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A 1996 study on methane emissions from the natural gas system has "underpinned the gas industry's campaign to deceptively market gas as a climate solution," says Rebecca John, Research Fellow at Climate Investigations Center and co-author of the Center for CIimate Integrity’s latest report, “The Fraud of ‘Clean’ Natural Gas.”

The study, titled "Methane Emissions from the Natural Gas Industry," published in partnership with The Gas Research Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, used highly selective assessment of methane emissions to conclude that emissions were too low to be of concern.

Despite knowing that the study did not represent the full scope of methane emissions from the natural gas system, the oil and gas industry used its results to market natural gas as a "clean" fossil fuel, fend off regulations in favor of voluntary emissions management, and pave the way for the fracking boom of the 2000s.

📚 Read the full report: https://climateintegrity.org/projects/natural-gas-fraud

Gas companies peddled the myth of “clean” natural gas for decades despite knowing the dangers posed by methane and the gas system, a new investigation featuring never-before-published documents finds.

As officials across the globe debate expanding natural gas extraction and use, “The Fraud of ‘Clean’ Natural Gas: How Big Oil and Gas Created the Myth that Natural Gas is a Climate Solution” reveals how the gas industry manufactured and promoted the falsehood that natural gas is “clean” in the 1970s and purposefully deceived decisionmakers and the public about the safety and risks ever since. 

“The fraud of clean natural gas has been essential to the industry’s success in the marketplace, and the idea that gas is climate-friendly has been at the heart of the rapid expansion of gas infrastructure over the last two decades,” the report’s introduction states.

The investigation — authored by Climate Investigations Research Fellow Rebecca John and CCI Senior Investigative Researchers Rebecca Leber and Davis Allen, PhD — is based on newly discovered documents, public records requests, internal industry communications, confidential reports, scientific papers, and interviews with climate scientists, industry consultants, and representatives from environmental groups. While previous reports and investigations have demonstrated the way in which the oil and gas industry responded to carbon pollution with delay and denial, this is the first to trace the history of the gas industry's response to its methane pollution problem and to place it in the context of decades of deception.

Included in the report is evidence that the gas industry was warned of methane pollution issues as early as 1968 — far earlier than previously reported. Through a review commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, the industry was informed that methane in the atmosphere was connected to “oil fields” and “[gas] distribution system leakage,” noting that natural environmental sinks could be “overburdened by excessive emissions.” 

Fearing a decline in customers during a period of rising environmental consciousness, the gas industry adopted a public relations campaign in 1971 titled “GAS, CLEAN ENERGY FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW.” To reinforce the idea of “clean” gas, industry-owned media sources misrepresented and downplayed the risks of methane with claims including “Studies Suggest Methane Is Not a Major Greenhouse Gas” and “[M]ethane: no drawback.” 

Gas companies went so far as to steer the outcome of a 1996 study on methane that was co-funded with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Internal communications published in the report show that EPA officials said they “simply do not have the expertise” to independently review the data presented by the gas industry in the study and they were “unlikely to find problems even if they exist.” The study, which was published with the credibility of the EPA, was then used by the gas industry to downplay concerns about methane emissions.

The gas industry’s fraud has had lasting impacts on the continued use and beliefs about natural gas. Natural gas use in the United States has increased dramatically in the decades since the industry first started pushing the myth of “clean” natural gas. 

A poll conducted by Data for Progress and CCI found that 50 percent of likely voters now consider natural gas to be a form of clean energy.