DC Summers Are Getting More Extreme and Expensive – Who’s Responsible?
August 4, 2026
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Washington, D.C.
The District of Columbia, home to more than 700,000 people, is a hot spot for local climate action and has some of the nation’s strongest goals to curb carbon pollution and advance clean energy.
CCAN activists in DC have played keys roles in ensuring the District gets 100% of its electricity from clean sources by 2032, the strongest climate law in the country.
CCAN Campaigns
The movement to create cleaner, healthier, all-electric new homes and buildings is lighting up the country. There are wins on electrification in California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Colorado as well as nearby Maryland. CCAN has a bold vision that DC will join their ranks and eventually become a leader. Building electrification would benefit community members by giving them access to cleaner air, healthier homes, good jobs, affordable clean energy, and energy efficiency to reduce monthly energy bills while helping the District meet its climate goals. Learn More Here>>
D.C. is no stranger to the effects of climate change. Increasingly intense storms, floods, and heat waves are damaging homes and lives across D.C. These extreme weather events are intensified by climate change, and will only pose more and more of a threat in the years to come. Our campaign to make polluters pay is a bold step toward protecting our communities by raising funds from the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to pay for the impact of climate change in the District. Learn More Here>>
From housing to groceries, the cost of living in D.C. is up. And now, utility bills are skyrocketing too! It’s time to protect ratepayers (AKA folks who pay a utility bill) from unfair rate increases, stop spending our money on wasteful, wildly expensive projects like Project Pipes, and instead invest in a real transition off dirty methane gas! Learn More Here>>
Remove Invasive Vines: Save The Trees
CCAN is partnering with Casey Trees to mobilize volunteers to remove invasive vines from thousands of trees in PG County, DC, and Montgomery County. Learn More Here>>
Stop the Billion-Dollar Pollution Plan in DC
There are hundreds of gas leaks in DC-area gas lines, and many of them are potentially explosive. Yet rather than just focusing on fixing these dangerous leaks, Washington Gas wants to spend billions of dollars replacing and upgrading their gas infrastructure, locking us into fracked fossil gas and so-called “renewable” gas for decades. That’s why we’re taking a stand. We’re pressuring the DC Public Service Commission (PSC) to REJECT WGL’s multi-billion dollar pollution plan. Learn More>>
Legislative campaigns are a project of our advocacy arm, CCAN Action Fund.
For more on legislation and to help us pass historic climate policies on every level, click here.
Making Polluters Pay
For decades, fossil fuel companies have been ramping up emissions in the name of ever-higher profits. And now, with unprecedented heat records, thousand-year storms, and hellish wildfires, we are the ones paying the price. Taxpayers are getting stuck with skyrocketing bills for climate disasters. We need YOUR help telling DC lawmakers to take groundbreaking action. Learn More>>
New Leaders, Lower Bills
Over their four years on D.C.’s Public Service Commission, Chairman Thompson and Commissioner Trabue have voted for nearly $400 million in spending by D.C.’s monopoly utilities, from Project Pipe extensions to rate hikes. In 2026 we’re no closer to a plan for transitioning the city away from methane gas that we were in 2021. Bills are piling up for D.C. families, while our utilities bring in record profits. And now, they want four more years on the job. We’ve seen enough. It’s time for NEW LEADERS and LOWER BILLS, not four more years of the same. Learn more >>
Volunteers like you make up the backbone of CCAN’s work across our region – from rallying to lobbying to canvassing to organizing with your local climate action team!
Interested in organizing with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network? Please fill out the form to request a one-on-one phone conversation with a CCAN organizer! We’ll follow up soon after!
Sign Up For A One-On-One With Your Local Organizer!
What is an organizer? CCAN organizers educate, agitate, and organize people in their regions to take action on climate justice issues. This enables us to think big, build sustained power, and win on transformative climate policy. The first step to organizing is building relationships. Please reach out to an organizer, they would love to learn more about you, your interests, and talk to you about how you can get plugged into our impactful work.
Join a Local Climate Action Team: DC-CAN
What is an action team? Our regional climate action teams are semiautonomous teams that organize around the projects and they are most interested in. Volunteer leaders meet regularly, conduct community outreach, and lead on the ground campaigns.
Join DC-CAN to find out how you can use your unique skills and interests to build the climate movement, take high impact actions in a group, and maybe make a friend along the way!
“Organizers challenge people to act on behalf of shared values and interests. They develop the relationships, understanding, and action that enable people to gain new understanding of their interests, new resources, and new capacity to use these resources on behalf of their interests.”
–Marshall Ganz, co-founder of the United Farmworkers of America
Read More DC Stories
Advocates Sound Alarm as Public Service Commission Approves Washington Gas’s Costly 13% Increase on Gas Bills
November 20, 2025
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Past Campaigns
Passage of the Healthy Homes Act is one of the biggest climate justice actions ever taken in the District, helping low-income residents improve their health, save on bills, and create a sustainable future. Now we need your help to make sure Mayor Bowser funds it! Learn More>>
The Council of the District of Columbia approved two bills that will for the first time mandate that all new and substantially renovated buildings in the city be powered by 100% carbon-free energy (with the exception of low-rise residential structures). This sets in motion a phase-out of methane gas use across much of the nation’s capital.
The city government itself, as part of these new bills, will also permanently discontinue purchasing fossil-fuel-powered vehicles and carbon-burning appliances in government buildings. These actions now put DC at the forefront of climate policy among US states and cities. Read more here>>
We won! In December, 2017, Washington D.C. passed the strongest climate policy in the country. The Clean Energy DC Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018, or “Clean Energy DC Act,” is a climate solution that will result in less pollution wrecking our lungs and our atmosphere, more investment into energy efficiency solutions, and a faster transition to clean, renewable energy sources. This law transitions the District to 100% clean electricity by 2032 — the strongest renewable energy policy in the country — while investing in energy efficiency, creating groundbreaking building standards, and funding local programs to help low-income residents and make the city a sustainable place to live. Learn more>>
Want to Get Involved With CCAN in DC?
Email Updates
By joining the CCAN email list, you'll get updates on ways to take action in the fight for climate and clean energy solutions where you live.
