NW Natural spends close to $1M in four weeks to fight local climate policy
Aside from two separate donations of $50 or less, NW Natural remains sole funder of the Portland-registered “Eugene Residents for Energy Choice” campaign
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 9, 2023
Media Contact
Dylan Plummer, Sierra Club, 541.531.1858, dylan.plummer@sierraclub.org
Eugene, OR – Oregon’s largest gas utility, NW Natural, has contributed over $948,000 in just 30 days to a campaign attempting to overturn the state’s first policy to phase out fossil fuels in new homes, which passed last month in the city of Eugene. The front group, Eugene Residents for Energy Choice, has used NW Natural’s staggering contribution to bankroll the collection of signatures for a ballot referendum to roll back climate policy in a community deeply committed to the clean energy transition.
Eugene Residents for Energy Choice, presents itself as a local grassroots campaign to overturn the climate policy – but aside from two separate donations of $50 dollars or less, NW Natural is the campaign’s sole funder. Community members joined youth from across Eugene and Lane County last Friday at a climate strike to decry NW Natural’s aggressive efforts to rollback climate policy in a move that protestors saw as a direct attack on local democracy and climate justice.
So far, the vast majority of the fossil fuel corporation’s funding has gone to collecting the signatures required to qualify the referendum for the ballot. Those signatures were submitted today, triggering a 15 day certification period with the Lane County Elections Division to determine whether the referendum will qualify for a public vote this November. NW Natural has effectively spent nearly $150 for every signature required to put this policy on the ballot.
Danny Noonan, Climate and Energy Strategist at Breach Collective, and resident of the Whiteaker neighborhood of Eugene, said:
“With each new financial disclosure, it becomes clearer and clearer that Eugene Residents for Energy Choice exists solely to do NW Natural’s bidding. The eye-watering amount of money flowing into this campaign in such a short time from a single fossil fuel corporation leaves no doubt about this. The handful of other businesses that are profiting from and lending credibility to NW Natural are not just trashing the climate; they are trashing their own reputations in the eyes of actual Eugene residents.”
Eugene Residents for Energy Choice was established by NW Natural in a first-in-the-nation attempt by the gas industry to roll back local climate policy via a ballot petition, following Eugene City Council’s vote to join close to 100 cities around the country in passing a policy to restrict the use of methane gas in new residential buildings. Almost immediately after City Council’s passage of this policy in early February, NW Natural made clear its intention to collect signatures to send the policy to the ballot.
Lottie Rohde, a climate strike organizer and student at Churchill High School, said:
“The youth have fought tirelessly for climate action, we testified to City Council, wrote letters to elected officials, and walked out of our classes to demand a transition off of fossil fuels. Now, just weeks after our City finally took concrete action to meet its Climate Recovery Ordinance goals, a fossil fuel corporation is ready to spend millions in an effort to undo the years of work we have invested into both our City and our future.”
One of NW Natural’s more notable local relationships is with Anne Marie Levis, of Funk/Levis & Associates, who has served as Eugene Residents for Energy Choice’s primary spokesperson and happens to be the recipient of the campaign’s only other recorded expenditure, a $39,795 purchase of services. Levis, who lives outside of the city, serves on the board of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce and is also listed as the Director of a separate Political Action Committee “Eugene for Energy Choice,” registered and administered by C&E Systems at the same time as “Eugene Residents for Energy Choice.” Based on what is known publicly, advocates are questioning whether Levis and her firm’s business relationship with NW Natural and its front groups was disclosed to the local Chamber, and how it has influenced the Chamber’s participation in the coalition. NW Natural’s astroturfing network also includes contractors like Portland-based C&E Systems (to administer its electoral effort) and Newman Lake, Washington-based IRCMS (for paid signature gathers).
Recent reporting quoted David Funk, a co-founder of Funk/Levis who left the corporation in 2008, saying that the PR firm would never have represented a deceptive corporation like NW Natural while he was there.
For over two years, NW Natural spent significant resources trying to undermine and delay climate action policy in Eugene and across its distribution area in Oregon and Washington. After extensive public process with strong support from Eugene residents, the City Council adopted an ordinance to require new single family and low-rise homes be constructed all electric by a vote of 5-3.
In recent months, NW Natural came under fire in national and local media for its deceptive marketing practices and for downplaying the peer reviewed science linking indoor gas combustion and human health harms:
In August 2022, lawmakers and organizations across the state petitioned Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum for an investigation into NW Natural’s deceptive advertisements and spending thousands of dollars creating children’s workbooks to distribute to Oregon schools.
In January 2023, Oregon students planned to protest a NW Natural sponsored teacher training in Portland, calling it “part of a broader misinformation campaign about NW Natural” (the training was abruptly canceled after scrutiny).
Later in January, the NY Times published an article about NW Natural hiring an industry scientist to cast doubt on the overwhelming scientific evidence that gas stoves pose a significant risk to human health.
Just this month, a story in Grist quoted NW Natural admitting to paying protestors to wave signs in opposition to the City of Eugene’s electrification ordinance at a public hearing in November of last year.
Dylan Plummer, Senior Campaign Representative at the Sierra Club, and resident of the Amazon neighborhood of Eugene, said:
“There is nothing that this corporation can do at this point that will surprise me. Whether hiring doctors to downplay the health risks of its product, propagandizing children with pro fossil fuel work books, or cutting million dollar checks to attack a local democracy, NW Natural has shown it’s willing to do everything in its power, no matter how immoral and deceptive, to keep Oregon hooked on polluting fossil fuels.”
The residential electrification ordinance is part of Eugene’s efforts to achieve the climate goals and commitments set out in the City’s Climate Action Plan and Climate Recovery Ordinance, which are in turn informed by the state’s climate emissions reductions goals. Eugene’s Climate Recovery Ordinance includes a commitment to reducing the community’s fossil fuel emissions by 50% of 2010 levels by 2030.
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