FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Hannah Story Brown, [email protected]
Gas industry influence groups Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future and the Partnership to Address Global Emissions (PAGE Coalition) are reportedly hosting an event on Capitol Hill on Tuesday with Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). The event seeks to bring attention to a new report they’re releasing downplaying the lifecycle emissions of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the Energy Department works to update its impact analysis for permitting new gas exports. Founded and funded by LNG industry players, the groups are vocal proponents of expanding methane gas exports, aiming to frame exports as a climate solution despite their outsized greenhouse gas emissions and toxic local air pollution.
Ahead of Tuesday’s event, Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Hannah Story Brown released the following statement: “The gas industry is sparing no effort in its campaign to influence the government’s reevaluation of the explosive growth of U.S. gas exports, including by leveraging former and current politicians as spokespeople for their interests. Media coverage of such efforts should make sure to follow the money behind them, and expose who’s pulling the strings.”
This is what the money tells us:
- Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future receives millions of dollars a year from its corporate members, all gas industry players with a deep financial stake in expanding gas infrastructure: Williams Companies, EQT, Kinder Morgan, Quanta Services, TC Energy, Enbridge, National Fuel, Solar Turbines, Venture Global LNG, and Southern Company Gas.
- Natural Allies spends the bulk of its member dues on public relations efforts to peddle methane gas to Democratic constituencies. In 2022, it spent nearly $5 million on public relations, including paying former Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) $210,690 and $185,266 respectively to stump for gas.
- The former Democratic politicians on Natural Allies’ leadership council—former Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Tim Ryan (D-OH), Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL), and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter—leverage their public sector experience to lend credibility to their current roles as paid gas industry spokespeople.
- The Partnership to Address Global Emissions (PAGE) was founded by EQT, Enbridge, Williams Companies, and TC Energy to advocate for pro-gas policies and also includes gas industry players Baker Hughes, Coterra, and Netpower among its supporting members. As of 2022, its primary expenditure was paying major lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP for “public affairs management and strategy.”
- Major natural gas producer EQT alone gave $1.25 million to Natural Allies in 2022 and $1 million to Natural Allies in 2023 as well as $356,397 to PAGE in 2023, after making “signicant [sic] monetary and administrative contributions to help create, organize and launch [PAGE] during 2022.”
- EQT’s general counsel is speaking at the Capitol Hill event in conversation with Naomi Boness, managing director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative. The Stanford Natural Gas Initiative is funded by EQT, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, GTI Energy, BP, Kinder Morgan, New Jersey Resources, SoCalGas, Baker Hughes, and a host of other oil and gas industry players.
- Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) has taken donations from many of the corporations funding Natural Allies and PAGE in the course of his career. He received $11,800 from the PACs of Enbridge, EQT, ExxonMobil, and Williams Companies in 2024. Over the last five years, Sen. Casey’s fourth largest donor was Air Products & Chemicals Inc., which markets itself as the “world’s leading provider of natural gas liquefaction technology.”
- Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has received an astonishing $1,855,739 from the oil and gas industry in the course of his career. Over the last five years, LNG company Tellurian Inc. rose to the ranks of Sen. Cassidy’s top campaign donors while seeking to expand its gas export infrastructure in his home state.
“The former Democratic politicians on Natural Allies’ leadership council exemplify why the ‘revolving door’ phenomenon in politics is so pernicious,” said Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Kenny Stancil. “With a rolodex of high-level contacts from their years in office, these former public sector officials rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year peddling private interests, while couching their advocacy efforts as insights from former public servants.”
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