We the undersigned stand with the NY Renews coalition, representing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers statewide, to demand that National Grid immediately:

1. Stop spreading disinformation, including false data, about New York’s nation-leading climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), its recently adopted climate plan, as well as the numerous bills to address climate change and create hundreds of thousands of new, green, family-sustaining wage union jobs, including, but not limited to the NY HEAT Act and the All-Electric Buildings Act.
2. Drop out of and desist from participating in the fossil fuel front group New Yorkers for Affordable Energy (NYFAE).

By law, New York must reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent by 2050. The number one source of our state’s carbon emissions is the fossil gas we burn to heat buildings and cook food. Study after study of US decarbonization pathways has arrived at the same conclusion: the only viable way to eliminate this pollution is to electrify heating.

As a utility company serving millions of New Yorkers, National Grid is supposed to provide New York’s residents with energy in compliance with state policy. Instead, National Grid’s New York business has dedicated itself to undermining the law by spreading disinformation and false solutions through the front group New Yorkers for Affordable Energy (NYFAE).

A majority of New Yorkers support complying with the Climate Act by phasing fossil fuels out of new construction. Despite this, for the second year in a row, National Grid is pushing mendacious ads and robocalls through NYFAE while audaciously lobbying against bills that would help alleviate New Yorkers’ utility debt.

The ads also attempt to instill uncertainty and doubt in New Yorkers about the affordability and reliability of renewable energy like wind, solar, and heat pumps. All this activity has been extensively documented in a leaked copy of New Yorkers for Affordable Energy’s internal PR strategy, and two recent reports by the Public Accountability Initiative: Fueling Obstruction and The Anti-Electrification Force.

National Grid serves the people of New York, and its revenues rely entirely on its customers. Even as your company is proposing higher rates for gas customers in New York City and Long Island, increasing the average residential customer’s total bill by about 17 percent in New York City and 16 percent on Long Island in order to allegedly “advance the energy policies” of New York State, it is choosing to spend this revenue to undermine our state’s Climate Act. In effect, your business has conscripted its customers—who can’t choose where to buy their gas—into an involuntary small-donor army working against the law.

This represents a fundamental breach of trust with the people of New York. At a time when half of New York City households can’t meet their basic financial needs and communities statewide are struggling with rising costs, raising gas heating bills by roughly $30 a month to fund $1.3 billion worth of investments into the gas system and increasing profits for shareholders is an outrage.

We the undersigned demand that you stop pushing misinformation and drop out of your fossil fuel front group.

It’s not too late for National Grid to change course and play a pivotal role in New York’s clean energy transition. Drop the propaganda, embrace utility thermal energy networks, and put tens of thousands of New Yorkers to work in our future clean-energy economy.