Our new report documents Southern Company's nearly 60-year history on climate change, from early warnings in the 1960's through Southern's later funding of disinformation campaigns against climate science + action #UtilitiesKnew
energyandpolicy.org/reports/southe… The president of Southern Services served as a technical reviewer for a 1964 White House report that highlighted concerns about the “possible effects” of “increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere by the year 2000” documentcloud.org/documents/3718…

@SWGas and front group, Nevadans for Economic Opportunity (plus its financial backers), are funding an effort to oust Democratic Assemblywoman Lesley Cohen, who introduced climate legislation last year to set NV up for a transition away from fossil gas. energyandpolicy.org/southwest-gas-… @SWGas @Cohen4AD29 bill would have required @SWGas to show future spending on gas infrastructure would help NV meet @GovSisolak's climate goals. Southwest Gas retaliated, organizing a coalition that included the Retail Association of Nevada (RAN) to defeat the bill.

NEW: Utilities have committed to a flurry of net-zero carbon goals. But which are actually decarbonizing quickly and which are stalling? Are any on pace to meet President-elect Biden’s goal of zero-carbon electricity by 2035?

We dug in! Thread...
energyandpolicy.org/utilities-carb… First, some background: Why all the net-zero goals? Utilities are responding to pressure from investors who see carbon as a risk, and low-cost clean energy as an opportunity. Many of the country’s biggest utilities have set goals of reducing their carbon pollution to “net-zero.”

NEW: In a first-of-its-kind report, we looked at how utilities use charitable giving as a means of gaining undue influence over regulatory policy and politics.

Thread with some key findings...🧵 1/11

energyandpolicy.org/strings-attach… Drawing from tax forms and regulatory filings, we looked at the charitable giving of 10 large utilities in a five-year span from 2013 - 2017. Between them, those utilities gave away *over $1 billion* during that stretch. 2/11

🚨🚨🚨 NEW (and troubling) analysis: Even though clean energy is cheaper than ever, and the climate emergency is more urgent than ever, the nation's largest electric utilities are planning to *slow down* their decarbonization pace. Thread! energyandpolicy.org/utility-carbon… 1/8 All of the data we used in our analysis are from the utilities' own climate goals. While some utilities, like @NIPSCO, @xcelenergy and @ConsumersEnergy are planning to speed up their decarbonization, others like @DukeEnergy, @DomEnergyNews and @AEPnews are slowing down. 2/8