Natural Gas for the Next Generation
Natural Gas for the Next Generation is a front group promoting methane gas, focusing on Pennsylvania.
The group does not list its members or funders on its website, stating it is a “solutions-based community of organizations, leaders and everyday citizens interested in advancing realistic energy solutions across Pennsylvania.” The website does list several supporters, including academics mainly from technical colleges in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Supporters also include the Keystone Contractors Association, which is a commercial construction trade association in Pennsylvania, and the Consumer Energy Alliance, a front group for oil and gas interests run by the lobbying firm HBW Resources.
A telephone number listed on the website’s privacy policy page and the group’s Facebook ad transparency page belongs to the Bravo Group, a Harrisburg-based PR and lobbying firm.
The Bravo group has a long history of representing oil and gas interests and utilities, including Williams Companies, Chief Oil and Gas, Dominion, Energy Association of Pennsylvania, NRG Energy, Southwestern Energy, Sunoco, and UGI.
Steve Kratz, a Bravo Group senior director who leads the Pennsylvania Chemical Industry Council, has recently been touting renewable natural gas (RNG), a methane-based fuel favored by gas utilities as a means to maintain the gas pipeline system and slow the transition to electrification. Another senior director at Bravo Group, Adam Pope, has been promoting hydrogen.
Emails obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute through a public records request reveal a former Bravo Group associate, Sakura Ung, recruited Edward Mowrer, the Energy Institute’s manager at Belmont College, to include his name on the front group’s website as a supporter. Ung told Mowrer that Natural Gas for the Next Generation will be “looking to engage participants in the future to secure quotes and to help generate content such as video and audio sound bites.”
The Energy and Policy Institute emailed Ms. Ung about Natural Gas for the Next Generation’s funders but did not receive a reply.
Ad Spend
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 utility front groups are spending on advertisements about social issues, elections, or politics across Meta technologies, along with the specific regions the advertisements target.
