Even as the ExxonKnew lawsuits continue to pile up, threatening to expose how the fossil fuel industry has denied, delayed, distracted and deceived the public, the industry hasn’t decided to maybe stop doing the thing it’s repeatedly getting sued for.
Instead, it appears to be doubling down on local influence campaigns, if two recent revelations are any indication.
At the Energy and Policy Institute, Itai Vardi does a commendable job sorting out the “tangled web of individuals and groups representing business interests and conservative think tanks” that “are generating an echo-chamber of messaging against Governor Tom Wolf’s executive order adding the state” to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap and trade program.
Vardi basically describes a miniature, Pennsylvania-specific version of the national climate denial networks, with the typical fossil fuel and industry money funding going to self-proclaimed “free market” groups, with ties to local lawmakers, and pseudo-media outlets where they invite their fellow-fossil-funded friends to trash climate policy.
Think that’s bad? Well, it gets worse!
Because on the other side of the country, an investigation has found that Southern California Gas appears to be working with public affairs firm Imprenta Communications Group on what PoliticoPRO’s Colby Bermel describes as “a well-coordinated operation… that involved writing gas-friendly remarks for politicians, making campaign contributions to those who delivered talking points and sending its own speakers to public meetings.” According to the article, Imprenta is known for its work on issues affecting minority communities. That SoCalGas would target minority groups to advance its political agenda fits into a pattern of predatory behavior by utilities and fossil fuel companies against minority communities, which are already overburdened by pollution and high utility bills.
Together, the largest natural gas utility in the country and its hired PR help created a front group to oppose gas bans in new buildings. Their team wrote speech for then-Montebello Mayor Vivian Romero to give about natural-gas power trucks, penned an op-ed she and current South Gate Mayor Maria Davila and current San Gabriel Council Member Jason Pu signed and published in the Orange County Register, and then dropped some dough into their campaign coffers.
When asked about the clearly improper relationship, Romero claimed that “it’s not transactional, it’s relational” and that “they want to influence,” but she wants “to be educated.”
Meanwhile, one of the other local leaders caught up in this made essentially the opposite claim. Davila said she didn’t know that the “near-zero” emission trucks that run on natural gas, supported by SoCalGas, were worse than the actual zero-emission trucks environmentalists wanted, so apparently they didn’t educate her very well on that point. As she told Bermel, “I guess at the time I didn’t do much of my homework on it, so I wasn’t aware.”
Then there’s the SoCalGas-friendly local leader who hired SoCalGas's PR firm Imprenta to help him get reelected, received campaign contributions from Imprenta employees, got $4,300 in fees waived as a legal gift to his campaign, and received some pricey free meals as a gift from the Imprenta-recruited Asian Pacific American Leadership Foundation (APALF).
And that’s not even the only minority group Imprenta tapped to support its nat gas trucks. SoCalGas gave $7,500 over two years after the Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund (SALEF) wrote and spoke out on the issue. Not exactly surprising they take the same position as SoCalGas. “A SoCalGas lobbyist served on the SALEF board when the group wrote to the ports. And four Imprenta employees, who didn't respond to requests for comment, said at a September 2017 public hearing that they were representatives of APALF, SALEF and other minority groups without disclosing their affiliation with Imprenta.”
If this sounds very shady and likely illegal and definitely not the sort of thing a utility should be doing with its customer’s money, that’s because it is! The California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office started looking into SoCalGas’s use of ratepayer money to set up a front group last year, and has since expanded to look at these issues.
Sure would be nice to see SOMEONE held accountable for something these days...