July 2021 - Media Brief Staff Reflection - Morgan Sarao

The articles I found for the July Media Brief were sourced through weekly google searches using the keywords “Philadelphia energy” “energy assistance” and “energy preemption bills”. I stuck to these combinations of keywords because I track energy-related news in Philadelphia for another one of my responsibilities as a researcher for the Energy Rights Project. Every few weeks I update “Philadelphia News You Can Use”, which is a PECE essay on energyrights.info which pulls together news reports and other media related to energy in Philadelphia. I searched “energy preemption bills'' because I’m also working on a PECE essay that covers the PGW Business Diversification study, which is being led by the Office of Sustainability in Philadelphia and has the aim of identifying equity-focused strategies for PGW, the largest public gas utility in the country, to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Energy preemption legislation relates to the diversification study because such legislation is one of the biggest barriers to municipal wide electrification and subsequent reduced carbon emissions in the United States, as this legislation forbids local governments from enacting measures that would discourage fossil fuel use and encourage electrification. There is an energy preemption bill working it’s way through Pennsylvania’s state legislature currently, and similar legislation has been drafted in 18 other states, and has been signed into law in four states. I intend on continuously tracking this national policy trend, and perhaps creating a PECE essay strictly on energy preemption legislation in the United States in the near future as it highlights the deep rooted power that the natural gas industry, and more broadly fossil fuel ideologies, has within the United States political system.