The Sierra Club sued the Energy Department on Monday to release the names of groups and experts that the department consulted while developing a yet-to-be-released study on electric grid reliability.
“We want to make sure that when this study is finally released, that the public and policy makers fully understand how it went about doing it, who they were influenced by, and whose views they did not take into consideration,” said Casey Roberts, a lawyer with the environmental group.
The group sued President Trump’s Energy Department in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after the agency ignored a Freedom of Information Act request it filed in May that sought the release of communications between staff and outside groups it had consulted. The Sierra Club suspects that the administration mostly consulted with fossil fuel supporters.
The study’s focus has been criticized by environmental and clean energy groups for considering renewable energy less reliable than coal and nuclear power plants. However, a draft of the study that was obtained by Bloomberg last month showed that the Energy Department was taking a favorable view of solar and wind energy. The Energy Department said the draft was not final and the report’s finding would likely change.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the report would evaluate the state of coal power plants in maintaining reliable electricity supplies. He said the grid study was to be released at the beginning of July, but there has been no sign of it.
