies is funded by the gas industry, but also by “labor unions from all over the country… and environmental groups.” 

But according to the Natural Allies website, the only labor unions that fund the front group are those that represent fossil fuel and pipeline workers. There are no environmental groups listed. 

“Landrieu’s claim that environmental groups back Natural Allies is baffling,” said Hannah Story Brown, a senior climate researcher at the Revolving Door Project. “Every single one of Natural Allies’ ‘funding members’ listed on their website is involved in the oil and gas industry, full stop.

Natural Allies did not respond to HEATED’s request to clarify which environmental groups sponsor the organization. NAN did not respond to HEATED’s request for comment on how Natural Allies came to be at the conference, why panelists’ financial ties to the industry were undisclosed, or why counter perspectives were not included. 

In a statement sent to HEATED by Natural Allies, Meek said that methane gas is critical for a just energy transition. “For decades, Black, Brown, and low-income Americans have been excluded from conversations surrounding affordable and reliable energy, despite being most impacted by climate change and rising energy costs.”

Rogers-Wright disputed that notion, noting that “Black, brown, indigenous people and working class white people are responsible” for some of the country’s most aggressive climate laws. “Some of the most important documents on climate were written by Black people,” he said. “This is not a white thing.” 

Ali also took issue with Meek’s assertion. “Black and brown voices are only excluded when we’re not willing to play ball, or when we’re only willing to accept the narrative that the fossil fuel industry puts in front of us,” he said. “You can’t get your health back. So let’s make sure we’re understanding both the positives and negatives of whatever you decide.”

The gas industry’s strategy to influence Black voters

While two panelists briefly disclosed their ties to Natural Allies, they did not disclose their specific financial arrangements with the methane industry, or Natural Allies’ multi-million, years-long campaign to fight the energy transition.

Cravins, who was introduced as the former under secretary of minority business development, currently works as the head of government affairs and outreach for Williams. Williams co-founded Natural Allies and claims to handle about 30 percent of methane gas in the United States.

Landrieu, Nutter, and Meek are all co-chairs for Natural Allies. In 2022, Landrieu was paid $210,690 to promote methane gas, via her consulting firm VNF Solutions, according to tax documents obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute and seen by HEATED. Nutter and Meek’s salaries were not disclosed on Natural Allies’ 2022 tax forms, as they were not yet hired by the organization.

But all four Democrats have been vital to Natural Allies’ strategy of targeting Black and brown voters. That strategy was revealed in internal documents obtained by The Guardian and Floodlight, which read: “Success for the natural gas industry will be rooted in whether we can message to the left and the Democratic base of Black and Latino…voters as effectively as we have messaged to the right.”

Natural Allies decided that the best way to appeal to Black voters was to focus their messaging on short-term cost. “Black voters–the core of President Biden’s Democratic coalition–are more likely to support affordability over disruptive changes in energy and climate policy,” the group said in another document obtained by The Guardian and Floodlight.

But experts dispute the idea that methane gas is always cheaper than renewable energy. For example, in Nebraska, which has the lowest electricity cost in the country, renewable energy generates at least 35 percent of the state’s electricity. A recent analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists also found that transitioning to renewable energy could save Americans more than $100 billion in energy costs in 2030.

The claim that gas is more affordable is a well-known tactic used by the industry. The NAACP reported in 2021 that the fossil fuel industry’s “‘affordability’ tactics target low-income communities, warning against disenfranchisement in the clean energy transition.” This misinformation campaign came from the same gas companies causing the “toxic pollution harming tribal groups, communities of color, and low-income communities, and our Earth,” the NAACP found.

Lukas Ross, the deputy director of climate and energy justice at Friends of the Earth, also pointed out that gas is subject to massive fluctuations in price, whereas renewables are less so. 

“Meek is basically saying that it is better for consumers to have their home heating bills tied to an increasingly volatile global commodity—a commodity that is only going to get more volatile as exports increase,” Ross said. “No one not being paid by industry would ever make that argument with a straight face.”

Neither is methane gas environmentally-friendly. Methane gas is more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, and is one of the main contributors to global warming. But even more egregious is the gas industry’s claim that it cares about communities of color—when there is overwhelming evidence for the fossil fuel industry’s environmental racism.

“Black, brown, and Indigenous communities are among the hardest hit by the historic environmental racism of the fossil fuel industry,” said Mulvey. “This attempt to masquerade as a champion of energy affordability and access is a textbook example of the reprehensible deception and disinformation tactics of the fossil fuel industry.”

Williams, one of the fossil fuel companies behind Natural Allies, was fined $8.5 million by the EPA last year for violating the Clean Air Act. The communities polluted by Williams’ gas plants include the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, the St. Charles parish in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, and the Gulf Coast refinery Matagorda County, Texas.

None of the Natural Allies panelists addressed how the gas industry has disproportionately built polluting refineries in low-income communities and communities of color. Instead the panelists framed injustice as one perpetuated by rich anti-fossil fuel advocates toward the poorest American communities. 

“We’ve got some people in this country who are deniers of climate change. And we know in our community that that hurts us more than anybody else,’ said Willams-employee Cravins. “But we’ve also got some people on the other side, on the left side,” he continued, who “want to give us the bill.”

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