Lawmakers and activists petition Oregon AG to investigate NW Natural

About two dozen environmental organizations and eight elected officials have sent a public letter to Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum calling for her to follow up on misleading and false information put out by NW Natural about the health impacts of gas stoves. The methane-based fossil fuel has been increasingly linked to health problems, particularly asthma in children, and cities in Oregon have attempted to ban new gas hookups in new construction. Calls for greater oversight increased after an expert testified at a 2022 Multnomah County hearing on the issue, without disclosing that she was hired by NW Natural. The company has drawn criticism over its spending to send ratepayers promotional material.

Now Rep. Mark Gamba (D-Milwaukie) along with several of his colleagues in the Oregon House and Lane County elected officials, are asking for an investigation into the regional energy company. They said that NW Natural’s behavior “regarding the air quality risks of its product and service is deeply unconscionable to our constituents, organizations and members, detrimental to public health, and deleterious to the public’s interest in an honest conversation about which energy mix best achieves our [s]tate’s climate and environmental goals.”

Gamba joins us in the studio to tell us more about what the group hopes to achieve with the letter and how it fits into his legislative priorities as a new state lawmaker.

Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. About two dozen environmental organizations and eight elected officials have sent a public letter about NW Natural to Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. They’re focused in particular on the company’s messaging about the indoor air quality effects of gas appliances like kitchen stoves and what they say is NW Natural’s blatant attempts to undermine the science. This newsletter is actually a follow up to one that the same coalition wrote in August of last year. Democratic State Representative Mark Gamba from Milwaukie signed on to these two letters and he joins us now. Welcome to the show.

Mark Gamba: Thanks for having me.

Miller: I want to start with the big picture here before we get to NW Natural. Why are you focused on methane?

Gamba: That’s a great question and it’s often overlooked. People often think of methane or natural gas as sort of a clean energy source because it burns…less CO2 is produced per therm of energy than coal. The problem with methane, or natural gas, is that, leaked into the atmosphere, raw methane is 86 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2 is. The industry will tell you that they leak about 3% and I don’t know exactly what they’re measuring, but there have been around 16 different university studies that say it’s closer to 10% system wide. So, from the wellhead, to transport, piping, storage and then end use, all the slightly leaking burner tips, it’s close to 10%. So for every 10 million tons or cubic feet of natural gas, a million cubic feet of natural gas is leaked directly into the atmosphere. And that’s been a much bigger driver of climate change than we originally thought.

It’s actually interesting that for several years, the models were always a little bit behind what was actually happening. The change was occurring faster than a lot of the models were showing and it’s because they were using the 3% number and they were using another number which is 20%, 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas. That’s over a 100 year period. It comes out of the atmosphere a little faster than CO2, but 100 years doesn’t matter when we have 10 years to really make a definitive change in our climate drivers.

Miller: And it’s worth pointing out that what you’re talking about there is the overall natural gas use in this country, the majority of which is not in home appliances, but is for electricity generation. It’s a much bigger percentage of the overall natural gas pie. But let’s turn now to the letter that you and a number of others wrote because this is really about the company’s communication about burning natural gas inside people’s homes. That’s the main focus of it. What does peer reviewed evidence say about indoor air quality when people use kitchen stoves?

Gamba: When you burn methane inside your home…let me ask you this, would you take your barbecue and bring it into your house and use it in your house? And the answer to that is, I hope not, because it will kill you. By the same token, when you’re burning natural gas inside your house, things like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, benzene, formaldehyde, are all forming as you burn that natural gas inside your stove. What NW Natural likes to point out is, there are certain pollutants that also occur when you cook with electric, right? The particulate matter, for example. There is more particulate matter that’s produced typically with natural gas than on an electric stove. All of those go and stay in the house even if you have a hood and even if it’s on, which most people, unless they’re cooking something that’s particularly smoky or something, won’t bother to turn on their vent and a lot of the vents don’t actually vent outside. A lot of them recycle the air into the house, so those gasses are staying in the house and they’re ending up in bedrooms, they’re ending up in the living room and they’re obviously in the kitchen.

So that constant exposure to things like benzene are pretty dramatically bad for people. There was one study I read a while back that said the indoor air quality caused by burning methane in your house would be illegal, if those levels of pollutants were outside. We have no indoor air quality standards in this country. We do have outdoor air quality standards and were those same standards applied indoors, it would be illegal.

Miller: It’s a good time for me to read part of the statement that NW Natural provided to us this morning. They wrote this: “We’d like to point out the authors of the letter to the AG have previously characterized claims as facts, often citing themselves as sources or using citations from news articles that also include quotes with unsubstantiated claims or opinions. Peer reviewed health studies conclude cooking produces pollutants whether cooking with gas or electricity and should be done with proper ventilation, which is a reason kitchen exhausts are required for all new homes in Oregon, regardless of fuel type. More information on cooking safely is available on our website.”

They wrote this, “Many factors can contribute to indoor air quality such as building materials and cleaning products, as well as the food you cook and how you cook it. Studies that use inappropriate methodologies or deliberately create conditions that aren’t representative of how people cook are not useful. For example,” they wrote, “studies that don’t properly adjust for factors including tobacco smoke, proximity to vehicle exhaust, length of cooking time without ventilation, use of discontinued stoves, family history and other home environment pollutants should not be used to support an electrification agenda.”

What’s your response to all of that?

Gamba: Well, it’s exactly what the letter is about, right? What they’re saying is that cooking with a gas stove is equal to cooking with an electric stove or they’re implying that, they’re inferring that, which is patently not true. I mean, Stanford University - which I think most people respect the results of studies by Stanford University - very clearly made the point that using a methane stove created an indoor air quality that was worse than secondhand smoke. How much effort has America put into reducing exposure to secondhand smoke, right? We’ve made it illegal in bars and illegal in airplanes and all these other places. And yet we’re allowed to continue to burn methane indoors and statements like that are exactly what that letter is about. They categorically continue to misrepresent the facts and to be frank, lie about the dangers of natural gas.

Miller: Recent reporting by Jeff Brady at NPR found that going back to the 1970s, the American Gas Association and utility companies funded studies that countered the emerging research on health risks focusing on uncertainties in the health research. And then, as Jeff Brady put it, “magnifying them or leaving the impression that the science is not clear,” even, he says, “as the evidence accumulated about a link between using gas stoves at home and a greater risk of respiratory illness.” He actually was on our show a few months ago to talk about some related reporting he had done.

I was struck by one of the lines in this new letter. You note that NW Natural is clearer about the risks of carbon monoxide than nitrogen oxides. How do you explain that?

Gamba: I think it’s because that’s becoming more well known. I mean, I’m just having to surmise, right? But it’s becoming more well known that carbon monoxides are common from burning gasses inside of a building. So they’re stepping away from trying to protect that. They always ignore benzene, they ignore the formaldehyde, they ignore all of those things that are clearly being produced by burning natural gas in kitchens.

Miller: The legal mechanism that you’re asking the Attorney General to rely on is Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act. What powers does this law confer?

Gamba: It’s a pretty broad power, actually. I’m [was] just trying to remember before this morning the recent case. But there was recently a case that made it clear that gives them fairly broad powers to investigate and take action against companies who deceive consumers by misrepresenting or failing to disclose any kind of fault or defects in their products.

Miller: What exactly do you want the Attorney General to do?

Gamba: Well, investigate for starters. And I think it’s gonna be pretty clear that an investigation would show that, in no uncertain terms, that they have been working to mislead consumers for decades as the NPR story pointed out.

Miller: But I guess I’m wondering, do you want to get the Attorney General to get NW Natural to stop saying what they’re saying about these studies, or if you want them to actively say something else? I mean, do you want, for example, the natural gas equivalent of a Surgeon General’s warning? You talked about cigarettes earlier. Do you want them and other natural gas companies to have to say using our product causes X and Y?

Gamba: Yes. Frankly, that would be ideal. I think part of the struggle, well, for eight years as a mayor and now as a state representative, is when we’re trying to pass laws that begin to move us away from natural gas in homes, the disinformation campaign out there makes that much harder because even many of our fellow legislators don’t understand. They’ve been hearing this same line of propaganda for decades and that’s what they believe, right? Most people believe it’s better to cook with gas. Cooking with gas, it’s literally a saying. That sort of general belief that natural gas is in some way good…even the very name, natural gas, makes it sound wholesome. That has been part of the problem with trying to begin to regulate it, both from an indoor air quality standpoint and frankly from a methane leakage standpoint.

Miller: You were part of the same group of elected officials and climate organizations who wrote to the attorney general in August of 2022 with many of the same concerns.

Not too much has changed since then. Did anything come from that letter?

Gamba: No, and I don’t remember at the time what the Attorney General said. I was in conversation with her recently about another topic and she feels like they’re very busy. They have a lot on their plate right now. So it won’t surprise me if she declines to take this up at this point. This is one of those drums that you have to keep beating. I suspect if nothing happens this year, we will come back again next year with the new Attorney General and go at it again.

Miller: I should say we did reach out to Ellen Rosenblum’s office. A spokesman told us this morning that they appreciate your letter and its stated concerns. They’re reviewing it and they could not give us a timeline for that review or what might come from that. What about the Public Utilities Commission, the PUC, they are the regulators of utilities in this state. Do they have jurisdiction over the way a utility communicates or advertises or does its messaging to its customers?

Gamba: Sort of. What they can and have very recently actually regulated is that they can’t spend ratepayer money doing that misinformation, doing the advertising, sending out that kind of messaging. They have to use other funds, presumably from their stockholders, to do that kind of work. But beyond that, they can’t really regulate lying, for example. That’s not in the wheelhouse of the PUC.

Miller: NW Natural is the largest, by far, provider of natural gas, which is mostly methane in Oregon, but it’s not the only one. Cascade Natural Gas is another one in Central Oregon and various parts of Eastern and Northeastern Oregon. They have a whole page on their website that I was looking at today dedicated to calling into question the studies on the dangers of burning gas in homes. It has a picture of a happy, smiling family, hovering over a stove. They look very, very happy in the picture. Are you focused on them as well? I mean, NW Natural is not the only one.

Gamba: Sure. And, I mean, you go after the biggest one if you can, because the trickle down effect, if you will, will get the other ones. I mean, as a former commercial photographer, yes, it’s really easy to create that emotional impact with a photograph that belies the actual situation.

Miller: I want to turn to efforts to ban hookups for natural gas for new construction. It’s something you pushed for as mayor of Milwaukie. It’s something the Eugene City Council went further. NW Natural spent nearly a million dollars trying to successfully refer Eugene’s measure to the ballot. But in the end, as we’ve talked about on the show, it wasn’t that money that killed Eugene’s potential ban. It was a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stemming from California. What options do you see at the municipal level for a kind of end run? I mean, of a ban that would pass legal muster?

Gamba: Well, what Milwaukie was hanging its hat on was a slightly different code aspect, which is the city is in control of its rights of way. So it can allow or disallow anything in its rights of way. So obviously, the natural gas pipelines are in the rights of way. Any new hookups for a new subdivision or whatever would have to obviously enter that rights of way. So that was the direction we were going with ours. Unfortunately, there’s kind of a competing clause in the building codes that require any utility that is requested to provide a service, to provide that service.

Miller: At the state level?

Gamba: At the state level. So I had a bill in the last session that basically clarified all of that and it gave cities the right to do exactly what you’re talking about. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even get a hearing.

Miller: This was your first year as a lawmaker.

Gamba: Yes. And that was part of it, being a freshman, but I think really to some degree, the natural gas industry has co opted labor, the building trades. The pipefitters, specifically, are opposed to any natural gas laws because they see that as a reduction of work for them. And I suppose in that particular sector, there is. There are so many new sectors for pipefitters and there’s other potential things that we could and should be doing, frankly, in other areas. Thinking about water, for example, as we are seeing the west drying out further and further with climate change, a smart thing to do would be to start building gray water systems in every home. So there’s a little more work in every single home for a pipefitter. So there should be ways that we can arrive at some kind of a truce with the trades to get them to back off, frankly, from supporting the natural gas industry.

Miller: You’ve said in the past that you got into politics because of climate change. What are your other climate priorities for the upcoming session?

Gamba: For the short session, I don’t have any. The short session bills are by their very nature small ball bills, unless it’s like the priority of the governor, then you can have some bigger impact.

Miller: More leadership.

Gamba: Yes. But for the average legislator, the bills you’re bringing are small technical bills or fixes. The bills I’m working on for the ‘25 session…

Miller: If you’re there.

Gamba: If I’m there. The big one is transmission, electrical transmission, something that most people don’t recognize. We’re all very proud of the climate goals that Oregon has set and the work we’ve done to achieve those. We’re not going to hit any of them, at this point. Right now, there are over 60 utility scale solar arrays waiting for permits to build in Oregon and they can’t get those permits because there’s no transmission space to put that electricity once those are built. So our transmission system is pretty much completely subscribed. There are a few areas here and there where there’s a little bit of space and you’re seeing permits being issued for those. But by and large, we have a serious transmission problem and that’s just right now, today.

Thinking about the future where we’re going to start to electrify our transportation system and we’re going to hopefully electrify our buildings more, that’s going to require more electricity. We need a much more robust transmission system. And unfortunately, that is a very complex issue with lots of big, heavy duty players in it. So I’ve got a work group which includes all of the big players and we’re working through that. And by the ‘25 session, I should have a bill that starts to move that needle.

Miller: Mark Gamba, thanks very much.

Gamba: Thank you.

Miller: Mark Gamba is Democratic State representative from Milwaukie, that is District 41.

Contact “Think Out Loud®”

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.