Affordable Energy Coalition
Affordable Energy Coalition is a small front group created in March 2021 to attack building electrification policy in the Seattle region. The front group lists the Seattle Plumbers & Pipefitters union as its only member.
As of March 2022, the Affordable Energy Coalition has spent over $47,000 on ads across Meta platforms.
Despite the Affordable Energy Coalition’s assertions about costs, building electrification is also the most cost-effective approach to decarbonizing the buildings sector. According to the Washington 2021 State Energy Strategy, which is a strategy document to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the Washington Department of Commerce:
“The deep decarbonization modeling analysis…identified a combination of energy efficiency and electrification as the least-cost strategy to meet the state’s greenhouse gas emissions limits for buildings. Consistent with this finding, this chapter recommends policies and actions required to implement an electrification strategy in Washington buildings.” (Report Chapter D. P.67)
Affordable Energy Coalition’s Ad Spending
Utilities continue to stall and limit climate action by funding front groups to spread climate misinformation and false solutions to solve the crisis through advertising on social media networks.
Using data from the Meta Ad Library API and existing code from Brown University, EPI created a tool to expose the amount Affordable Energy Coalition is spending on advertisements about social issues, elections, or politics across Meta technologies, along with the specific regions the advertisements target.
