When you pay your power bill, you probably figure that money is just going towards keeping your lights on. You're probably not thinking some of your cash is funding public disinformation campaigns that prop up failing fossil fuels. [Well, YOU might, because you're a regular reader of the Denier Roundup. Just imagine you're a less well-informed person. —Ed.]
If you pay a fossil fuel-burning utility for power in Michigan, New Jersey, Iowa, South Carolina, California, or New York, there's a chance that some of the terrible pro-gas ads you've seen online are actually funded by you.
How much?
The Energy and Policy Institute launched a new tracker for utility front group advertisement spending, combining data from Facebook's ad library and code from Brown University. It shows, for example, that the Consumer Energy Alliance has run over 2,000 ads – spending between $571,500 and $902,100 on them since 2018.
Across the country, groups have sought to influence the public with thousands of ads, spending between $493,700 and $703,500 on 2,800 ads from the Alliance for Michigan Power, accompanied by 1,100 more ads from "Citizens Energizing Michigan's Economy."
Overall, EPI's Keriann Controy wrote, the tool "exposes up to $2.4 million in spending on advertising by 14 utility front groups in the last year," seeking to "limit climate action by establishing, controlling and funding front groups to spread climate misinformation through advertising on social media."
Millions of dollars originally stemming from utility payer's pockets is a lot, but keep in mind it's just spending with one social media company – to say nothing of the big fish of traditional broadcast and print advertising expenditures.
And it's not like these are wholesome Public Service Announcements. One of the largest campaigns is coming from the utility-funded front group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future. We've flagged how they really enjoy Fareed Zakaria's pro-gas columns, push methane (natural) gas as a climate solution, and are shamelessly wokewashing by co-opting Black communities disproportionately impacted by fossil fuel pollution, as Taylor Kate Brown reported for Floodlight/The Guardian.
It's bad enough that companies can set up front groups to lie on their behalf, but as Controy notes, "even if utility involvement is revealed to customers through news sources or watchdog organizations, customers are unable to opt out of paying their bills for electricity or gas, both necessities of modern life."
What can we do? Well, "230 groups, including the Energy and Policy Institute, requested the FTC investigate the utility industry for widespread abuses, including political corruption, dark-money campaigns, and unfair anti-competitive practices, including denying customers access to renewable energy."
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could also require utilities to disclose the payments they're making to trade associations and political front groups, which "would at the very least force utilities to justify efforts" to bill rate payers for their political shenanigans. Congressional investigations can pry more documents into the light, and "state regulators are also capable of intervening on behalf of utility customers."
In other words, people with power could act. But they're not going to unless the people demand it, so hopefully this tracker will help people realize that when they pay their power bill, it could be lower if their provider weren't funding propaganda, too.