In a vote that has outraged climate and environmental justice advocates, the five members of California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today just unanimously approved Southern California Gas’s application to increase the capacity of the notorious Aliso Canyon gas storage facility, the site of the worst gas blowout in California history, to the limit.
Two years ago, the Commission raised the storage cap at Aliso Canyon to 41 billion cubic feet. Today the agency increased the limit to the 68.6 billion cubic feet requested by SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric, subsidiaries of the fossil fuel giant Sempra Energy.
The five members of the Commission are President Alice Busching Reynolds, Genevieve Shiroma, Darcie L. Houck, John Reynolds and Karen Douglas.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the CPUC claimed that the vote will “enhance energy resiliency and protect ratepayers in Southern California from potential volatile wholesale natural gas prices this upcoming winter season.
“Today, the CPUC increased the inventory levels of natural gas at the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility up to the safety limit set by the state’s Geologic Energy Management Division to guard ratepayers from the type of natural gas price spikes that occurred last winter,” the agency claimed.
In a concurrent action, the CPUC issued a Ruling on August 29, 2023, that “outlines the steps toward releasing a plan by the first quarter of 2024 to reduce the state’s reliance on Aliso Canyon,” the CPUC argued.
However, Porter Ranch and San Fernando Valley residents, environmentalists and environmental justice advocates strongly condemned the decision.
”This vote is a slap in the face to the community members who have been living with the ongoing consequences of the worst gas blowout in American history,” said Andrea Vega, Food & Water Watch Southern California Organizer, in a statement. “Aliso Canyon poses a significant danger to the health and safety of our communities and is entirely unnecessary to maintain California’s energy reliability.”
She described today’s vote as “a mockery of democracy.”
“Despite the fact that the public comments on Aliso Canyon during today’s meeting unanimously called for closure, the Newsom-appointed Public Utilities Commission ignored the community yet again to side with irresponsible and greedy fossil fuel interests,” she stated. “There can be no transparency in this process when the commissioners make these decisions behind closed doors. Only a transparent process on Aliso Canyon will ensure that those who make decisions that can affect the health of our communities will be held accountable.”
“It is past time for Gov. Newsom fulfilled his campaign promises and shut this dangerous facility down. We are done with empty promises,” she concluded.
“Nearly two million residents of the SFV (San Fernando Valley,” Patty Glueck of Save Porter Ranch tweeted before the meeting. “That's how many people are exposed to the polytoxic chems emitted from Aliso Canyon on a daily basis. Those wells can also be damaged by a major quake or wildfire.”
Discovered on October 23, 2015, the Aliso Canyon gas leak wasn’t plugged until February 18, 2016. An estimated 97,100 tons of methane and 7,300 tons of of ethane were released into the atmosphere during the disaster that caused numerous illnesses and displaced thousands from their homes.
By comparison, the entire rest of the South Coast Air Basin combined, with a population of about 18 million people, emits approximately 413,000 tons of methane and 23,000 tonnes of ethane annually. The Aliso gas leak's carbon footprint could be larger than the Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric were able to pressure the CPUC to increase the storage capacity of Aliso Canyon because of the enormous influence they wield over the Governor’s Office, Legislature and regulatory agencies through their capture of the regulatory apparatus.
Sempra Energy spent $463,070 on general lobbying and $70,722 on CPUC lobbying in the first quarter of 2023. The fossil fuel giant spent $434,753 on general lobbying and $4,862 on CPUC in the second quarter of 2023, according to spending disclosures on the California of Secretary of State’s website: cal-access.sos.ca.gov/...
The CPUC vote was made at the same time the International fossil fuel giant Sempra, the parent company of SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), is flexing its political muscles for an end of session push that will raise Californians’ utility bills, according to critics of the controversial corporation.
Sempra is using a shady late session tactic used to avoid scrutiny on unpopular proposals called “gut and amends” in hopes of saddling ratepayers with the costs of building out “unproven hydrogen, biomethane, and carbon capture pipelines and infrastructure,” reported Alexandra Nagy of Sunstone Strategies in a press statement.
“Sempra has long been greenwashing hydrogen, carbon capture, biomethane (or renewable natural gas) as climate solutions, when research on all fronts shows these fuels won’t work to solve the climate crisis but instead will raise utility bills for consumers adding to an already exacerbated affordability crisis for the highest-in-nation bills faced by ratepayers,” said Nagy.
Check out the hydrogen and biomethane/ carbon capture gut and amend language.
“Under California’s rules, Sempra’s utilities SoCalGas and SDG&E are guaranteed a profit on infrastructure it builds. More pipelines and infrastructure for hydrogen, biomethane and carbon capture means higher profits for Sempra via bigger bills for customers,” she argued.
She said existence of the hydrogen “gut and amend” geared toward fast-tracking approval of the nation’s largest ever planned hydrogen pipeline called Angeles Link was first announced publicly at a Board of Directors meeting held by the Southern California Public Power Authority on August 17.
“Slides from that presentation describe the gut-and-amend provision as ‘Gov’s Hydrogen Bill,’ entailing it is Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposal. It comes just months after CPUC signed off on allowing SoCalGas to do a feasibility study for the pipeline, known in regulatory speak as a Memo Account Application. Angeles Link’s route remains undefined and out of view to the public which could see the line run through its communities, but Sempra has secured Governor Newsom’s support since the day it was announced,” Nagy reported.
She said forcing through 11th-hour rulemaking requires political influence, which the energy company pays for through lobbying firms, such as California Strategies & Advocacy, Capitol Strategies Group, and Prime Strategies. Sempra Energy employs an array of well-connected political insiders to wield its power and influence over the CPUC, Legislature and Governor’s Office,
The lobbyists include longtime political insider Marybel Batjer, who was appointed by Governor Newsom in 2019 to serve as president of the California Public Utilities Commission, Today, she works for California Strategies,
They also include Neil Patrick Clerk, who was a legislative consultant for the California Speaker’s Office of Research and Floor Analysis under Anthony Rendon. He now works for Capitol Strategies.
Other powerful lobbyists employed by Sempra Energy include the following individuals:
- Greg Campbell has served numerous state politicians, including as chief of staff for John Pérez and Toni Atkins, the only staffer to serve in such capacity for two senior legislative leaders. Since 2016, he has run his own lobbying firm called Campbell Strategy & Advocacy.
- Dorian Almaraz was a senior legislative aide to former Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, who now heads the California Labor Federation and formerly represented the South Bay San Diego communities socio-economically hit the hardest by SDG&E’s exorbitant rates. Almaraz also served as the capitol director for Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo. He currently lobbies for Prime Strategies of California.
- Devon Ford has aided numerous political campaigns in the state, including Darrell Steinberg’s run for mayor of Sacramento and Gavin Newsom’s bid for Lieutenant Governor. He now works for California Strategies.
Sempra and its subsidiaries also directly employ a number of former political insiders:
- Sarah Taheri is a regulatory affairs manager for SDG&E. Before that she was, among other things, an associate energy specialist for the California Energy Commission under Gov. Jerry Brown.
- Dallin Young is a public affairs manager for SDG&E who has also worked as a field director for the California Democratic Party and former state Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez.
- Maryam Brown is the president of SoCalGas. Until 2016, she worked for the U.S. House of Representatives as a senior energy policy advisor to Republican Speakers of the House John Boehner and Paul Ryan.
- Dan Brouilette formerly served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Donald Trump and currently serves as President of Sempra Infrastructure.
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