People’s Counsel Asks Appellate Court to Reverse 2022 Decision on Utility Green Marketing
BALTIMORE – A 2022 Public Service Commission decision unlawfully dismissed a complaint alleging that green marketing on Washington Gas’s customer bills deceptively promoted natural gas as “clean” energy to its customers, the Office of People’s Counsel told the Appellate Court of Maryland in a brief filed yesterday.
“The advertising promotes gas as ‘a smart decision for the environment and your wallet,” People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said. “But fossil gas is not ‘clean’ and, for most residential customers buying new gas appliances, is not a ‘smart’ economic decision,” Lapp added. “The broad, unqualified claims about fossil gas on Washington Gas’s bills are harmful for customers, and it is the Commission’s responsibility to protect customers from such deception.”
Customers making decisions to replace furnaces, stoves, or water heaters—appliances with long service lives—based on marketing messages like those in Washington Gas’s bills may wind up spending significantly more money in the long run, OPC’s filing said. For example, for many people, buying a new efficient electric heat pump will be a better financial choice than a new gas furnace.
OPC has separately issued two reports showing that gas rates are projected to rise significantly in the coming years, given exorbitant spending to replace gas pipes and related infrastructure and improvements in electric appliance technologies. OPC asked the Commission to initiate a proceeding on short- and long-term actions to mitigate the impacts of gas utility infrastructure spending.
OPC’s appeal concerns a 4-1 decision from the Governor Hogan-appointed Commission, which dismissed OPC’s complaint without conducting any investigation or addressing the marketing message that OPC alleged deceived and misled customers.
Commissioner Michael T. Richard dissented from that decision, stating that the utility “should cease using the gas-advertising message in question.” Another commissioner agreed in 2022 that the marketing statement was “misleading because of its lack of context or specificity” but joined with the majority to deny customers relief from that deception.
In its brief before a lower court in 2022, the Commission explained that it dismissed OPC’s complaint because it had “no interest” in it and because it involved a “broad” policy dispute. The Commission illustrated this “policy dispute” by stating in its brief that “the only ‘clean’ energy is no energy,” and that solar and wind generation cause “extraordinary harm to the environment” and are “quite dirty.” The lower court relied on this illustration to affirm the Commission's decision.
OPC’s appeal argues that the Commission’s dismissal of the complaint abdicates the Commission’s regulatory responsibilities and violates its procedural rules. The appeal also contends that the decision should be reversed because the order incoherently addresses the law at issue and fails to address the effects of the Commission’s decision on State climate policy.
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel is an independent state agency that represents Maryland’s residential consumers of electric, natural gas, telecommunications, private water and certain transportation matters before the Public Service Commission, federal regulatory agencies and the courts.
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