When Maryland state lawmakers proposed a major climate bill last year, they faced opposition from a surprising figure: ex-NFL player Gary Baxter.
The findings show how the fossil fuel industry has relied on advocacy groups to persuade policymakers nationwide that its products benefitcommunities of color. Critics say these efforts come despite the fact that Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans are disproportionately exposed to deadly air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which also is driving climate change.
“The documents reveal how oil, gas and utility companies — through their membership in Consumer Energy Alliance — cynically claim to represent the interests of structurally disadvantaged communities,” said Itai Vardi, a research and communications manager at the Energy and Policy Institute. “But in reality they use these front groups as a way to obscure the harms this industry causes these communities through increasing pollution and exacerbating climate change, which hits disadvantaged people the hardest.”
Democratic-leaning states have advanced more-aggressive climate policies for years, including recent efforts to cut off gas supplies to new buildings as a way to speed the transition to clean electricity. The gas industry has responded by hiring Democrats and other advocates who are better-positioned to appeal to liberal voters. Skirmishes on the state level will play an outsize role in shaping the nation’s future energy trajectory once President-elect Donald Trump is back in the White House, where he has pledged to reverse many of President Joe Biden’s policies aimed at shifting the country away from oil, gas and coal.
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