Seattle City Light doesn’t want you to know how much more expensive electric heating is compared to using natural gas.=

On January 22, Seattle City Light CEO Debra Smith testified before the legislature in favor of a bill, HB 1084, which would push to reduce the use of natural gas for heating in homes and apartments. During the hearing I tweeted a chart from Seattle City Light’s web page, noting that the cost of electricity for homes with all-electric heat is double those heated with natural gas.

Soon after I sent my tweet, the chart disappeared from Seattle City Light’s page.

I was curious about where the chart went, so I sent a disclosure request to City Light asking for the archived version of the page. This week I received the removed web page, along with an interesting bit of data. Officials at Seattle City Light removed the page on January 23 – the day after I shared it.

When I asked City Light staff why they removed the page, they claimed it “was posted on our old website to give examples for 2019/2020 Council-approved rate increases. Since this information is no longer relevant, it was not transferred to our new website that launched in Jan. 2021.” Quite the coincidence that they happened to “launch” their new web page without this information exactly one day after I mentioned it.

City Light staff did provide an important clarification. They noted that these costs only account for electricity. The cost of natural gas would be on top of these costs.

The Energy Information Administration notes that the average cost for natural gas heating in the Pacific Coast states is about $18.75 per month, with costs being slightly higher for single homes and slightly lower for apartments. Even assuming the $18.75 per-month cost for an apartment, the total bimonthly cost for electricity and natural gas heating an apartment in Seattle would be $88.50, compared to $108 for all-electric. Using electric heating alone costs about 20 percent more than using a combination of electric and natural gas.

Obviously if your agency director is arguing to reduce the use of the cheapest form of home heating, having information on the web page that an alternative is more affordable is unwelcome.

Government agencies are supposed to serve all the people, independently of politics. If the Mayor and head of City Light want to advocate for a particular policy, even if it raises utility costs for city residents, they are free to do that. Actively hiding inconvenient data about those policies, on the other hand, indicates that agency leadership feels their policy agenda is more important than their responsibility to be transparent to the people they serve.