Professional enviro misstates RGF, defends Heinrich

RGF certainly stirred things up when we outlined our serious concerns with plans put forth by Sen. Heinrich and nearly 50 American cities to eliminate natural gas hookups from American homes.

Today, Demis Foster of the powerful Conservation Voters New Mexico wrote to attack Gessing. She begins on an untruthful note saying, “Gessing claims most Americans rely on natural gas.” While he never actually wrote that, it is actually accurate. The following is from the Energy Information Administration. While Foster is right that 60% of cooking uses electricity, water and space heating (home) are predominantly NOT electricity. Overwhelmingly that means natural gas or some other fossil fuel, a point which the liberal Vox acknowledges even while advocating for “electrification.”

Foster makes a number of claims that just aren’t true including “G20 countries have subsidized oil and gas with $3.3 trillion since 2015.” That is from THIS report which actually says the subsidies have been for “all fossil fuels” (not just oil and gas). Of course the report defines “subsidy” not as outright government support for something, rather as a lack of carbon pricing. It is a poorly-sourced report to say the least.

Overall it is wonderful to be attacked by one’s political enemies. If we are taking flak, we’re over the target.